SPRING TURKEY HUNTING 2012Turkey hunting
this season was a lesson in humility. Had several ole long beards that
came silently in to our calling but didn't get a chance to harvest one for
some "giblets and gravy" or a
Wild Turkey Breast Stir Fry
and I guess that is why it is called hunting instead of harvesting.
Nevertheless, had a great time enjoying the cool
Spring mornings with a nice brisk chill in the air thoroughly taking in what God has
created for all of us to enjoy! One ole Long Beard appeared out
of no where right in front about 50 yards out and don't have a clue as
to how he got there without being seen....guess I must have
blinked or something; grin if you must! Had one Long Beard
hammering away and came with 30 yards, but positioned too far back
into cover and he apparently was skirting the edge of a cutover and would
not commit to coming into the woods. He paced back and forth and
thought for sure he would come on in, but it didn't happen.
As far back as I can remember, I
have always loved the outdoors and have hiked many, many miles throughout my youth
trekking up and down steams and trails learning and observing many aspects of Nature of which the love of the outdoors still continues today.
The Lord willing, will be back out there next season and give the ole
Long Beards another try!
ARCHERY, MUZZLELOADER AND REGULAR GUN SEASON 2012
Opening day of our annual archery season came in on September 8, 2012 and
the weather was very hot and humid, therefore elected to miss the opening day
hunt and wait
on cooler weather forecasted that was prompted by a cold front moving in.
Besides, now that I am retired I can go hunting when the notion hits
depending on what other things are prior scheduled.....grin if you must!
My bride found it hard to believe that I did not go hunting on opening day
and I guess some common sense is finally being used no doubt brought about
by the date on my Birth Certificate! The past month or two has been ones with extremely high temperatures and
getting my archery equipment out and climbing my platform practice stand
just didn't make too much sense although I definitely needed the practice.
It seems like it has rained about every evening during the month of August
which is normally our hottest and driest month but the weather was a little cooler than
normal as depicted by the Progress Energy monthly power bill.
I practiced only a few different times during the month of August and my Matthews Drenalin bow felt
like it was a 100 pound pull instead of 60 pounds but what little practice
shooting I did, the arrows were in the kill zone on my four practice 3D deer targets
which was a good sign. I finally got all my camouflage clothing and
equipment together this past weekend and did make it to my favorite hunting
stand location on September 10, 2012 and got on stand around 6:10 A.M. and
settled in for a morning hunt. The temperature was in the low 60s with
a slight breeze was coming out of the North and really felt good. The
breeze kept the mosquitoes at bay and was a most pleasurable morning.
At about daybreak, I think every song bird within hearing distance was giving thanks to the start of
another day and there was an abundance of Blue Jays checking on the corn
that I had placed at this hunting location during the past month to help
attract deer into the area. I stayed on the hunting stand until
around 10ish and un-nocked the hunting arrow and placed in back into the
quiver and lowered my bow to the ground and headed back for home.
I checked with another one of my hunting friends, John Gaddy of Polkton,
NC and he decided not to hunt this morning September 10, 2012.
John keeps up with the peak animal activity feeding charts for wildlife that
is based on the Moon Phase and prime afternoon time was somewhere around
7:30 or so and we both planned on hunting the afternoon hours. I
didn't know whether or not I would be able to sit on my hunting stand since my stomach was acting up
badly with frequent trips to the bathroom and luckily I felt much better before
heading out to the same hunting stand location and got on stand somewhere
around 5:00 P.M. which was a little later than I had planned but prime time
was a couple hours or more away so should have plenty of time. Around
6:00 P.M. I saw a doe about 20 yards from my stand to the right and she came
to a full stop with her head up winding the area and figured something
wasn't kosher and didn't stay around to see what was wrong. She didn't
sound an alarm by snorting so I felt a little more comfortable knowing that
the wind direction was still pretty much in my favor.
Around 7:25 P.M. I heard something slowing walking in from the left side
of my stand and two small fawns emerged and went directly to the feeding
area where I have been broadcasting corn. Followed by the fawns was a
doe and she was on full alert testing the wind and was about 14 yards in
front of my stand and looked toward my stand and started doing the head
bobble tactic to see if anything would move. This ole girl had been
around the block a few times as far as checking out hunting stands at
feeding locations. A few seconds behind the doe was a spike buck still
in velvet and he went right into the corn area and starting munching the corn
and positioned himself on the other side of where the two fawns were.
Once the doe settled down, I slowly removed my bow from a hanging hook, attached the
Scott release aid to the string loop, and in slow motion rotated my body (while
sitting on the stand seat) at a right angle to the deer. Once all the
eyes were not looking my way, I pulled the Drenalin bow back to full draw
which didn't seem to take any effort at all; anchored my drawing
release aid hand, got a good sight picture through the string peep sight
and placed the fiber optic pin of the scope ring centered in the string peep
onto the spike buck's heart/lung area letting the sight pin settle down and touched
the release aid trigger of which the Easton XX78 Super Slam arrow tipped with a
Thunderhead 125 grain 3 bladed broadhead headed on it's deadly course to the
spike buck's vital area. I could briefly follow the short flight of the
deadly arrow by the high visibility of the yellow plastic vanes on the rear portion
of the arrow shaft that was dipped in a fluorescent red paint and the
fluorescent green arrow nock, whereas the arrow struck the buck in the
middle of the lung area and gave loud resounding smack/thumb.
The buck immediately whirred around and headed to the left into heavy cover
and I heard him crash within a few seconds about 50 yards from my stand. After a few
heavy gurgling breathing sounds all was quiet again. The other deer
were still in the immediate area but I decided to get down at the risk of
spooking them and locate the buck before it got dark. By the time I got
my equipment lowered to the ground it was beginning to get dark and checked the area where the buck was standing.
My
arrow was sticking into the ground apparently at the same angle that it left
left my bow and covered with good lung blood which is always a good sign not
to mention hearing the deer crash down. I used my small mini-Mag
flash light with about the lumens output of a lightening bug to help illuminate the profuse amount of blood on the ground
that started within several yards of where the buck was arrowed and it
didn't take but a minute to follow the blood trail to the downed buck.
Attached a few pixs:
This pix would not make it into a hunting magazine or show because of the
horrendous blood scene but this is a part of hunting. With such a low
exit wound which is ideal, blood loss was immediate resulting in a very
quick humane kill. The pix shows
the entry side of the arrow and upon field dressing the buck, the arrow went
through the lower portion of the buck's heart with a much lower exit hole. I field dressed the buck and
had a good sized ditch/branch to cross and without the aid of a four
wheeler, I was pooped by the time I got this ole boy on flat ground.
The following pix at my hanging tree that I nick named Tom "Dooley"
Dula since it is a White
Oak tree:
There was a lot of moisture on my tee shirt as evidenced by the pix above
and that was not from falling into the creek....grin if you must! The
little buck had been eating real well since there was plenty of fat on him
and the back strap aka loin strap will make some "beautimous"
Venison Steak n Gravy. It was
around 9:35 P.M. by the time I had skinned, quartered and placed the last of
the buck into my basement game refrigerator for aging until I can cut and
grind him up. Since I save deer urine for usage during the rut,
this little buck had a full bladder and harvested the urine to
add to my rutting buck urine that I have collected from a few deer that were
in the rut. I preserve the urine by adding regular table salt to it
and keep it sealed in a quart Mason jar in my game refrigerator. Pix
below:
You can see those tenderloins below to the right and left of the
bladder that will make some good breakfast stir fry with some scramble eggs
and stone ground grits. The inner tenderloins are the most tender part
of animals and you pay a premium for farm raised tenderloins whether
domestic or wild animals. As my friend David Stewart of Ellerbe, NC
would say, "Sure will look good on a biscuit". I don't
waste much of a deer and do save the hides for a few people when they want
the deer hide to be transformed into buckskin leather for garments.
Web posted by Bill aka Mickey Porter 09-11-12.
AFTER YOUR DEER IS DOWN
Click on the
thumbnail pixs below for a larger view of cutting, grinding and vacuum
sealing the venison headed for the freezer:
I will "guesstimate" there was 30 plus pounds of deboned ground venison
which will make some wonderful meals. I didn't grind the loin strap
but sliced them for later transformation into some hand cubed venison steak n
gravy. There is one picture that shows the popliteal (flank)
gland that is located in the hind quarter that needs to be removed,
otherwise if left in the hind quarter, the meat will have a gamey
smell and taste especially if the animal was stressed by a pack of dogs.
I personally do not want to harvest a deer in front of a pack of dogs due to
the increased adrenalin in the deer's system and the stress on the muscles
which renders some tough and smelly meat! Any animal harvested such as
stand or still hunting renders much better tasting meat in my humble
opinion.
NOTE: I do not add any type of animal fat to the
ground venison that I package and freeze. I will later add pork
trimmings, etc. when I am making summer sausage. Venison is very lean
and fat free and requires some type of oil, e.g., olive oil, etc. when used
in place of ground beef.
Visit my venison chop shop page which
explains the above pictures in more detail.
The clean-up and sanitation of the processing equipment is the hard part
of this job....I use a weak mixture of Clorox water to help with the
sanitation.
Web posted by Bill aka Mickey Porter 09-13-12.
HUNTING ACCESSORIES
Below a pix that was taken
in 2002 of the contents in my back pack and use most of the stuff in there
on a regular basis such as the knife, camera, tripod, rubber gloves, tissue
paper, deer drag sling, flashlights and add and take away a few things as
time goes on. I sold the Randall # 3 hunting knife as it was primarily
designed to field dress large game only and wanted a more multi-purpose
knife with a thinner blade. The Randall 5 inch length knife blade was
close to 1/4 inch thick and tough enough to open up a steel drum or
could be used in a combat situation if necessary. I am currently
using a small buck drop point folding knife with a 3 1/2 inch length blade
that I keep on my belt and field dressed the above harvested deer with it
and the blade is still razor sharp.
Most of the deer I harvest are taken just before dusk or late evening and is dark by
the time I get to the harvested deer to field dress them and has always been a problem to keep a
light source on the deer while removing the
viscera and sitting up my
regular tripod for a photo. I finally got around to rigging a small
light in weight portable table top tripod to allow one to position a light
source where you need it. Below a couple pixs of what I came up with
and I will insert a few pixs of the small table top tripod and light source
actually in use when field dressing my next deer at night:
The above table top
tripod has a base and upper support (column extension) made by Manfrotto in Italy and with the
Ultra Clamp pivoting ball head part # PD05020 manufactured by
Pedco in the USA. The three leg foldable base is
Manfrotto part # 209 and the telescopic column extension is part #
259B. The
LED
tactical flashlight is by Remington and uses two 3 volt CR123A batteries
with an output of 150 lumens and is extremely bright. A Manfrotto 015
brass female 3/8 to male 1/4 inch
adapter is required.
I made a
flashlight clip adapter
out of a scrap piece of 3/8 inch square aluminum bar stock and drilled and tapped
it for the 1/4" x
20 tpi stud which is standard on cameras and small tripods. I carry the flashlight
on my belt in the black nylon holster that came with the little flashlight
which will get double duty usage out of it.
This flashlight is about 15 times as bright as the small Mini-Mag flashlight
that uses two AA batteries.
Light-emitting
diodes (LED) technology has made standard bulbs obsolete as far as
flashlights go and currently replacing many automotive industry bulbs as well.
I know, this might be an overkill on the light source since I have laid a
regular flashlight on the ground for many decades trying to get the light
onto the deer while field dressing but change is good too! Also, the
Remington LED tactical flashlight has a strobe light mode which will be
useful when tracking deer when you need to position a light source or flag
at your last blood sign and need to cut a large circle to pick up the blood
trail again.
Hopefully, more pixs to follow very soon with the
tripod and light in usage!
Web posted by Bill aka Mickey Porter on
10-01-12.
ARCHERY HUNTING OCTOBER 10, 2012
Weather conditions either the wrong wind direction or rain put a damper on
my bowhunting this season so far. Also, a few of the mornings
were ideal but didn't feel like getting out of a warm bed climbing onto a
cold tree stand which might be an indication of the date on my birth
certificate....grin if you must! A few times, rogue dogs would start
running deer at prime time; e. g., sun slowing going down below the western
horizon with the shadows already very long and the evening stillness
accentuating the tranquility interrupted by the barking of the dogs as deer
were probably making their way to my tree stand spoiling the hunt but that
goes with the turf when there are wild dogs and dogs allowed to roam about
during hunting seasons.
I had an offer to hunt a remote
location in Richmond County and didn't hesitate to accept the offer. I
got on stand sometime around 4:42 in the afternoon and the temperature was
very mild for this time of the year although a cold front had just gone
through the area bringing a North to North East direction wind which cooled the
mornings down to the high 40s and low to mid 50s making for ideal hunting
conditions. The full blown deer rut is a good month away, however deer
do start their pre-rut ritual getting ready for their annual breeding by
making mock scrapes and rubbing saplings and larger trees to get their neck
muscles in condition for the fights that take place to ascertain who is
dominant and allowed to breed! It is this time of the year that a
cautious mature and immature bucks will wonder out of their safety zones
chasing those hot does ready to be bred. Many a two legged buck has
fallen victim for the same thing ending up in a casket whereas the ole four
legged buck ends up being processed for the prized venison. Back to my
hunting story..........
Nothing eventful happened but enjoyed all the surrounding
beauty watching the multi-colored leaves gently ascend to the canopy and
ground below, At times the falling leaves remain suspended by an
updraft making them appear to defy the laws of gravity but eventually give
way to the magnetic force of the earth's gravity and settle to the forest
floor below for recycling by Mother Nature. A nearby grey squirrel is
hurriedly cutting white
oak and pin oak acorns in preparation for the cold winter months ahead and
part of
Gods plan
instilled in everything for the preservation of all life forms.
It was getting very late as the sun slowing descended down behind the trees and a
ghost
deer approached from my right of which I never heard it make any sound at all.
He was positioned about 18 yards nearly broadside but at a slight angle
facing me. I slowly drew the Matthews Drenalin bow back to full draw,
anchored and got a good sight picture through the fiber optic single pin
scope and applied pressure to the Scott release aid trigger and the arrow left
in a flash.
I was unable to track the arrow due to the diminishing daylight left but the
arrow gave a somewhat hollow sound when it made contact with the deer which is not the best sound one wants to
hear which indicates a gut shot. The deer made a
180 degree turn and exited the small clearing into heavier woods and I never
heard him fall down or make any type of sound which is another bad sign. I
quickly got down from the elevated tree stand and checked
my arrow which had blood and stomach contacts on it and felt really sick
since most of the time there is not a sufficient amount of blood to make a
successful track even though you might take out at least one lung, the liver
or a kidney which is fatal but the exit hole
becomes plugged from the deer's intestines. I went to the last place
where the deer left the area and there was no blood trail to follow and only
found a couple drops of blood between there and where the arrow was sticking
into the hard ground. Normally it takes about 8 to 12 hours for an
animal with this type of wound to expire and the best method for recovering
the animal is not to disturb it since it will go into heavy cover and lie
down, therefore I left the area as quietly as possible and planned to return by day light the
following morning and see if I could recover the wounded deer. The weather
forecast for the night was in the 40s and the meat should not spoil and I
definitely wanted to recover the deer if possible. There is not a high
success ratio for retrieving arrow gut shot animals but I wanted to do all I could
to find the deer and hopefully salvage the meat.
The following morning, I arrived
back at the hunting site around 7:30 A.M. and headed in the direction that
the deer was traveling and immediately heard several dogs barking. As
I got closer to the barking dogs they ran out of the heavy cover startled by
what little noise I was making. I went into the heavy cover and didn't
see any sign of a deer and cut a large circle to see if I could pick up any
deer
sign and didn't observe anything which took about an hour to do so. As I made my way back to where I had
heard the barking dogs, they had returned into the heavy cover again and
this time came out about 30 yards from my position and were very aggressive.
A few warning shots from my side arm sent them packing and they still didn't want to
leave, but stayed about 75 to a 100 yards continuing to bark. I knew
the deer was in the thick heavy cover by the actions of the dogs and planned on doing all I could to
recover the deer. However, in heavy cover you have to contend with the tight
growing small saplings, briars, thick undergrowth that limits mobility and visibility
adding to the difficulty to locate your game animal. This time with a
much more precise fix and location where the dogs had exited from the heavy
cover, it didn't take but about 10 minutes to locate the
deer which was a good 7 point buck, weight estimated at about 150 pounds on
the hooves. The deer was still warm and decided to field dress him
although the meat might be a little stronger than normal since he was
stressed prior to its death for sure. The buck traveled about 200 yards
before going into real thick cover which is normal for that type of
wound. I don't think I would have recovered the deer if it had not
been for the dogs barking and their persistence in going back to the downed
deer which gave me a good fix on where they had
exited the thick heavy cover and glad I interrupted their soon to be free meal.
The side arm was definitely an asset since the dogs were more aggressive
than normal which is understandable having to loose their easy breakfast. A pack of dogs
both domestic and wild are like some
people I have observed over the years while working in a Correctional Environment; by themselves they are as quiet as
a Church mouse, but when you get them
together, "they have more mouth than a fat hogs got butt"!
The buck hanging
from our white oak tree I named Tom Dula aka "Dooley" ready for skinning and
quarterly. After skinning and quartering, he was placed in my basement
Game Refrigerator to age a few days before cutting and grinding. The
loin strap will be "beautimous"
with a serving of rice and gravy!
My trophy
hunting friends will harass me about harvesting this buck saying, but I never have tried
any deer antler soup or BBQ Deer Horns. I think what they really do is grind
the deer horns into powder and use it as an
aphrodisiac!
Grin if you must!
Web posted by Bill aka Mickey Porter 10-11-12.
PRE-RUT ACTIVITY OCTOBER 14, 2012
With some free time
available, I decided to check out one of my favorite hunting locations and
the deer are beginning to show some sign of getting ready to rut. The
weather has been cooler the past week with the wind coming from the North to
North East which sometimes triggers pre-rutting activity.
Biologists will quickly tell you that the rut is determined by the
daylight/dark hour ratio but cooler weather does get the deer to stirring
around more. Below a creek that I trapped heavily back in the
mid 1970s to the early 1980s when animal fur was fetching a premium price. I trapped many
raccoons and two otter from this creek and it is beautiful this time of the
year. The slow moving crystal clear water had a reflection of the
trees and the only thing that
would take this creek to the next level would be native Rainbow Trout swimming and
feeding in it but the weather here is way too mild for them to survive.
The below creek crosses our property line for a short distance and
eventually feeds into Gould's Fork which in turn runs into a tributary of
Brown Creek that empties into the Pee Dee River above Highway 109 North.
Click on the below thumbnail pixs of some recent scrapes and rubs made by
the ole boys; well maybe made by those "Milk Deer"....grin if you must!
Web posted by Bill aka Mickey Porter 10-14-12.
MUZZLELOADER PREPARATIONS
Our annual muzzleloader hunting season comes in this year on October 27,
2012 and decided to change the point of aim on my muzzleloader scope since
it was adjusted sometime in October 2001 for 125 yards POA (point of
aim) and has not changed or moved since then. I hunted on a track of
land at the Anson County Airport owned by Pines Davis (deceased) and some of
the fields were about 300 yards across and about 500 yards in length and
needed that longer point of aim for the ole smoke pole.
I planned to hunt an area that doesn't afford hardly a 50 yard shot so
decided to move the point of aim to 50 yards which should be adequate.
My bride's beautician gave me
the ok to use their property to test fire and adjust my antique Knight MK85
left hand stainless steel muzzleloader that has their laminated wood
thumbhole stock on it. On top of the muzzleloader is a Leupold brushed
aluminum 50MM 3.5 x 10 variable power scope which is stable and very clear.
The past few years I have been using Triple Seven powder and Knights old 260
grain solid lead bullets with their old black sabots which gives a .508
overall bullet sabot diameter which does well in this rifle. I believe
Knight doesn't make muzzleloaders anymore but still offers some parts, etc.
I am still using the # 11 cap and see no need to upgrade to the 209 pistol
primer since I have never had an ignition problem. I still use the
granulated power instead of the pellets but would probably upgrade to the
209 if I used pellets since a little hotter ignition system is required.
One of my favorite clichés, "If it ain't broke,
don't fix it".
After I got set up; forgot my camera, the wind was blowing pretty good and I
was very unstable on the make shift shooting rest. I was shaking like
a wet dog that just fell into a sub freezing lake but the Knight
MK85 muzzleloader has an exceptional light and crisp trigger pull
that helped me out. Before I loaded, I knew the POA was for 125
yards and moved the scope adjustment 12 clicks down which should put me in
the ball park at 50 yards. See target below that I took a pix of after
arriving home. Would not win any shooting matches
with this grouping, but all
four shots would
take deer easily out to 100 yards:
The first shot was in the 1 inch diameter red circle at 12 o'clock and fired the second
shot without cleaning the bore which was to the left and a little high;
cleaned the bore and fired the third shot which was to the left and low;
cleaned the bore and adjusted the scope 8 clicks to the right and the last
shot was low in the 1 inch dia. circle a little beyond 6 o'clock and decided
it was close enough since I was not holding very steady even on the shooting
rest. All of the shots would harvest a deer out to 100 yards if aiming
for the center of the lungs. I would not hesitate to attempt a heart
or head shot at 50 yards with this muzzleloader. See my
Muzzleloading page for the
effectiveness of these solid lead bullets. Knight called them a hollow
point which has an indentation in their center to mimic a hollow point ....they do expand and create some
serious trauma.
The least amount of fun muzzleloading is the clean up. Without proper
cleaning of your muzzleloader, it will misfire when you need it the most and
many times you will totally destroy the breach plug and the barrel brought
about by the corrosive nature of black powder and the synthetic alternates
like Hodgdon Pyrodex, Triple Seven,
etc. Most of the time, you cannot remove the breach plug and even with
stainless steel components, they do corrode, but not as fast as the regular
steel barrels. The factories with their high tech equipment cannot
remove the barrel assembly from the muzzleloader receiver when improperly
cleaned and corrosion allowed to "weld"
the barrel, breach plug and receiver together which renders the weapon
useless.
I use a
Tipton Gun Vise which is inexpensive to assist with cleaning the
barrel and receiver of the muzzleloader and use Thompson/Center Arms Co.
Number 13 Bore Cleaner although there are plenty of fine products available
for the same purpose. Hoppe's # 9 is one of my all time favorite bore
cleaners and it smells good too! Attached a pix of some of my
favorite cleaning chemicals and I also use Shooter's Choice and Hoppe's
Bench Rest # 9 which didn't fit into the photograph:
I started out muzzleloading with a Thompson Renegade left hand .50 cal. and
gave it away last year since I had not used it since 1999 when I traded some
tree stands for the Knight MK85. I grin at myself because I normally
take enough accessories with me to stock a small sporting goods store but
over the years, I have down sized to just a handful of items with includes
several spare speed loaders with the powder and sabot/bullet ready to load;
a bullet starter, a modified small screw driver to assist removing the spent
cap when sometimes they give trouble to remove, bullet puller (which I have
never used while hunting) and spare # 11 CCI caps stored in a loading tool.
Pix below:
I keep the caps in a plastic Zip-Loc type bag and the other items in one of
my shirt pockets for immediate access. I carry my regular hunting back
pack and will include a pair of binoculars when gun hunting. A cell
phone and/or GPS comes in very handy too! For all day hunting, proper
clothing, water and a few snacks make for a very excellent, relaxing and
enjoyable hunt regardless of any game harvested. Staying warm and dry
is the key to being able to hunt all day or until a game animal is
harvested!
Web published by Bill aka Mickey Porter 10-20-12.
MUZZLELOADER HUNTING 11-02-12
Had a chance to hunt this morning until around 11:00 and did not see
anything except squirrels, one rabbit and several species of birds enjoying
the corn that I have been broadcasting out regularly for the deer. It
appears that the deer are feeding mostly at night and have only seen a
couple does so far this muzzleloader season and they did not offer a
reasonable shot. The beautiful autumn colored leaves were falling
profusely to ground with a light frost present which is a prelude to the
approaching winter.
I got on stand this afternoon around 6:00 PM which is late but my bride and
myself both had afternoon hair appointments and the
middle of the day was reserved for our daily workout at
The Buff Monkey Fitness Co. which
keeps the day busy with other things to do as well.
It was getting dusk dark and I heard some movement about 75 yards directly
in front of my stand and a 4 Point buck slowly emerged from the shadows and
walked to the edge where I had scattered shelled corn which was about 50
yards and began to take a few nibbles. With the sun down behind the
trees, the buck looked like he was about 200 lbs. and did not present a good
broadside heart/lung shot since he was still facing me. I opted to
take a front head shot and placed the Knight MK85 safety in the off position
and let the crosshairs settle on his head which was down at the time.
I touched the light trigger pull and the muzzleloader bellowed and the buck
immediately went down in his tracks. It didn't take too long to cover
the 50 yards to the buck and the closer I got to him the smaller he looked.
There definitely was not any edible meat wasted with the head shot.
The little buck weighed about 125 lbs. at the most and was still difficult
to drag out since I had to go up an incline for about 50 yards or more to
access level ground. I can certainly understand why the four wheelers
are so poplar; not only to get you to and from your hunting location but
haul your game out instead of dragging them out. I am fast beginning
to realize that I don't have the strength and stamina I once had and
hopefully the fitness center workouts will get some strength back into the
muscles that have been dormant for so long. A State job or any job
without much physical activity will do a number on you over a few decades
unless you participate in some type of daily exercise program!
It took about an hour or more to get the deer out, skinned and quartered.
As noted many times throughout this website, I hunt for
the freezer and he will provide some good ground venison and
Cube Steak n Gravy. Pix below:
LEAVING ON A
SPIRITUAL NOTE
If you do not know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, please take
this moment to accept him by Faith into your Life, whereby Salvation
will be attained.
Ephesians 2:8 - 2:9 8 For by grace are ye saved through
faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God: 9 Not of
works, lest any man should boast.
Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen.”
Romans 10:17 “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by
the word of God.”
Open this
link about faith in the King James
Bible.
Romans 10:9 “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the
Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him
from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
Open this
link of Bible Verses About Salvation,
King James Version Bible (KJV).
Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and
sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder
of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of
the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of
God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory
of God;”
Micah 6:8 “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what
doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and
to walk humbly with thy God?”
Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ which
strengtheneth me."