Deer hunting

[steamin10]

Well, its that time before Thanksgiving , that all the Gunkies hit the field to prove their worthiness by bringing home the bacon, er, bush meat. I have to say, that of the 7 deer consumed by me, 6 were road kills, and of those, 3 were with Fords. Here in Indiana, we have corn fed deer-hogs. Does that go well over 250 lbs live. Real car wreckers. The body style of cars now are more sleek, so deer mostly get swept over the roof, without entering the passenger compartment. Not so with trucks and high standing SUV's that are common to have a high speed hit take out the windshield. The modern glues now prevent the window from collapsing inward on the edges, as the older ones with the rubber gasket did.

It has been a few years since I have actively hunted, and have been requested to do so, as a friends farm had been overrun with the antlered rabbits causing a lot of loss. Many rules have changed. Crossbows can be used here during Archery season, primitive fire arms, and shotgun. Rifles remain Illegal, but poachers still use 22 lr if they are smart, and anything that shoots, if they are not. So with the burgening count of deer here, I wonder what is next, ROCKS and STICKS?

Deer are much more fun too, especially if you reload your own. Unlike water birds, your gun can be unblocked so you have a full magazine to blast away with. When reloading, you have a choice of shop scrap to use, spark plugs are my favorite. Just snap the porcelin off at the right length, and fill the rest of the shell with cat litter, or wax, or if you are fancy, just plain old fibergalss type resin. Round rocks are not a good idea, but I dont remember why. 3/8 bolts must be fired head first or they tumble too quickly, and ruin your 20 foot accuracy you sighted in for.

I prefer hunting at night with my flat front Ford, at high speed at night. It is like spot lighting , with the headlights, doesnt require ammunition, and gives you a better adrenelin rush when the deer leaps towards your side of the road. And if successful, you just call for a tag, and they bring it out, no licence expense! If you live around here, you dont mind another dent on the grocery getter for the fresh meat.

If you are a stand hunter, make sure your stand is visable to the road, so that you can get a new one next year. Dont put a lock on it or your name, as that gets in the way of your hunting brothers from using it. I am sure they will bring it back for next year. Oh, and if anybody else is hunting on your private ground, let them. Dont ask too many questions, they have guns too.

Oh , by the way, my house has been hit by slugs 2x this year, and I am close to town.

[hammermill]

I under stand it is not a good idea to wear white pants in the field

[steamin10]

Thats right!! They show the skidmarks too easily when a shot whizzes by your head.

As a joke we put out one of those foam targets for bow hunters in a tree patch between corn fields. In one year, it was hit 11 times in shotgun season..

[PeteH]

I used to hunt deer in the Southern Catskills in New York. I stopped when the "Harrys from the Bronx" overran the area. These were the sort who figured they'd jacked a round into the chamber when they came out in the morning, so they had to shoot it, rather than eject it, at sunset. So just about a minute short of sunset, it would sound like a fire-fight, with the slugs whickering through the trees.

It got so bad that people in the area used to tie red or orange kerchiefs on their dogs, even in town. And the shops sold RED kleenex and toilet paper. That was about the time I stopped hunting that area.

[steamin10]

I hope that every body understands my hard sarcasm over untrained Idiots with guns. I have found many children of a lessor diety doing the 'it flies, it dies' formula.

Ok, I make my own hard lead shot, and some slugs for custom loads. Not to mention ball and mini-ball for black powder.

Making your own lead shot is easy, once you figure out the trick of drop casting into water. The rest take molds, and that is dead simple too. I have a plumbers pot, that reduces scrap to ingots for my mini casting pot, not much bigger than a ladle.

[steamin10]

Ok, Murphy is a Joker.. It seems my younger daughter and husband sprang for a new car this fall. Short story long, it is in the body shop getting some $7k in front end work getting done from a deer that got T-boned 5 miles from home. It was literally torn in half and exploded so the road kill was lost.

Just this past Saturday, not 30 feet from the original kill, the Daughter was hurrying to a paint job, when she saw a downed deer in the road ditch. She wheeled around, and made a quick look, and sure enough, the poor thing was trying to stand on two broken hind legs. She called the County police who dispatched the animal, and provided a kill tag, and friends came and picked up and cleaned the carcass. Her share was 30+ pounds as one rear shank was destroyed, cut and delivered in freezer bags.

I chuckled at her story and told her she was too much like me, making a good meal out of road kill.

[spro]

And an environmental recycler!

[mcostello]

Deer hunting where I live requires no talent. I have 8-10 in the yard occasionally. I have been in the middle of the herd in a fog and have deer that I could not see, cough on 3 sides of Me. All that to jump in the truck (40' away) and get to work. If I would put some corn out they would probably voluntarily tie themselves up. I don't hunt, they must know.

[Dave_C]

My younger brother lives in the Cedar Rapids Iowa area , not so different from Big Daves area with corn feed deer everywhere. He likes to black powder hunt since you can't use high powered rifles in Iowa. He says it really is more like self defense than hunting!

The deer will almost run over you, no joke. They hand out deer tags to residents like candy trying to thin out the herds. I think my brother said he gets something like 7 tags a year? (land owners, doe, buck, black powder, bow and so on)

Dave C.

[SteveHGraham]

I always wanted to hunt deer or hogs. The thing that kept me from it was the thought of me, three miles from a car, with 200 pounds of meat to drag, followed by the horror of butchering, wrapping, and freezing it.

[PeteH]

That didn't bother me so much when I was in my 20s and 30s. Now in my 70s, it DOES bother me. Which is why I'm likely to do most of my future hunting from a friend's tree-stand, right alongside his driveway. (And right across the road from a cornfield.)

They make a neat plastic sort of roll-up sled that you can pack in to your stand -- I don't think it weighs more than a few pounds -- so after you whack your Bambi, you can roll it on this plastic thing, sling the rope over your shoulder, and haul it out with minimal snagging on trees etc. And a lot less effort than making a travois out of pine branches.

[steamin10]

Uh, the DNR act like Gestapo out here in MW Indiana. We cant hunt rifle either, but a farmer friend wants me to hunt his acres where deer herds number in the twenties and bed together, wiping out a quarter acre in one night, antlered rabbits he calls them. DNR have set upon hunters with multiple tags, and charged them with baiting deer for having an apple at lunch, or being near a salt block, or standing in an unmarked tree stand. (I have had my two homebuilt stands stolen after 'they' cut the locks on private ground). Technically I could be allowed 7 deer with predation, and other tags, but my spirit just isnt in it. The best time I had was sitting on his front porch, having a cup of lukewarm coffee, and watching 3 deer come into the yard for apple dead falls under his trees.

So, would the DNR consider 800 acres of field corn baiting 50 or so deer?

A bicycle wheeled kind of rickshaw thing, with a canvas sling and some rope is a contraption sometimes seen in deer recovery. It is a strict no-no to put the thing on your shoulders and walk out of the woods. Several shooting incidents have happened when not dragging a deer on the sled. A cheep plastic kiddie roll-up, is the smart answer around here, roped over the shoulder on one side, and slug gun over the other.

We had a green Christmas this year.

Fields are wet here, so hard freeze and drying is being waited for in some low areas, that get packed with deer in standing corn. Last week of legal season coming up.