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Hunting and other stories.

Started by trailtwister, July 29, 2015, 08:40:39 AM

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trailtwister

Taking sister hunting deer.

My middle sister wanted to go out deer hunting with me. She was the only sister that ever showed an interest in hunting of anything. If I remember correctly she was 14 years old so that made it November 1970 when I took her out one morning deer hunting. We got to my ruff thrown together brush pile deer blind just as it was getting light enough to see plus be a legal shooting hour. She sat for a while but being a fidgety person to begin with she was soon bored and asked me how I could sit so still in the blind so long all day after day of deer hunting.
So I asked her what she had seen since we got in the blind. She said some birds that had flew by and that was it. I then pointed to the leaves on the ground I had kicked in a pile around the edge of the blind and asked if she had seen anything in that area. She said no she never saw a thing. I then told her to watch close, soon a little mouse poked its nose out of the leaf pile and ran to a different pile. I pointed out the clouds in the sky and told her what shape I thought some were. Soon she was telling me about what she thought the clouds looked like. Wasn’t long after that I asked if she had seen any deer since she got to the blind, She said no.
She was surprised when I pointed across the swale to the east facing hill side and said there were 5 does laying there. I had seen two of them get up and stretch then lay back down earlier.  Wasn’t long after that she is telling me about the different birds in the different trees and such, till it was time to leave for dinner at home.
I am not sure just when she did start hunting I know she had got a Savage 99C, 308. I believe she was with Rob (my brother) when she finally shot her first deer a nice 6pt. buck about 6 days into the season.

:eyebrownod:  Al
Your not fully dressed with out a smile.

bambam

Great story.  :yoyo: :yoyo: Took my daughter hunting when she was 4 years old. Wasn't really a  "hunt " , more of a nature walk. She enjoyed it so much that by 6 she was shooting squirrels with an open sight cricket .22 . Now she is a better shot than me and has killed more critters than a lot of grown men I know.

Okanagan

Yes, great story.  Thanks for posting it.


FinsnFur

Beautiful story. Thanks for sharing that. My sister could drive a 65' Dodge FX for 8 seconds down a quarter mile track but I dont think she'd hunt. LOL
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trailtwister

Thank you.

Dad & hunting
I will start of by saying my dad was not a what I consider a big hunter. Maybe go out after a rabbit 3 to 4 times a year, and maybe a week end of deer hunting before I was old enough to hunt.

I can’t remember when dad started taking me hunting with him. Just seemed like an Uncle would come to visit and they would go hunting in the fall when I was way too little, they kept telling me. One time dad and uncle took me to town with them where they went to a dept. store that was having a gun sale. Uncle got a break open single shot Stevens 16ga. With a walnut stock the last one and was 20.00 some dollars. Dad got the same shot gun with a plastic stock and forearm. Turned out dads didn’t have the recoil that the Uncles did.
Shortly after that trip to town dad would take me out when he was going alone for a chance to bag a rabbit. I remember upon our return dad would clean the rabbit and give it to my mom to cook, and then he would break out the old wooden cleaning rod and open the bottle of Hopps #9. I still use Hopps today myself and it brings back so many memories of dad when I do. He used to pack some clothing and go north to deer hunt on a uncles farm for a week end sometimes to. I do not remember him ever bring home a whole deer but seemed to bring home some as the family shared whatever deer was harvested so everyone got some.
After mom and dad bought the farm up north dad would take me to deer hunt the oil fields with him. Why he didn’t hunt his own farm I have no clue, just a guess as that is where he and his family used to hunt so he knew it.
When I was old enough to deer hunt my self, was the first year that we hunted on the farm. The farm included 80 acres down the road a mile and a bit. It was half woods and half cleared but to rocky really to farm but was good pasture for the cattle. I think dad started deer hunting there was we had been buzzing wood the year before during deer season and deer came running thru the brush then went past us buzzing wood so dad knew that there was deer there.
The wooded part of the 80 had been clear cut pretty much for pulp wood so was thick with popple with about 4 inch trunks. There was one main logging trail that went from our front gate to the back of our property and continued to the big woods behind out place. Then there was a trail that went to the cedars on the south edge and another that went to the birch and hard woods.
Dad would get cold easy so he did a lot of walking and as a young restless boy I did also.  Were many years before I would take a stand and you would have to pry me away. Dad however as long as I hunted with him never did stop roaming even though we made every effort to give him a warm hunting spot. He was made a 6x6 shack with a recliner and kerosene heater for the last 5 years he hunted, but he would still roam.

:eyebrownod:  Al




Your not fully dressed with out a smile.

trailtwister

Remembence.

My dad called the family together in March 2003 when he was 88 years old. He told us that he was not going to be fishing or hunting any longer and was dividing up all his things guns, rods and reels, lures and other equipment. He decided to just be the keeper of the camp. I had bought dad a Ruger model 77 243 for his 70th birthday because the Winchester model 88 284 was taking a toll on his face every time he fired it. Dad gave it to me along with a Ithaca model 37 featherlite 20 ga.  I don’t think dad ever shot a buck with that rifle although he had harvested several does.
I decided to take dads deer rifle to deer camp in Nov .2003, I hunted 13 days of  the fire arm deer season without seeing a legal buck. Early on a frosty Morning I set out for my favorite deer blind on the bay. Got in there and settled down with a cup of coffee and enjoying the view out over the bay as the sun started rising out of it. Soon the frost was melting and dripping off the blind roof and surrounding tree branches.  I heard a road hunter slowly drive down the road glassing the cranberry bogs across the road from where I was. Just 60 yards down the road they would switch to glassing the beach on my side of the road even though road hunting in Michigan is not legal and the Property at that point on both sides of the road is private property owned by myself.  About 9:00 AM I see a deer walking at the old waterline edge where the mini sand dune is. I grab my big spotting scope I use in that blind and see that yes it is a buck a 6 point. He is close to 300 yard away but walking and browsing along the edge my way. Finally he arrives at the cedar tree I have ranged at 100 yards from the blind. I set the scope cross hairs just behind his right front shoulder when he stopped for a drink in the tiny stream that flows into the bay. I squeeze the trigger and see him drop right on the spot typical for the 243’s I have shot with my reloads.  I climb down out of the stand and walk out to him. He isn’t not a heavy racked 6 point just decent and with the rifle dad gave me.
I call my hunting partner on the two way radio and tell him if he isn’t seeing anything He can bring my truck down the beach to pick him up. I get him dressed out as my partner gets there with the truck.
I wrote the story and was told by friends I should send it in to Michigan Out of Doors Magazine, They published it in Nov 2004. I had not told dad I had wrote a story just that I got a buck with his rifle. I should have given him a copy of the story as he passed away in June 2004 before the story was published.



:eyebrownod:  Al
Your not fully dressed with out a smile.

Okanagan


trailtwister

That picture was taken early one morning from my favorite deer blind. It over looks Big Bay DeNoc west of Garden Michigan.

:eyebrownod:  Al
Your not fully dressed with out a smile.

nastygunz

 I come from a whole clan of Vermont mountain folk and we hunted everything that moves and sometimes each other ha ha.  I still recall probably the greatest moment of my life when I was six years old and on my birthday my father gave me a single shot break open Winchester 410 shotgun. Great pic!

FinsnFur

Thats some good reading TT :congrats: Thanks for sharing those.
Man I love that pic
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trailtwister

The great squirrel hunter

My brother and I decided to try out a different wood lot for bow deer hunting on a Friday night. Saturday morning found us packing our climbing deer stands to that woods and finding what we felt was our sweet spot. There were a couple of saddles between the cedar swamp and a low muddy area that were wore down with deer trails going to the corn field a couple thousand yards behind us.  We decided to only hunt till noon then go get something to eat and do some grouse hunting that morning then return about 3:30 in the afternoon.
Afternoon came and we got in our stands just about 3:30 as planned. I had sat in mine about an hour when a squirrel decided it was going to come up my tree and sit on my stand with me. I kicked it off and the dumb thing came right back up to once again get kicked off. This time it stayed on the ground just raising holy hell. Making all kinds of whining complaints to the whole world and everything in the woods for about 100 miles, I finally had enough and got the bow from the hanger drew a bead on that tree rat and let the arrow go.  The arrow hit just a bit off center in the middle of the body and stuck in the ground about a foot it looked like. That squirrel lay there so still I figured I could now sit in peace and not have all that noise to scare the deer away. Next thing I know that squirrel has come alive and is running around that arrow trying to get loose and raising all sorts of hell. Finally I give up and climb down grab a good healthy club laying nearby grab that arrow with the squirrel and give it a good heavy whack upside the head.  Stuck the squirrel and arrow in a tree without trying to remove it and climb back up the tree. I don’t think it was even a half hour and that squirrel is alive again and rising cane again trying to get out of that tree crotch and off the arrow. By now it is nearly dark and it is crazy to expect any self-respecting deer to use that trail with all the racket being raised so I once again climb down and had decided to stay down and wait for my brother. I clobber that squirrel several times with that club hoping I had taken the last of its 9 lives.
Finally I see the tiny flash of Robs pen lite bobbing thru the woods. He gets where I am and asked if I was cutting timber for a logging company with all the racket I had made.  I tell him about the squirrel and all the trouble I had with it.
He in turn told the story to all our friends and it took me many a year to shed the title the great squirrel bow hunter.


:eyebrownod:  Al
Your not fully dressed with out a smile.

trailtwister

Hunting 1970

In September the company I worked for and the union decided to strike rather than settle a contract. As a hunter it was perfect time for me. Most small game seasons opened on Sept 15th then as they do now. I spent many a day in the woods with a dog and my Wards western fields 16ga pump chasseing pats and rabbits. This continued till mid Oct when duck and pheasant season opened. For opening day of duck season my cousin Rick, his brother Norm, two brother in laws Jim and Dale  came up to the farm bringing Ricks small light 10ft pram. When they arrived we sat down to cups of coffee making plans on how we were going to hunt the beaver ponds in the area. Rick and Norm had been around the ponds so knew the lay out as much as I did. It was decided to drag the pram back to the big pond which was sort of like two ponds really as there was a narrow cut with a high hill between the two. Jim and Dale were going to use the pram to go across the lower pond; Norm was going to stay on the hill at the narrows. Rick and I were going to the far end of the upper pond. The system worked very well at first as the ducks would rise from the lower pond fly to the upper pond thru the narrows so everyone got a chance to shoot.  The upper pond was wider than the lower one so the ducks finally started going to the far side to land. Rick and I got the pram so we could go to the far side of the upper pond. We were shooting out of the pram so my hulls were going in the water to float. We had a good two hours of good hunting before the ducks decided it was unhealthy to hang around the ponds.  Since I was a shot shell reloader and also didn’t want to leave hulls floating I picked them up with the ducks. We had gotten some mallards, a couple of green wing teal and a couple red heads plus a bunch of mergansers. Being mid-day we went back to the house and had lunch. After lunch we went to some small natural ponds across the road back in the woods where I had been seeing a few ducks while pat hunting. Before we left I took all my wet hulls drained the water from them then put them in a mesh onion bag hanging it in the sun on the porch.
Across the road was some quick jump shooting with us splitting up between two ponds. The ducks flushed from one pond would go to another one only to return. We got a few more mallards from there. It was getting late when Rick and his brothers left for home with a date to go pheasant hunting at their place on opening day. My hulls had a bit over a week to dry in the sun when I decided to set down and reload them. They had felt dry to my touch also. Opening day of pheasant season found me on the road early driving to Rick’s brother in laws place where I was to meet them. The shooting time came as we got to a soy bean field. There was Jim, Dale, Rick and myself; Rick had brought his dads dog Rusty a cocker spaniel.   That cocker was a pretty good dog at working close and flushing the birds, we didn’t go far before a few hens and a rooster flushed which was a ways off from me. We had covered that field from one end to the other from one side to the other when we moved to a corn field. We as a group got another rooster from the corn field but seemed most of the pheasants were running in there. Went to another soybean field and finally a rooster flushed in front of me, I pulled up the 16 and shot It went poop instead of bang with shot rolling out the end of the barrel. Just didn’t look good at all so I take the barrel off to find the wad is still in the barrel. I walk to the fence line find a tree branch sort of straight to push the wad out. I catch back up with the guys soon after, went just a bit more and two roosters get up in front of me. Again the gun went poop with shot rolling out of the barrel. I tell the guys I have wet ammo so need to go buy some new some place. I get back near dark so drove to Ricks place to clean his birds and spend the night. Next day we are at one of the guys Ricks works with place a small grain farm. We are walking down a lane between two soy bean fields when a pheasant rises in front of us. Rick shoots, the pheasant keeps going his friend shoots and it is still going. I pull up and shoot just as Rick lets go a second shot. The pheasant set its wings and sails higher then crashes. We decide it is Ricks bird as he is using a 12ga. with # 5 shot. When we clean it we find a couple of 7 ½ shot what I was using and nothing else. Rick and I spend the rest of the month and the first part of Nov hunting ducks on the Maple river flats and on the beaver ponds at the folks rarely missing a day. My old 16ga got unsafe to shoot firing without pulling the trigger on a duck hunt near the end of the day. I bought a Mossberg  500 to replace it in 12ga. as that is what everyone else had, I could then borrow shells in case of having wet ones. I used that 12 for a week and it broke. It had to be sent back to the factory for repairs. Wanting to keep on hunting I needed something and the gun shop had just one 12 left an Ithaca model 37 feather light. I bought it and fell in instant love the first time we went hunting. At first I did my reloading for it at Ricks but bought the stuff to convert my Mec to 12ga.
We got the first week off for fire arm deer season then the company and union came to an agreement so it was back to work. I have never before nor after spent so many days (86) hunting. Rick and I really became close during that time.

:eyebrownod:   Al
Your not fully dressed with out a smile.

bambam

Great stories !  Brings back lots of good memories.  :yoyo:

Dave

Quote from: bambam on August 06, 2015, 05:30:39 PM
Great stories !  Brings back lots of good memories.  :yoyo:
My thoughts exactly!

trailtwister

Your not fully dressed with out a smile.

trailtwister

Hunting memorys.
[/b]

About 1963 after I had turned 16 and could drive legal Rob (my brother) and I decided to drive down to the state land where they had huge acres of hard woods which we didn’t have on the farm. We were not well versed in hunting being pretty much self-taught thru trial and error. We also made the same errors over and over as we had no one to tell us we were doing it wrong and this is how it should be done.
The target game was anything legal that was eatable. Squirrel was the prime target however since we were in the hard woods where there were acorns a plenty. Our plan of attack was to slow stroll thru the area about 50 feet apart and somewhere along the way make a turn and go back to the parked truck. There were plenty of squirrel signs partly chewed acorns and shucks also. Lots of little fresh places where acorns had been buried plus nest in the trees.
If we would have just sat down for a while we probably would have seen many squirrels but with us walking along we only saw a couple close enough to warrant a shot with the 20ga. Rob carried and the 16ga. I carried. We saw many in the distance but they would vanish into thin air by the time we got to that spot.
We also saw a few pats that had come into that area to feed on the acorns and what we called grouse berries in the few low growing bushes.
As young boys we came to think of the area as a game less mostly waste of time to hunt. Much better to hunt on our farm where they had clear cut all the big trees in the early 50’s clear cut fashion. It had grown into a tangle of berry bushes small popple, many sandy spots in the trails thru the woods provided dusting places for the pats that would scare the crap out of you when they would flush right in your face it seemed. There were also a lot of rabbits mostly snow shoe hare but also cotton tails.
My reading back in those days was Out Door Life mostly to gleam the wisdom on deer hunting but did gain some knowledge on grouse, pat, and pheasant hunting. A pack of dogs it seemed to be a real good hunter was required. A pack of beagles, for rabbits, a setter or pointing dog for pheasant’s and upland hunting and a retriever of some sort for ducks and geese.
You also needed a room full of guns to properly hunt the land. A 410 was not something a good hunter carried in the rags of the time. You had to have a 20ga. SXS to properly hunt the uplands on those always beautiful fall days with the colorful leaves dropping maybe a 16ga would work also.
When you could travel to an area that had pheasant’s to hunt nothing less than a 12ga. Pump or auto loader was the only proper gun to hunt with. It should be a full choke also with # 6 of bigger shot. You wanted to hammer those pheasant’s hard as they wore armor of some sort.
For water fowl you also need a 12ga.full choke, a pump rather than the problematic auto loaders in a duck blind. Again shot size was # 6 thru #4 as water fowl also seemed to wear some type of amour.
For deer early day hunters you need a big brush busting round like the 35 Remington to hunt Michigan’s early growth wood lots. 30-30 and 32 Winchester specials were acceptable also by the writers of the day. Some were even hinting that surplus WW II 30-06’s were ok as well as some mousers and Lee Enfield’s were acceptable.
No way would Rob and I ever become good hunters till we got a real job off the farm and became rich by the standards of the days sports writers.


:eyebrownod:   Al


Your not fully dressed with out a smile.

FinsnFur

Did you ever get rich and get those "good" guns?
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trailtwister

Well I got some to make a need for a big safe.
Ithaca 37 feather lite 12ga shot gun.
A whole passel of Remington 700's including 2 muzzle loaders, A varmint rifle Ruger 77 220 swift.

I believe I have covered all my needs.

:eyebrownod:  Al 
Your not fully dressed with out a smile.

trailtwister

Dang coyote.
[/b]

Early March 2014 I got a call from my friend who said we had been invited to hunt a farm where the owner had coyotes coming into his feed lot and wanted them dead by the time his calves started coming. Early the next morning I met him (John), his brother Dale, and brother in law Brett at his home. We piled all the gear into Johns pick up and headed out.  When we got the farm the owner told us where he had seen the coyotes go and come from a swale with grass tall enough it poked thru the 18 inches of snow on the ground at that time. We gathered up our gear and walked back down the lane to the hill overlooking the swale.  Once there we paired up with John and I making the walk around to the one end where there was a drainage ditch that went to another swale with grass and brush. Once we got set we called Brett on the talk about and told him to start the call. He was in to it about 10 minutes when I see a coyote peak over the lip of the drainage ditch then climb out on the bank at 280 yards by my range finder. He stood there and I thought was going to continue to the call direction when all of a sudden he stopped and started looking in my direction. I squeezed the trigger of the Ruger 77 220 swift and sent the hand loaded 55gr. Amax at him. I had aimed right between his eyes he swiveled and went over the bank, Figured a dead coyote is what I would find when we were ready to leave.
Wasn’t long and got the call we would collect the carcasses and leave. When I got to where my coyote stood there was some hair but no blood. Couldn’t track it cause the snow was so had even we men could walk on top of it in most spots.  As were driving home we discussed the coyote figured it had caught a bit of reflection off my scope and spooked just as I squeezed the round off.
The guys decided to hunt there again that evening as they didn’t think we had disturbed the coyotes to awful much that morning. I could not go that evening. John called me later that night and told me they had heard something wheezing down in the brush on the far end of the swale and he would go with me in the morning if I wanted to go look. Said I could do that. We got there and the farmer said he was going back to get a load of fire wood so we could ride back there. He had a big old rangy farm dog a pure breed MUTT just a huge dog.  We get back to the area where they had heard the wheezing and found a deer figured hit by a car maybe.  Looking around following the drainage ditch when all of a sudden that dog took off, pretty soon it reappeared dragging something and it was a coyote.  It’s lower jaw was hanging by a bit of hide a crease down along its neck and a entry hole just in front of the left shoulder. Since everyone thought it was scope flash that spooked it I decided a sun shade was in order. I priced a little shot 4 inch one and said I may be crazy but not nutty crazy and built my own.


:eyebrownod:  Al
Your not fully dressed with out a smile.

FinsnFur

He retrieved, deer, ducks, and dogs :laf:
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