It’s Over, 2021

First off, my apologies for not writing sooner. The season ended with me unable to make posts to the weblog. It was a combination of screwups with the ISP and web provider, and my laptop going on the fritz. I got the majority of the problems ironed out after I got back to town. Our last weekend of season was a bit of a fizzle as well. We left camp on Saturday with one more day to go. However, now that camp has been closed up and I’m back in town, I figured you all deserved some accounting.

Post Mortem on the Season.

O.D. the cervid oracle at the Browningsville Store is always asked for his prediction “Are they gonna be in the woods or in the fields?” O.D. always gives a hedged answer that could be taken either way. O.D. was firmly of the belief that this was going to be an in-the-woods kind of year. The acorns were abundant and still falling well into the beginning of Rifle Season. However, the Shamanic Dream Team was mostly set up for more open venues, and the results showed it. That may not be the whole story, but it was enough to throw our season into a cocked hat.

This was a bum year for me after the surgery. I was backed up in a bunch of things, and one of them was getting some more stands deployed. We just came off a record year last year, and you can blame complacency, but honestly, the deer almost invariably come out into the fields after the Opener no matter how good the acorn crop is, or how late they fall. As an example, no deer were taken from the south window at Midway. It overlooks a secluded pasture and the Garden of Stone. Yes, it is true, the Garden of Stone failed to produce of the first time in 13 seasons. I got my big buck deep in the woods at Campground. Moose misses another from Hundred Acre. Both these bucks and the doe they were chasing were traveling to the open fields, but rather traveling up creekbeds well away from the edges of fields.

SuperCore was also shut out at Jagendehutte for the first time in almost a decade. There was a buck that was using that pasture to give master classes in the rut to all comers earlier in the year. However, he never showed once. SuperCore had a death in the family as well and had to cut his season short. The deer are back out there now. I saw them this past weekend as we were closing up camp.

There was more to it than that. There was a full moon late in the first week of season. Normally, I do not put a whole lot of emphasis on moon phase, but the whole first week, we were witnessing large herds of deer out in the fields by the roads going and coming from dinner in town. I have never seen so many deer hanging out by the road in the dark. My main guess is that the moon was somehow influencing them to come out and feed late. The rut seemed to go from the vague interest of bucks kinda-sorta following doe to nothing almost overnight. I did not see any real chasing activity from the stand like I usually do. I have never been one to go about yelling “They all went nocturnal on me!” However, this year got me thinking.

Gear

I barely got halfway there on checking out all the new loads I had loaded for the rifles. The only shot I took was from the Savage 99 and that 308 WIN load has been pretty much as it is since 2003. For the 30-06 Ruger Hawkeye, I had new loads based on the Hornady 150 grain Interlock. However, I never got a chance to shoot. Moose and Angus were trying out new versions of their 150 grain 30-06 loads.

Both of them were successful on doe, but this was not a big surprise. This was all a make-do effort brought on by the current ammo shortage. Nothing failed, so that is good news.

Gerber Vital Zip

The one piece of gear that we got to try was a Gerber knife. I found the Gerber Vital Zip knife on sale on Amazon and bought one at the very last minute. It arrived just as I was leaving town. It is a fairly simple contraption that uses a replaceable utility knife blade for the unzipping process of getting into the deer’s abdominal cavity.

We all took a spin at it. My try was less than successful, but it was not the knife’s fault. I had a bum knee that was singing to me, and I had spent myself finding the buck and pulling myself out of the ravine. It took me close to an hour to gut my buck. My arms were shaking; the surgery took a lot out of me, and I’m still not back up to full steam.

Angus’ attempt was innovative. We normally gut at the pole and we do so in a head-up configuration. As a result, there is a considerable void just under the rib cage. Normally we all start at the bottom and work up. Angus started at the solar plexus, inserted the Vital Zip and slid down. His large doe emptied herself right into the gut bucket. I had gone in the house to change clothes. I was gone less than 5 minutes. By the time I got back to the pole, Angus was done.

Bottom line: The Gerber Vital Zip may look like it belongs next to the Butt-Out Tool and Cough Supressor. However, the Vital Zip is extremely handy and fast. It will be a permanent fixture at our camp. Amazon has them for $17. I think I got mine on sale for under $13.

Orange Rain Poncho

The other piece of gear worth mentioning is the hunter orange poncho I got just before season. Actually, I got two. It’s a long story, but I had one screen up on Ebay and another on Amazon, and I had forgotten I had pulled the trigger on one and also bought the other. The one from Amazon was this:

Hooded Rain Poncho Waterproof Raincoat Jacket for Men Women Adults

The one from Ebay was from USGI. There was about $7 difference between them. I do not want to make this sound like a head-to-head comparison. However, there were differences. The $28 Amazon poncho was smaller, lighter, packed into a smaller size, and was overall more like what you would need for an unexpected bit of rain. The USGI Industries take on it was robust. It was built of tougher material. It was bigger. It was the kind of tarp you could crawl under and spent the night.

I would expect both to last more than one expedition, but the light weight of the cheaper one would eventually cause it to succumb to the briars. The heavier one was just that– heavier. I could feel the difference in my pack. Both had grommets. Both had snaps. Both were able to cover me and my duffel bag. Both would have benefitted from being tucked inside a waist belt if I had been walking in the woods. As it was, I was only walking out to Midway and back in heavy rain, and I let the poncho go free. It is close to a half mile out to the blind, and my legs were dry when I got there

My point is saying all this is that a poncho is a very handy item, well worth the extra space in your kit. However, I am not going endorse any particular brand. Both of the ones I sampled were useful, but the hunter is going to have to decide for himself on weight, length quality, etc. For a long slog, heavy all-day use and the chance of being stuck out all night, I would go with something heavy like the USGI Industries. For having something along to throw over you up in the treestand, the lighter, smaller poncho is probably enough.

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