At our camp,  Early KY’s Muzzleloader Season has turned into Not Hunting Season, and it was highly successful.

First off, let me explain Not Hunting.  Years ago, I put forward this idea, and I received a lot of positive feedback.  The rules are simple.  In order to successfully engage in Not Hunting:

• The Hunter must be hunting in an open season.
• The Hunter must be kitted legally (Hunter Orange, etc.).
• The Hunter must have all valid licenses and tags.
• The Hunter must be carrying a functioning weapon appropriate to the game.
• The Hunter must make all efforts to engage the game.
• The Hunter must not take an animal.

Some of y’all are not going to understand. It seems absurd. It would be absurd unless you realize that there are some days where you really want to go hunting, but there are reasons where taking an animal is the last thing you want to do.  Let me give you some examples:

• The freezer is full, and the season is still open.
• You bagged a big one the day before, and you want to rest, but you don’t want to stay in the cabin.
• You’re due to go home, you’ve got an important engagement ahead, but you still want to get in one last hunt.

In this case, KY’s Early Muzzleloader Season is just close enough to Rifle Season that it provides a good shakedown.  It lets us test out new equipment, try out old blinds, and make sure everything is in running order. It is in a perfect part of the fall to enjoy the ambiance.  The temperatures are still mild. The leaves are turning, The deer are active.  We will have two weeks of otherwise bleak weather for filling the freezer.  Why ruin a perfectly good fall weekend with hard work?

This is not to say that we haven’t had good luck in Muzzleloader Season.  The acorns are falling, so there are plenty of opportunities.  However,  the processors are not fully open.  I’ve spent all day running carcasses around to find a guy who is open and willing to take one in.  It is also still fairly warm out, so spoilage is still an issue.  It is a perfect time for a Not Hunt.

This past weekend was a near-ideal exercise in Not Hunting.  Friday night, it started raining on my way down to the farm, with just enough of a break to get the truck unpacked.  It rained intermittently the rest of the afternoon to give me an excuse for a decent nap, but then let up long enough to get SuperCore unpacked as well as Moose and Angus.  The real deluge held off until late. O.D. came by for a visit and we all had good time on the porch.

Let me just interject a shout-out to Krispy Krunchy Chicken and the Shell Station in Butler, KY.  SuperCore always brings a bucket of chicken to start the festivities of Opening Day Eve.  However, it is always a challenge to find a spot that is not clean out when he gets there. Krispy Krunchy is the best dead chicken one can find on the side of any road here about, and they were willing to take a phoned-in order.  Krispy Krunchy has the Shamanic Seal of Approval.

The rain lifted just after 0600 Saturday.  We had a dry walk out to the blinds.  In perfect Not Hunting fashion, our morning hunt was unspoiled by any deer sightings.  I heard 2 shots while I was sitting.  The ground was too wet to call for a pickup, so I walked in.

Late Saturday AM, O.D. showed up with a sack of breakfast sandwiches from Donna’s Place in Brooksville.  He stayed through Angus getting his Winchester 670 sighted in.  This completes a project I have been working on since the first of the year:

• I decided to make 50 rounds of 30-06 apiece for Moose, Angus, and myself
• FC brass for all
• Remington 9 1/2 primers
• H4895 — 47 grains for the sons.  48.5 grains for me
• 150-grain bullets.  I used Remington PSPCL for them.  I switched to a lifetime supply of Hornady Interlock SP’s  I acquired several years ago.
• While I did not buy the Hornady Auto-Charge just for this project, I had it in mind.

The idea was that I wanted to make sure we at least had 50 rounds of deer ammo apiece during the current shortage.  It may be a while before we see good supplies again.  I have been meaning to switch from 165-grain Hornadys for some time now.  165 grain is by far the better all-around choice, but whitetails are just as happy with 150 grains.

When we got back in, O.D. and his brother showed up and we feasted on T-Bones provided and prepared by Chef Moose.  A good time was had by all.

Limits of the Baking Soda Method

Saturday afternoon’s hunt showed me the limits of the Shamanic Baking Soda Method.  It does not mean the method itself is a failure. It just showed me that I was being too careless.  First, let me detail what I did correctly:

1.  I showered with baking soda and put it in my hair etc. afterward.
2. I put on clean clothes that had been left in baking soda for months.
3. I carried nothing inherently stinky to the stand.

Btw, if you want the full method, here it is:

Baking Soda– the Shamanic Method

Now for what I probably did wrong:

1.  I did not let my duds air out between morning and evening.
2.  I left my duds on between morning and evening hunts.
3.  I walked back still wearing my layer; I didn’t remove it and stow it in my duffel bag.

Honestly, I’m just as happy I got busted as not.   I was at Hollywood, the tower blind, and the wind was blowing at my back the whole time.  Well before sundown, a group of doe came out to feed 150-200 yards out, and they winded me almost immediately.  They never actually busted me– walking up, stamping, snorting and finally running off.  What I  saw was a period of anxiety, and then fretful bounding around.  They finally just walked off in a hurry.  Another doe came out a while later somewhat closer to the blind.  She was into the field, maybe 100 yards from the tower.  She started fretting as well.  She did the same as the others– just started running about before finally running back into the woods.

The point of saying all this is that normally, these deer would have made it much closer to me before catching my wind.  The Shamanic Baking Soda Method is not infallible.   Under the best conditions, having a 10 MPH wind at my back would have eventually caused me grief.  However, I could tell that something was amiss.  I had been way too lax.

When we got back in, O.D. and his brother showed up and we feasted on T-Bones provided and prepared by Chef Moose.  A good time was had by all.

Sunday AM was a similarly successful exercise in Not Hunting.  Angus had left late Saturday for a bagpiping gig.  Moose was laid up with a backache.  SuperCore and I both had plenty of sightings and were able to restrain ourselves.  He saw 4 small bucks. I saw 6 doe out in the field south of Midway.

The one hunter missing from all this was Mooselette. She was due to go out with her grandpa but has been down with a case of Strep Throat all week.

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