saturday morning i returned to the same stand where the turkeys came through and i saw the yearling. sure was a pretty moon at 6:32 a.m.
just before 7:30 i made a shot at a doe that was going under a barbed wire fence (toward the high fence place). i missed because i could not locate any blood or see her in the buffer zone between the neighbor's road and the woodline of the property i was hunting. i think i rushed the shot because she was jumping fence so-to-speak. pete sat the shooting house that was on the ground. no sign of the ten point for him either. lucky buck will live another day.
returned to the school for brunch. sausage, egg and cheese casserole, regular or cheese grits, biscuits, jelly, orange slice and milk/juice
afternoon hunt and i was on the lower end of the big field off the dirt road. this is the same ladder stand i hunted friday morning. pete would be in a shooting house on the upper east end. instead of crows sounding off, today we would have the master blaster shooting his 300,000 winchester magnum (may have just been a 70,000mm magnum). pete counted one box of cartridges and texted me just that..."there's one box". then master blaster switched to pistol shooting while joe bob must have fetched him another box of ammo from the truck. after three or so magazines of pistol practice, it was back to the 300,000 winchester magnum. it was loud to pete in the shooting house on the upper end. it was very, very loud to me in the ladder stand - dude was to my right and back just a bit on some of that pay to hunt "great outdoorsy south" property
. pete made a video of the shooting. no one that heard it could believe it. i mean, who target practices at 4:30ish in the afternoon and runs through two boxes of ammo and three pistol magazines
. i at least had a buddy for this hunt. armored-diller stayed off to my right during the entire hunt. made his way around rooting for bugs in the leaves. they noisy too.
view of field walking into my hunting area
i didn't see a thing - can't imagine why. pete had a doe come out at the last minute and he made the shot but he couldn't find hide nor hair. maybe we should have been burning powder and practicing like joe bob's friend across the road
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back to the school and we didn't have a desire to visit the skinning shed. supper was fried catfish, hushpuppies, cole slaw, cheese grits, corn on the cob, assorted pies and cakes and sweet/unsweet tea.
final hunt tally for thursday afternoon through saturday afternoon for 28 or 29 hunters - 42 deer and 2 hogs. this does not include "misses" or the deer that was not located until the next morning and had been chewed on by bobcat or coyote. hunting was not the best. the deer number brought in was almost half of last year's number. was it the heat? was it the moon phase? was it the date change from the normal weekend? who knows. was it fun? for the most part yes. will we return? you bet. those folks are family and we love 'em. this was the first time in twelve years i didn't bring deer home in the ice chest. pete gave his second buck to the elderly gentleman from louisiana. we came home with one deer. we usually come home with six or more. i had the chance to take a doe and the big spike but just didn't "want to". then i missed the doe and that was my only other opportunity. no big deal. some people were really booty hurt about not shooting anything. some people were really, really booty hurt about not seeing anything. it's hunting. it's like fishing. sometimes they are there and sometimes they aren't.
thankfully, we didn't have to rush back home for work the following morning and were able to go back to the "little house" for a good night's rest. the next morning (Sunday), we packed the truck and headed out. this was the first morning of not leaving out in darkness and i was able to sight see. caught a glimpse of this and asked to pete to put the truck in reverse so's i could confirm what i thought i saw...best darn scarecrow i ever did see
forgot to mention- we came back to the cabin/cottage (it's called the "little house". it sit's next to the "big house" on the plantation) on thursday night. as we went up the steps i could hear water pouring. told the guys. we checked the water inside and it was but a trickle. pete looked under the house and found the leak. then he went next door and told the owner. no one to repair tonight so it was a long process to collect water for toilet flushing, teeth brushing (actually used our bottled water for this), and bathing baby girl. sure is fun boiling water on the stove for a bath. thankfully, i threw a huge pack of baby wipes into the luggage when i packed. they sure came in handy.
one of the county residents who donates his land for the hunt, lost his son in a car accident while we were there. it happened friday night. sometime saturday night, after we had left the school, our guide/landowner's granddaughter hit a deer. they had just started moving; and, when we were headed home Sunday, we counted three deer dead by the roadside as we left union springs headed toward montgomery. this was all near town. hunting should really pick up this coming weekend for those folks up there
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thank you for taking the time to read these posts. i realize they are long but it makes for a better read to "be there" me thinks.
here's pete's second 8 point. the rack from this one would almost fit inside the other 8 point rack
