Saturday was a cold morning without much wind so I went to my "honey hole" stand for first light. I was there for about 90 minutes when this little fellow came out to play around in the hollow.
The picture actually makes him look a lot larger than he is, I doubt he would have field dressed a 100 lbs...but he spent 40 mins entertaining me that morning. Just after he left a large bodied deer ran through further up the hill through the heavy brush. Could not tell if it was a buck or doe but it was not hanging around to tell me.
Andrea never found a thing around her stand so we went in for brunch and a nap lol. Those 0500 wake ups are hard on the body lol. We went back out at 1430 and sure enough the young fellow came through again. Again Andrea's stand was a bust.
Sunday morning I was back in the "honey hole" and I had a treat as this fellow came to play around...
Even though he is a fork horn he is actually smaller than the spike above. Take note of the nice sunny weather and dry ground. Saturday evening the spike came back to see me. Still not convinced he was worth shooting, a .50 cal muzzle loader at 40 yds would put holes in him to large to leave him one piece. I had him back again Monday morning for the center fire opener, my new marlin 3030 with its Bushnell legend 2 X 7 X 32 had him all lined up and all I could do was count ribs. I am not sure there is enough there to bother with so again I passed.
Andrea had another opinion, she figured the deer was worth shooting based on the pictures, so, she has taken over my stand in the honey hole effective Monday afternoon. I moved to a stand on top of the hill above the honey hole. I have seen a lot of deer there and it is where I shot my deer last year. The issue with the stand is that it is no good in the predominate west winds. I was able to enjoy a nice evening in that stand Monday afternoon and hoped I would see another big deer cross in the brush between me and Andrea...sure enough we both seen it, no chance for either of us to get a shot though the heavy brush though. We went to bed that night with great intentions, the weather gods however had other ideas. We awoke Tuesday to bitter cold, high wind and of course this,
We walked around and not a track to be found, we decided to make a shooting lane down the fence line so that if the wind cooperated we could possibly get a shot at the big deer that has been ghosting the brush...
One of our water jugs had broke so we had to run to Baldur and get extra water Monday and come Tuesday with the bad weather and lots to do before work Wednesday we decide to call it a trip and headed home at lunch time.
Three days later we were back again, things are a little different now, the ground is covered in snow, the wind has a vicious bite and the temps are not reaching pleasant highs. We started Saturday morning the same way, Andrea went to the honey hole, she was going shoot the spike horn if it was foolish enough to show up. It showed up, Andrea of course put her cross hairs on it, then she to started counting ribs...the spike horn entertained her for a bit and then departed.
Monday I tried another area on the property but I think that particular area is only used at night and I never seen a thing. Andrea never seen anything Saturday afternoon either, but we did find that it was nicer in the afternoon as it was only about -15 as opposed to -25 in the morning.
Sunday morning brought brutal wind chills and a damp NW wind, we went down to the honey hole and Andrea took the stand while I went a couple hundred yards east to the fence line. We sat out in the brutal wind for a couple of hours but decided that no deer worth shooting would be out in that crap. We called it a weekend.
We got out just in time, we hit the secondary road that is two miles east of camp and the snow was crazy. By the time we were to the secondary highway it was near whiteout, snow squalls driven by 70 Kmh winds were great fun as there times we had to drive 10 kmh just trying to see the road.
We will be back next weekend for the final try, not sure about the deer thing. A couple of guys told me they are all herding up already. I am not sure we will take anything but a decent bodied deer, there are enough on camera at night...
On another note, I know I mentioned the Winchester 7mm WSM I picked up last time I wrote, but I did not have it in hand...I received it and was quite surprised, I thought I had bought a basic M70 classic, I actually got a M70 ultimate shadow...
It is the most balanced easy handling bolt action rifle I have ever found, I can't wait until the weather cooperates to start load development.
Til next week...
No comments:
Post a Comment