Overall, I’d say this was not such a bad deer season– not great by any stretch. Moose and Foxtrot Charlie both had no luck. We missed out on a truly great day. Monday of Opening Week, we had snow at the farm. Everyone had their excuses for not being there. For my part, I’d realized that hunting alone was no longer a viable idea and went home to rest. Looking at the telecheck numbers, Monday was a monster. Lots of big bucks were taken in Bracken and the surrounding counties. Ooof! It makes sense: peak of the rut, big front coming through, snow, etc.
So that brings up the first big lesson from this season: my days of hunting alone are over, at least for now. I’m now 3.5 years past Chemo. I’m doing better in a lot of things than ever, but I still have neuropathy in my legs and stamina issues. This last buck pointed out a problem. Even if I confine myself to shooting deer in the middle of the field, I cannot guarantee I won’t have to go down into a ravine to get them out. The good news is, with SuperCore’s buck, I was able to get in and out of a steep ravine on my own. That is a huge step in the right direction, but that did not include getting the buck out. With my buck, I had to just sit on a log and watch. We’ll see about revising this policy once KYHillChick and I are moved down permanently.
30-06 Does It Again . . . Sort of
Look, I’m never going to rag on 30-06. I’ve been shooting it for over 40 years and compared it to a slew of other chamberings. I brought my Ruger Hawkeye out this year as kind of a coda to the 25 years I spent chasing the ultimate deer rifle. Last year, it was about testing out the last of my unfinished projects, a 25-06 Mauser and a 7mm-08 TC Compass. This year was about getting back to deer hunting just for itself– no writing projects, no pressure. I picked the Hawkeye, because this was the one rifle I knew to be a sure thing. I’ve had it for a little over a decade and hunted with it at least half of those seasons.
Back in 2014, I took a doe with the 25-06 to finish out the season.
That’s when I witnessed a singular reaction by deer after taking one squarely in the breadbasket. She ran a near-complete circle out in the middle of The Garden of Stone before exiting the field. I found her a short way into the woods, past the fenceline. At the time, I didn’t know if this was just how 25-06 acted on deer or what. I ended up putting the rifle aside. A bunch of things (Cancer included) intervened, and I didn’t get back to it until 2024. Another trip out to Midway, another doe, this one barely made it 20 yards.
Okay, so now I’m back out at Midway again. I shoot a nice buck at about the same spot in the field where I hit the doe in 2014. He takes off in a near-identical circular run, exits the field and goes down into the ravine at Left Leg Creek. The one thing I picked up from the necropsy– I remembered from 2014– the bullet got decent sized hole in both lungs, but failed to disrupt the heart. I’ve had a long string of DRT successes with the Hawkeye, but they’ve all taken out the top of the heart as well as the lungs. Live and learn. An inch off, and the deer ran a good 200 yards. I knew that already, but this buck rubbed my nose in it.
Gear, etc.
If you look back over the past decade of post-mortems you will see a fair amount of gear mentioned. I don’t go out of my way to do gear reviews. I never got paid for it, so . . . Still, I let you know things that worked for me. I cannot think of a single piece of gear I’ve mentioned in the past decade that I want to change my opinion on. It’s all still working.
Let me add another couple of pieces. First off, Angus got me a Kindle for my birthday. I’ve been reading books in the blind for 20 years. I’ve had an electronic reader for over a decade. This is different.
It is roughly the same dimensions as my ammo wallet. It requires a charge maybe a couple times a season instead of before every hunt. I bought a wallet for it– close the wallet and it turns off, and my guess is that he got it for less than $80.
The other piece of kit that really did a good job for me is this bag:
I originally got this bag for banging around the farm. It has decent conceal-carry accomadations. It can hold my laptop. It holds my coffee thermos, and it has enough pockets that the bits and pieces don’t rumble around. It’s from Rothco. I picked it up for under $40 off Amazon.
I had this around camp this year when the weather started looking mucky. Normally I travel out to the stand or blind with a duffle loaded with my outermost layers and a small possibles bag that holds my ammo and license. The weather was dictating a change in strategy. I made it out to my Opening Day stand a couple days before the Opener, and stashed the duffel bag in a large bin bag at the base of the ladder. 2 inches of rain and 2 days later, I waddled on out through the slosh and went up the ladder with this new Rothco bag, holding my thermos. On the way out, I deposited my duffle at the Midway Blind and spent several days hunting out of there, carrying the Rothco bag and just a few essentials. After SuperCore left camp, I appropriated the ATV and was riding out to the blind. This was the perfect bag for the few things I needed.
Yeah, I know what I said. . .
Which brings me to the topic of the ATV. SuperCore donated his ATV to camp this year. Thanks, Dude! The thing of it is: how to use it. I’ll fess up. I spent decades railing against the Orange Army– the neighbors who crank up their ATVs 15 minutes before legal hunting and go roaring into the woods. You can hear the deer running in panic away from the noise. SuperCore had a habit of using his ATV to come in from the woods, and I had to tell him to wait until after legal hunting, because he was disrupting deer all over the farm when he cranked it up to come in.
So now the problem is how to use the ATV. For as long as SuperCore wants it, it’s his. He’s been using it for over a decade to putt out to Jagendehutte. Meanwhile, those half-mile walks out to Campground and Midway are getting to be a killer for me. I walked it twice on The Opener, and I was absolutely wrecked. The Chemo did a number on my bone marrow. It affects my stamina. I run out of gas, and it takes a while to recharge. My marrow is coming back. I’m even better now, just past Thanksgiving, than I was 4th of July. Still, it’s a slow process.
I experimented with the ATV this season. I really saw no difference between riding out to Midway versus walking, provided I kept the ATV well away from where I was hunting and went out well before legal hunting. When I took the buck, it was parked about 100 yards away in another field. My long-term plan is, once I move down to the farm full-time, I’ll be able to be out on the property most days, and I can work on my stamina issues. I was always an avid hiker. The ATV will make a good crutch in the interim.
The Food Plots
If you looked at our plots on the last day of season, you’d see green nearly everywhere with a few obvious failures. The deer were munching on them as soon as they germinated. By the start of season, you could see deer, turkey– even squirrel– hitting the plots. However, I would only call them a partial success.
What worked? All the cereal grains came up. I used several Buck-on-Bag mixes that contained rye, barley or wheat, and they all sprouted, and that formed the majority of what you see when you look out over my verdant plains. Additionally, the clovers sprouted, albeit a bit late.
What didn’t work? I had placed a lot of hope on the various brassica mixes. At least the claims on the bags were that within a couple of weeks, I’d have knee-deep radishes, turnips, etc. I saw barely a hit of any of these come up. What did sprout got nipped in a hurry. I doped the heavy brassica mixes with clover and barley. Barley, because I needed to add bulk to the seed to get it through my bit ATV seeder, and clover so that I’d have something in the spring for turkeys.
Why? I can think of several reasons. First off, we planted just before a decent rain. We got an inch or so and then we got next to nothing for 3 weeks. Stuff sprouts and then dries out before it can really take hold. This was a bad year for rain. Second, we harrowed the plots after planting. Perhaps the brassicas ended up too deep. It is possible, but I find it hard to believe. Third might be nutrition. I put 12-12-12 down, and what did come up seemed to thrive. I’ll delve into this further, but I’m still thinking it was drought as the culprit. The last issue is predation. The turkeys and deer were on these plots immediately after they were planted. I think the tasty brassicas were all hoovered up before they could get going.
There was one patch up by the house that gives credence to this. I sowed it in part with a combination of “varieties of oats, rye, clover, canola, and more.” Another plot got dosed with “annual clover, turnips. radish, forage oats, and rye.” Both of these came up great. I would go and sit out in my new living room (What used to be the Thoughtful Spot) and watch deer come up and feed just after the construction crews knocked off. Examining these plots, I noticed the turnips and radish disappeared first.
Then again, what the heck do I know? This is my first try with anything besides ladino clover and cover wheat, and my last food plot was 15 years ago. I’ve got a lot of learning to do. I would have loved to have given you a definitive review of the 11 different Buck-on-Bag seed mixes, but I don’t think that’s fair. I will give mention to Antler King’s Fall-Winter-Spring mix. Everywhere I used it, it sprouted, it did well and the deer and turkeys were consistently eating it.
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