This year was a little different, I noticed that the muzzleloader season opened while we were off camping in Sept, both whitetail and bear...I was busy, yard work, camping, motorcycling, tons of things kept me distracted and enjoying the warm weather. Then one morning I was sitting in the office with Andrea, there was cool temperatures, duck season was underway and it hit me...time to go!!!
Unfortunately I had been either busy or procrastinating for the last year and had not loaded and tested any ammo for the new rifles I had planned to use, no matter my Hells Canyon Speed (HCS) was ready, we had access to a neighbors property and it was still muzzleloader season. What is a man to do, buy a muzzleloader tag and hunt, load a bunch of test ammo and shoot for groups, well yes, correct on both accounts. Being retired certainly has moments :)
I setup the reloading bench enough to be functional, started developing loads for the 7mm-08 and 280 Rem, as well as verifying the 270 is still zeroed and getting the ML ready. I have had some nice to decent groups from both test rifles, a couple are for sure worth expanding on and testing further.
The ML on the other hand was a complete mess, I have no idea what caused it but it was in dire needs of a complete tear down and deep cleaning. It was not powder residue or anything, I think some of the ML specific cleaning products migrated into the trigger and firing pin assy and completely gummed everything up as it had not been fielded in three years. The HCS was as expected, perfect, it was ready for rifle season even if Andrea and I were not. All the reading I had done pointed at everyone putting out piles of apples and carrots and waiting for the deer to show up, I have nothing against this concept and a few arguments in favour of it if you intend to be a picky hunter and practice management techniques. If not have fun and carry on, legal ethical hunting is about enjoying the sport, get out there and live life.
We had sold our treestands with the hunting property in MB, therefore we decided to head to Bass Pro shops and by a double stand, we set it up for the latter part of ML season, to compound that 2 of our 3 trail cameras for some reason died while they were on vacation. We also picked up another trail camera. Setting up the trail cameras was by guess and happenstance, but we managed to place our setup close to some apple trees. We picked up a few does on camera, a decent black bear and not much else.
Time was wasting, so I started hunting in the tree stand, a few 12 hour days of seeing nothing but squirrels and grouse while watching the leaves fall from the huge maple I was sitting under, peaceful idyllic days, no meat on the hoof but very pleasant....
Rifle Season
I had yet to pick up the 308, but felt pretty good setting out with the HCS, in the stand before 0 dark thirty and determined to sit there until a deer or dark relieved me...let me tell you, it was dark. Shortly after legal light I heard rifle shots going off all around, guess those bait piles must be working. I was sceptical as there are wild apple trees all over in the woods here, the property we hunt has an old foundation and well dating back to the mid 1700's, it is very neat.
We had snow one Friday and Andrea and I went to sit in the stand. although I had wiped off the snow there was enough remnants left in the comfort seats that it quickly demonstrated that her hunting pants had became less than their waterproof rating on their vacation. Although she did her best, a very wet posterior coupled with below freezing temps spelled doom for that morning hunt after about three hours and initiated a hunt for new waterproof hunting gear. The new coat is a Redhead multi layer jacket, I have had a Redhead Ridge Stalker set for several years and think it is absolutely great gear, waterproof, warm, light and silent. Silent is a big deal to me, especially when multiple people are hunting together, every little bit of quiet you can get is needed. She has new waterproof rated pants as well but I suspect a pair of Redhead pants will follow over the off season.
In the meantime I had acquired the Xbolt in 308, a great little carbine that I began carrying frequently unless I was hunting in the rain, why bother when the HCS is stainless steel and completely cerracoated...made for crappy weather days. I liked to hike up the mountain on days of less than picture perfect beauty, quieter movements and not as sweaty lol.
Speaking of picture perfect beauty:
No you gun nutz, I am not talking about the pre 64 Winchester she is carrying, I am talking about my wife...we are almost to the top of the mountain in this picture, and this is the road lol.
I had put in a fair amount of time hunting, some time setting up stands and the blind and had literally seen two does. In NS we are supposed to report our hours hunted, our deer sightings and impressions on deer numbers. As of November 13th I had spent 98.5 hours hunting with no ethical opportunities. I knew I wanted to do something different, the rut was on according to the hunters on the groups I frequent so a new plan was hatched for the 14th.
Read all about it in my next blog....
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