I mentioned to Angus last week as we were on our way out to Campground that it seemed like everything at Deer Camp had become a ritual. Even the most mundane things, when repeated for a decade and a half take on a ceremonial quality. Last weekend was the yearly last trip to camp to close up. We were on our way to the stand at Campground to take down the last of the treestand skirts. Last year, Angus had not attended this rite, but he could see my point.

Lily, the Beagle, always does, and always has to scour the area fully since a trip out like this always has something to do with a dead deer. She is a bathed-in-the-blood devotee. Even dogs have their rituals. Last year she managed to scare up a monster buck watching me as I clipped the camo skirt from the shooting rail. I could not help look over to the tree where he stood. I suspect, I will glance at  that tree every year from now on.

Back Home

This morning was yet another ritual of camp. All the deer rifles are taken to the shamanic reloading cave and kept sequestered for two weeks. No silly, I do not dance around them with my rattle. I am just giving them a good cleaning. However, you do see my point– it all becomes ritual. As the years pile on you cannot help but look back.  About the time your brain hits a face that you will see no more–a campfire that shown brightly once, but whose sticks burned out and were now gone, you are confronted with the enormity of it all.  In that moment, you have the vision of the sublime. It is in that moment even a shaman has to grab at something solid and hold on.

I had segregated all the deer rifles to the left of the rack as I had unpacked them. Before going on the rack, I ran a boresnake down each of the bores loaded with Ed’s Red. I make this stuff up a quart at a time, and it seems to do a good job of loosening all the fouling. I make one run down the bore right after season and then let it sit for a couple of weeks before final cleaning.

All the bolts were out of the rifles. I clean those with Ed’s as well. I should clarify that Ed is C.E. “Ed” Harris and his home brew bore cleaner recipe has been on the web for years. The key point of Ed’s Red, is the fact that both firearms and automobile transmissions used to be lubricated with sperm oil.  When automatic transmissions came on the market, the poor whales caught the bum end of the deal.  ATF is therefore, the modern replacement for sperm oil, and it does make a wonderful  lubricant for firearms.  Here is the recipe:

Home Brew Cleaners

What I especially like about Ed’s Red is that after the initial run-through, I can let it sit in the bore for a couple of weeks, loosening stuff up. Even after the final cleaning, Ed’s Red continues to work. When I bring the rifles out the next summer, I run a clean boresnake down and it pulls even more gunk out. I do not treat the bores during season, just the outside surfaces.

The actions and the outside metal surfaces of all the rifles get treated with the Ed’s 50/50 concoction. It’s just K1 and ATF, but it works great as a gun oil. My final treatment is a once-over everything that could rust with Eezox.

What I learned over Deer Season

First off, I learned anew that 30-06 is a really great no-muss, no-fuss deer round. Both SuperCore and I used 165 grainers. Angus used 150’s. Deer go down. They stay down. This is not saying anything against all my other deer rounds or deer rifles, but it just so happened we had Ought-Sixes out this year whenever the right deer showed up.

The Whelenizer came out only a few times. My experiment with the 35 Whelen converted to a cast lead vehicle was not a failure. I just did not have the right opportunities. The problem was the absolute dearth of acorns on my ridges and the Whelenizer, much like my Savage 99 in 308 WIN is set up to be more of a treestand-oriented rig. The deer were all out in the fields this year.

Which brings me to another lesson. I need to learn greater patience with my deer load experiments. I have acquired several new rifles and new loads over the past few years. I only have a few weeks a year to try them out. This year, the only thing I could really confirm was that my new 30-06 Ruger Hawkeye and its Bushnell Scope does a terrific job. I already knew that, but that shot on the doe in the last minute of legal shooting was confirmation that paying 3 times more for a good scope can be a good idea. The rest of the projects I will have to put on hold for a year. It is not a bad thing to show up at deer camp with arm loads of new project to try. You just have to be ready for the disappointments.

I had wanted to take a second deer with the 25-06 Mauser. That will have to wait. It would have been fine for all the sits I had out in the pastures, but there was a lot of inclement weather, and I just did not want the nice walnut stock and old-school bluing out in the elements. I knew the stainless Hawkeye was a better choice for the elements. I only had it out a half-dozen times, and the one opportunity I had was a nice buck that peeked out of the cedars for a brief moment, but was gone before I could get the scope on him.

I wanted to do some still hunting with the Marlin 1894 in 357 Mag. It, like the Whelenizer, is now shooting powder coated, gas checked, hard-cast lead bullets. The problem was again, the lack of acorns and therefore the lack of deer in places where a slow stalk would have made sense.

Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down

I got to thinking all the other things, not firearm related that had gone on during deer season and the few things worth preserving for posterity.

Things that worked:

MTM Ammo wallets — I bought another one this year. They keep 9 rounds of 30-06 in a weatherproof wallet. I use strips of electrical tape to mark them so they don’t get confused.

In the rain, I take the tape off and put it over the end of the barrel. I keep mine in a vest pocket. I used to store rounds on the butt of the rifle, but I always ended up the season a round or two shy.

 

Dorcy LED Flashlights

 

I have been carrying a Dorcy for a number of years. The latest ones came from Amazon over the summer. Cheap, bright, handy. I could not ask for anything better. I got through season on one change of AA batteries. What a beam! I stuck one lit in my vest pocket as I was climbing the ladder at my tree stands, and the resulting light was enough to see clearly all the way up. The beam picks up blood really well at night. It also highlights incipient rust. I carried one down with me as I was working on the deer rifles and turned off the lights and checked each rifle before putting them up for the year.

 

Buck Knives

 

 

I have carried a Buck 110 Folding hunter since the Reagan Administration. In all those years, I have found only two deficiencies. First off, a folding knife is harder to clean.  I have always run mine through the dishwasher at the end of season, but sometimes it takes two trips.  The other shortcoming only happens when you are in a hurry. That clipped point can be just a hair too long and too pointy, and I have poked myself a bunch of times up inside the chest cavity. As a general purpose blade it cannot be beat. However, at the meat pole in the moonlight, something special is required.

I ordered the Buck 113 back over the summer.  It is the same steel as the 110, and all the same materials as the 110, but in a fixed blade. Both have the 420HC steel.  The blade shape really did make opening up a deer easier and safer.  The 110 stays in my pack. The 113 stays at the meat pole.  I put both away this year without touching up  the edge. I could still shave with them.

Bushnell Banner, Trophy and Elite scopes.

That Dusk to Dawn thing really does work. I do not want to belabor the point, but  I have now bought a half-dozen of these in the past year or so.  The latest was a 1.5-4X40 to go on the Whelenizer.  I honestly cannot see a whole lot of difference between the three grades under normal circumstances.  Where the Elite becomes worth its price is in the rain, so I sprang for it for the all-weather Hawkeye.  All three grades perform very well in low-light.

Baking Soda

I cannot think of an instance this season where the deer were ever concerned with my presence. Aware? Yes. A 300 lb guy in an orange clown suit is always going to draw some attention. Did I get busted? Yes, on the way in and on the way out in the dark, but that Dorcy flashlight is intense, and I was not making any effort to conceal my trek. While I was actually hunting? No. Not once did I get even half a snort out of the deer.

I did not wash my poly fleece underwear mid-week like I tried last year. It took them three days to dry in the sub-freezing weather. What I did this year instead was just dust them down with Baking Soda after 1 wearing and then left them in a garbage bag for at least a day before attempting to wear them again. I had enough for 5 changes. I did the same for the cotton uninsulated bibs, but I only brought three of them and rotated them each day. The clown suit and the rest of the kit got a dusting each night before being sealed in a tub.  Last year’s challenge was the cold. This year’s challenge was rain.  Drying and dusting with Baking Soda seems to be the best method for both eventualities.

Neat’s Foot Oil

 

I had some leather rifle slings that had never had any sort of treatment. Over last winter, I found a bottle of Neat’s Foot Oil in my Dad’s stuff that had probably not been touched since the Kennedy Administration. The stuff was still good, so I treated all my leather slings with it. When I did it, I had some slings that had gone pretty dry.  I was wondering how many more seasons they would last. The Neat’s Foot oil did miracles and put a really nice oiled finish on the leather. I used up most of Dad’s stash, so I ordered another bottle off Amazon.

The trick here is time. It takes a while for the oil to penetrate through the leather.  I applied this stuff mid-winter and  let the slings hang until after turkey season. My guess is the leather will not need retreating in my lifetime.

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