RoostRider
Member
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2008
- Messages
- 670
I just gotta say.... My apologies to those who pack a handgun when rifle hunting.... I used to be one of those guys who thought it was nearly laughable to carry a handgun when hunting with a rifle (I have hunted with a handgun before)... It just didn't add up.... why bother carrying a side arm when also carrying a high powered rifle?
Well, this is my story from deer hunting this year...
I was hunting 120 acres of some friends land in far northern MN this year, I'll call it 'the land'. I help out with the things around the land and the couple shacks, and they let me hunt. I like the arrangement, and I have my own little shack on the land (small but really nice).
I know the land and the area around it pretty well, and I am comfortable hunting alone there. There are several great blinds and stands on the 120 that they own, but there is also ~800 acres of nearly landlocked public land just behind the property to the south. The only way into this mass of public land is through a small gravel pit, just south of the land on the road. It gets very little hunting pressure.
Wolves had moved in and the deer weren’t moving on the land much. One of our hunters had a wolf on his gut pile within an hour after the kill…. In broad daylight just the day before… As a result, I decided to go hunt the public land near the gravel pit.
At about 5:05 I hear a gunshot nearby from the north..... "hmmmm.... that has to be from the land" I have to think... I wait there until after dark and see nothing. After dark I pack up my stuff and head back to the land. It is a decent walk back to the gravel pit, and a short drive back to the land from there. It is well dark before I get back.
When I get there, no one is around. I assume they are gutting/tracking a deer. I go out to the first blind and sure enough, my buddy is hanging out the window. "I got a big doe at the end of the field" he says confidently. "I shot her and she limped into the woods".
It had been maybe an hour since he shot by this time, and we decided to go find this deer now. I drove my truck to near where he said she was standing when he shot her and left the lights on the field so we could see. I grabbed a flashlight off my belt of gear that I left in the truck. About this time some of the other hunters came along and started looking with us.
One of the others was a kid of about 14 who is a little wild, but basically a good kid. He's gone through some tough times lately and being a part of this seemed like an important thing to him, so we were all glad to have him along, despite his being the least experienced and youngest hunter of our group.
We were finding NOTHING... No trace at all of this deer.... my friend stuck to his confirmation that he hit this deer (a good 200 yd + shot just at dark with a rifle he admitted he sighted in at 25 yds.... DOH!)... He is an experienced hunter, and I trusted his judgment about the shot as we ventured slightly deeper and deeper into the swamp south of the land trying to find any sign at all....
Every once in a while, the kid would holler "There's blood here", and we would pile over there to find.... nothing... and every once in a while "I can smell him"... *sheesh*... then where is 'he' kid? It's a wounded doe we're looking for...
We got out kind of far into the deep thicket of swamp brush and finally decided we needed to go back to the field and re-orient.... about this time, the kid hollers "he's right over here!!!" his headlamp bouncing through the brush as he runs towards our lights... "A big buck just snorted in my face!!" he hollers... we kind of dismiss this cause, well, he's been wrong every other time so far... lol...
We walk back out to the field and meet the others, the best light coming from my truck still idling with the lights on... We all start looking around again... just then my friends dog shows up... she must have heard us out there from the shack and run out to see what was going on... well, my friend tells me to put the dog in the truck, so I leave the window down and put her in there.
As we are walking around the dog leaps out the window and comes over to us.... then disappears into the woods... we keep looking until we are about to decide to leave and come back with better lights... then we hear the dog out in the woods barking.. knowing this to be odd my friend calls his dog back and eventually she comes... but she darts back off into the woods again, right through the thickest deepest brush in the swamp... obliged to at very least get the dog, and thinking shes on this deer, we follow in haste... keeping up with the dog is difficult with nothing but a headlamp in the thicket.. my friend keeps calling her back as we chase her and every once in a while she stops and waits just long enough for us to see her white tail jump off over the branches in the distance...
The dog runs right past the spots where the kid was saying he could smell the deer, and right past where he says it snorted in his face... DOH!!... eventually we catch up to the dog, and the big doe... pitch black, uptight dog, uptight large doe, one kid, two adults..... the doe has been gut shot and is having a hard time even standing, much less running any further... the dog is running around the doe barking and upsetting her even more... the does guts are hanging out past her knees… she couldn’t run any more if she wanted to… and she didn’t look like she wanted to anymore…
My friend gets his dog by the collar and tells me to shoot the deer...
ummmm.... I didn't bring a gun.... didn't you?.... no?.... he looks at me and says “I thought you carried that little .38 everywhere?”…. hmmmm... so did I… lol
The kid starts suggesting we cut the deers throat... which seems like a bad idea.... big does have large powerful legs with sharp hoves and sharp teeth... I would not put it past a wild animal to do anything in that situation....
My friend decides to go back and get a gun... good idea.... and take the kid and dog with him.... more good ideas.... leaving me alone in the dark with nothing but a headlamp in the wolf infested woods with a deer that smells like a fresh gut pile!!!... hmmmm... good idea???...
As soon as the dog, kid, lights, and noise were gone, the deer settled back down in front of me and lay down…. I sat down nearby with my headlamp on her and tried to be calm.. we settled in as I thought about wolves and she was just relieved that most of that was over…
I waited a long time… noticing that we were out pretty far… I couldn’t hear the guys in the field, couldn’t see any lights anywhere, couldn’t keep my mind off of hungry wolves….
Eventually I hear whistling, and whistle back…. Again and again until I can see lights coming through the woods… they get up to me… it is my friend and another of the adult hunters… they brought my .308 from the truck… at this point my friend says “You do got bullets don’t you?”…. ummmm…. Yeah, I do!!!
I put the deer down with one of them holding a light on her while I took a cranium shot. She kicked a few times and it was time to finish the gutting he started with the gun. 10 minutes later she is gutted and we are ready to drag….
Now is the time to mention that we hunt just miles north of a very large iron mine. The ferrous content of the soil is high enough that a compass is only ‘fairly accurate most of the time’. It’s really really dark out… stars are not an option under this kind of cover… My friend checks his compass and it indicates to him that we should head back in a direction 50-60 deg right of where they were coming from when I noticed them coming in with the lights… I tell him so… he is sure his compass is more right than I am and we head off dragging this large doe behind us through the thick…
After dragging for what seems forever we finally convince my friend that he might be wrong, but not that he is for sure… so he heads off into the woods content that he will find us after he finds the truck… he disappears for long enough that the other guy and I are discussing building a fire while we wait… my friend took my gun… again… wolves come to mind… fresh guts… unarmed fools… WHERE’S THAT .38 again??? Had I carried that we would have been out of the woods an hour ago or more... and I would have felt pretty safe the whole time.... *sigh*
A while later we hear the horn on the truck… then the headlights just barely through the woods… all the other guys had decided, "well, they got the deer and will be draging it back once he gets there with the gun"... so they shut off my truck, turned off the lights, and went back to the shack.... lol.... we drag this doe to the field and load her up…. She is a very large doe…
2 hours later we were eating some tasty grilled back straps and telling the story just as I told it to you here….
Man that was fun….. and that kid has a TRUE hunting story that NO ONE will believe... heck, I wouldn't if I hadn't been there.... what a ride...
Well, this is my story from deer hunting this year...
I was hunting 120 acres of some friends land in far northern MN this year, I'll call it 'the land'. I help out with the things around the land and the couple shacks, and they let me hunt. I like the arrangement, and I have my own little shack on the land (small but really nice).
I know the land and the area around it pretty well, and I am comfortable hunting alone there. There are several great blinds and stands on the 120 that they own, but there is also ~800 acres of nearly landlocked public land just behind the property to the south. The only way into this mass of public land is through a small gravel pit, just south of the land on the road. It gets very little hunting pressure.
Wolves had moved in and the deer weren’t moving on the land much. One of our hunters had a wolf on his gut pile within an hour after the kill…. In broad daylight just the day before… As a result, I decided to go hunt the public land near the gravel pit.
At about 5:05 I hear a gunshot nearby from the north..... "hmmmm.... that has to be from the land" I have to think... I wait there until after dark and see nothing. After dark I pack up my stuff and head back to the land. It is a decent walk back to the gravel pit, and a short drive back to the land from there. It is well dark before I get back.
When I get there, no one is around. I assume they are gutting/tracking a deer. I go out to the first blind and sure enough, my buddy is hanging out the window. "I got a big doe at the end of the field" he says confidently. "I shot her and she limped into the woods".
It had been maybe an hour since he shot by this time, and we decided to go find this deer now. I drove my truck to near where he said she was standing when he shot her and left the lights on the field so we could see. I grabbed a flashlight off my belt of gear that I left in the truck. About this time some of the other hunters came along and started looking with us.
One of the others was a kid of about 14 who is a little wild, but basically a good kid. He's gone through some tough times lately and being a part of this seemed like an important thing to him, so we were all glad to have him along, despite his being the least experienced and youngest hunter of our group.
We were finding NOTHING... No trace at all of this deer.... my friend stuck to his confirmation that he hit this deer (a good 200 yd + shot just at dark with a rifle he admitted he sighted in at 25 yds.... DOH!)... He is an experienced hunter, and I trusted his judgment about the shot as we ventured slightly deeper and deeper into the swamp south of the land trying to find any sign at all....
Every once in a while, the kid would holler "There's blood here", and we would pile over there to find.... nothing... and every once in a while "I can smell him"... *sheesh*... then where is 'he' kid? It's a wounded doe we're looking for...
We got out kind of far into the deep thicket of swamp brush and finally decided we needed to go back to the field and re-orient.... about this time, the kid hollers "he's right over here!!!" his headlamp bouncing through the brush as he runs towards our lights... "A big buck just snorted in my face!!" he hollers... we kind of dismiss this cause, well, he's been wrong every other time so far... lol...
We walk back out to the field and meet the others, the best light coming from my truck still idling with the lights on... We all start looking around again... just then my friends dog shows up... she must have heard us out there from the shack and run out to see what was going on... well, my friend tells me to put the dog in the truck, so I leave the window down and put her in there.
As we are walking around the dog leaps out the window and comes over to us.... then disappears into the woods... we keep looking until we are about to decide to leave and come back with better lights... then we hear the dog out in the woods barking.. knowing this to be odd my friend calls his dog back and eventually she comes... but she darts back off into the woods again, right through the thickest deepest brush in the swamp... obliged to at very least get the dog, and thinking shes on this deer, we follow in haste... keeping up with the dog is difficult with nothing but a headlamp in the thicket.. my friend keeps calling her back as we chase her and every once in a while she stops and waits just long enough for us to see her white tail jump off over the branches in the distance...
The dog runs right past the spots where the kid was saying he could smell the deer, and right past where he says it snorted in his face... DOH!!... eventually we catch up to the dog, and the big doe... pitch black, uptight dog, uptight large doe, one kid, two adults..... the doe has been gut shot and is having a hard time even standing, much less running any further... the dog is running around the doe barking and upsetting her even more... the does guts are hanging out past her knees… she couldn’t run any more if she wanted to… and she didn’t look like she wanted to anymore…
My friend gets his dog by the collar and tells me to shoot the deer...
ummmm.... I didn't bring a gun.... didn't you?.... no?.... he looks at me and says “I thought you carried that little .38 everywhere?”…. hmmmm... so did I… lol
The kid starts suggesting we cut the deers throat... which seems like a bad idea.... big does have large powerful legs with sharp hoves and sharp teeth... I would not put it past a wild animal to do anything in that situation....
My friend decides to go back and get a gun... good idea.... and take the kid and dog with him.... more good ideas.... leaving me alone in the dark with nothing but a headlamp in the wolf infested woods with a deer that smells like a fresh gut pile!!!... hmmmm... good idea???...
As soon as the dog, kid, lights, and noise were gone, the deer settled back down in front of me and lay down…. I sat down nearby with my headlamp on her and tried to be calm.. we settled in as I thought about wolves and she was just relieved that most of that was over…
I waited a long time… noticing that we were out pretty far… I couldn’t hear the guys in the field, couldn’t see any lights anywhere, couldn’t keep my mind off of hungry wolves….
Eventually I hear whistling, and whistle back…. Again and again until I can see lights coming through the woods… they get up to me… it is my friend and another of the adult hunters… they brought my .308 from the truck… at this point my friend says “You do got bullets don’t you?”…. ummmm…. Yeah, I do!!!
I put the deer down with one of them holding a light on her while I took a cranium shot. She kicked a few times and it was time to finish the gutting he started with the gun. 10 minutes later she is gutted and we are ready to drag….
Now is the time to mention that we hunt just miles north of a very large iron mine. The ferrous content of the soil is high enough that a compass is only ‘fairly accurate most of the time’. It’s really really dark out… stars are not an option under this kind of cover… My friend checks his compass and it indicates to him that we should head back in a direction 50-60 deg right of where they were coming from when I noticed them coming in with the lights… I tell him so… he is sure his compass is more right than I am and we head off dragging this large doe behind us through the thick…
After dragging for what seems forever we finally convince my friend that he might be wrong, but not that he is for sure… so he heads off into the woods content that he will find us after he finds the truck… he disappears for long enough that the other guy and I are discussing building a fire while we wait… my friend took my gun… again… wolves come to mind… fresh guts… unarmed fools… WHERE’S THAT .38 again??? Had I carried that we would have been out of the woods an hour ago or more... and I would have felt pretty safe the whole time.... *sigh*
A while later we hear the horn on the truck… then the headlights just barely through the woods… all the other guys had decided, "well, they got the deer and will be draging it back once he gets there with the gun"... so they shut off my truck, turned off the lights, and went back to the shack.... lol.... we drag this doe to the field and load her up…. She is a very large doe…
2 hours later we were eating some tasty grilled back straps and telling the story just as I told it to you here….
Man that was fun….. and that kid has a TRUE hunting story that NO ONE will believe... heck, I wouldn't if I hadn't been there.... what a ride...
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