My Daughter Filmed The Kill

Ok, so kids these days are all about the tech stuff, and I'll be the first to admit that my daughter will start looking for my IPhone after about an hour in the stand. When she does get it out she'll play a few games and then put it down; maybe 10 or 15 minutes of use and then she's bored with that too. I have noticed after a couple hunts that there are videos on my phone of various things of little consequence other than she is just playing with the phone. Today that all changed. The child filmed the kill!.... Let me backtrack for a moment and say that we hunted Thanksgiving morning. We saw three does and one was obviously larger than the others. It was a very nice hunt and we saw lots of birds and squirrels, but these deer when they did show up came in very fast. I was stuck sitting down in a two man stand that didn't afford the space to draw. It turned out nicely though in that the deer came in and fed right under us for about 15 minutes and were clueless to our presence. My daughter was thrilled with this. When I first started taking her hunting this season we saw a lot of deer and she was hooked, but for the last number of hunts we have seen nothing. Even for a person who loves hunting, seeing nothing get old after hours in the stand. Anyway knowing the area and how the deer are moving, I knew there was a good chance that these deer would be back the next morning. So what follows is the typical Thanksgiving day with too much food and too much wine. 10:00 pm that night and I'm thinking, ok, I'll set the alarm and if I get up, I get up. Now one thing about the morning of Thanksgiving was that we got up on time and were in the stand an hour before sunrise. The deer showed up an 1.5 hours after sunrise. When the alarm went off Friday morning, I laid there and rationalized that if the deer didn't show up till 8:45 yesterday, well, they won't be there at least until then today. I hit the snooze. Friday morning we walked in at sunrise, 7:15. Late by most hunting standards. This morning was also cold . Things had changed in the last 24 hours and this morning it was 35 degrees when we got in the stand. I didn't care about the deer at this point and I was glad that the sun was coming up, and I hadn't sat in the dark for an hour in the cold. Also, we both had worn our cold gear this morning and we were comfy. I was pretty confident that we would see those same deer again. That was the case. This time though they came into the opening from a different direction and were moving very cautiously with the smaller does well behind the larger doe. The day before they all came in together, and I couldn't have moved if I wanted too with so many eyes on us. Anyway, I've made it very clear to my daughter that if deer come in, I will stand up if possible to shoot and she needs to sit very still and play statue. Do not move child! About 9:30 I spot the deer, and they are coming in from a completely different direction. This time I am very happy to see the big doe moving fast while the other two are lingering in the woods. My daughter is to my left and the deer are coming in slightly to the right and in front. When I get up, she stays put just like I had asked her to. Interestingly, as the big doe moves in and comes from behind the big oak, I notice she seems a bit skittish  As she moves forward this remains the case, and as she reaches a white oak she stops and suddenly turns. I know the wind is in our face and she can't smell us, but she knows something is wrong. As she turns I draw. Everything happened very fast, and fortunately after she turned she stopped and stood there. How long she would have stayed didn't matter. As soon as I drew, she was in my sight. I knew the distance, went straight to the pin and released. It was a perfect shot, and I double lunged her. When I sat down my daughter was very excited and was telling me she got it all on film! What? You got it on film? The child had taken my IPhone and turned on the video recorder and filmed me shooting the deer. Suddenly the deer's behavior started to make sense and I realized what was going on. The whole time I'm standing doing the hunting thing, my daughter is sitting there with a phone doing the technology thing. She recorded the kill. I have never done this in all my years of hunting. I've made crazy shots with a bow and with a rifle and pistol, but I've never had them on film. Suddenly, without my realizing it my daughter had used her understanding of technology and given me a taste of my own hunt. I have watched that 59 seconds of video probably 50 times and I wouldn't have had it without my daughters initiative. Now we do have to have a discussion about how to act and move when deer are around. There is a learning curve with filming just as thee is with hunting and shooting and she needs to learn it, but she is begging to do it so it's allgood. Now she wants a video camera for Christmas. In the end it was a wonderful hunt. We fist bumped and she skipped and jumped and for the rest of the day had a big smile on her face. I'm pretty sure if someone had filmed me for the rest of the day, they would have seen a big smile on my face as well. Black Friday 2012 meant a great deal to my family. It didn't include great deals while shopping in town, but it included circumstances that created memories my daughter and I will remember for the rest of our lives. It was a wonderful hunt and a wonderful day. She was so happy and proud of herself for getting the kill on film, and I was very happy to put it all together for the first time with my daughter hunting with me. Also, I was crazy proud of her for trying something and being successful at it, even if it did almost scare off the deer. That deer may have busted us, but when it counted we bust her. Hunting and the outdoors were the medium for this experience and I couldn't imagine anything better..

Did A Little Exploring

I think in the last post I discussed a need to travel and get myself and Grayson, my 9 year old daughter into some new hunting areas. Since that time I have been researching the Redlands WMA area near my home and have done a little exploring there. Unfortunately the Redlands is not one contiguous area of land, but it does consist of 37000 acres that are broke up throughout the Oconee National Forest near Lake Oconee. I have done quite a bit of camping and fishing on the Oconee River that runs through the area, but have done very little hunting; mainly squirrel. Last weekend we decided to go down and explore a section of the area that may contain hogs. We started out across a flood plain and I quickly realized as I looked around that I had a very good chance of getting turned around and lost. Once away from the truck, everything in all directions looked the same, tall trees and privet. It was a flat flood plain with zero geographic features to use as guides. This being my daughters first exploring walk in the woods, I decided that I would be best served to find something else to do instead of getting potentially lost and scaring her. We only had a couple hours before dark. After making it back to the truck I looked at the topo map and decided to backtrack and ease in on a small creek valley and find a ridge to use a an overlook of the flood plane. Turned out we found a very nice spot under a large Beech tree and had a very nice evening hunt. This was also the first time this year I had a rifle, and knowing that I was lethal as far as I could see, I appreciated the new found extension beyond bow range. AS we walked in I explained to Grayson that she really needed to pay attention to the land and the feature we walked past and through so that she could have an understanding of where she was in relation to the truck. I went on the explain that she needed this information so that if something were to ever happen unexpected, she could get out of the woods on her own. She wasn't sure what to think about that scenario but we went on and I assured her that everything was ok, just always pay attention. After a beautiful evening we packed up and as we prepared to walk out I told her she was responsible for getting us back to the truck. She was a bit surprised, but pretty quickly turned around, assessed the area and started out. I stayed back a bit and offered her no clues. Anytime she stopped, I would turn and look in any direction opposite the way we needed to be going. I was very proud of her. She managed to cross two draws and then find the dry ravine we came in on. This is dark thirty and its damn near dark and she did not have a flashlight. The ravine we came in on was in heavy timber with a lot of undergrowth and it branched repeatedly. Only once did she follow a branch further than she should have but she realized it and backtracked to a crossing point and then kept going. After about 10 minutes we were standing in front of the truck in the dark. Hell, I was impressed. I've been in the woods with adults who couldn't have done that.
About 3 days later I went and explored another section of the WMA by myself. Nothing was killed, but I found some sections of old growth timber along a swamp that were just beautiful. I also found several Redheaded woodpeckers that are uncommon in this area. I've seen them so few times that I didn't know what I was hearing as I listened to them in the trees. When I finally got a bearing on them and looked at them through my scope I was blown away. Absolutely beautiful birds. Finding these birds made the walk worth wild, and I may go back there again just to show them to my family. Again on this trip I was looking for hog sign. All I found though was armadillo sign. Nasty little critters seem to have invaded the whole county in the last couple years. Tomorrow I plan on visiting another section of Redlands that lies on a different river basin that spills into Lake Oconee. In years past there has been word of hog over there so I am going to go see.

On another happy note, I killed a doe with my bow this morning and my daughter apparently filmed it with my Iphone. I'll do another post on that adventure though. It deserves more attention of it's own.

Time To Travel

Having a convenient area to hunt is a blessing, and this year I have taken full advantage of it. I can literally jump in my truck and drive 500 yards to where I park to walk in to my stands. It really doesn't get much better than that unless you live on your own land. The land owner is thrilled that I am hunting the property and is always curious about what I see and encouraging about getting at it and hunting more. He seems especially happy that I am taking my middle daughter with me to introduce her to the woods and the sport. When I stopped hunting 5 years ago I was on a piece of land owned by a close friend, and that property is still available to me. It is a beautiful piece of property I have hunted for over 20 years and have killed countless deer there. The itch to return is growing daily. I have also been offered the rights to hunt a small partial of land near my home that is only 25 acres. The kicker is there's an apple orchard on the property. I have never hunted this land, and the owner refers to the deer on it as different family groups, but he is insistent that so long as I bow hunt, I am welcome to kill whatever moves me. The hunt possibilities there seem to be ridiculously good. So with all this said, having somewhere that is safe, private and available to hunt has never been and is not a problem. My problem in recent years has been time. The old adage that time is money is true in so many ways beyond money. With a wonderful family and the kids begging to do stuff, my career, my personal interests and a lack of money, time truly becomes priceless. To run home, strip and dress, then be in the stand in 10 minutes is priceless, and that can also include getting the kids in the stand with me. I guess this quandary is boiling down to my hunting priorities. At the top of this list of priorities is spending time with my children. They are begging to go and the 9 year old has spent quite a few hours with me in the stand recently. I have completely enjoyed having her with me. Even when she doesn't quite sit as still as I would prefer I have to shrug it off because the time spent together is priceless. Sure, her wiggling may have gotten us busted, but watching her amazement as the deer blew and crashed through the woods was totally cool. A deer standing quietly munching on acorns doesn't give an impression of how big it is as it does when its stomping, blowing and crashing through the woods. All she could say was, Wow, that was a really big animal in there. I was of course thinking to myself "ya think?", but it didn't really matter in the big picture. A little later another small buck walked through, and she was perfectly still and enjoyed every second of it. She was very proud that she hadn't scared this deer. I assured her that the big one may have winded us so it wasn't her fault the first time; no big deal, just learn as we go, and you know, she has done a very good job since of monitoring her movements and not letting her clothing slide on the stand. Anyway, I digress. The point here is the value of time. Time is of the essence and  making the most of it is essential. I am starting to realize that convenience is not always the best option when hunting. This is of course something I have known, but maybe laziness, and also having actual limited time to hunt has caused my sedentary hunting.  I was speaking recently with a man about how things seem to have slowed a bit in the woods. When bow season opened back in September, I was covered up with deer. I was seeing 2-5 deer on every hunt. In the last couple weeks though they have changed patterns, and we are seeing nothing in the stand. Is this time well spent? Certainly it is for my daughter's introduction to the sport, but she too wants to see deer. How long will she be willing to sit silently while waiting on deer we are not going to see. One thing about moving the hunt other properties is the new potential for the hunt; always something new. There are new views, new wildlife, new patterns and sounds and of course new deer. I think that may be a ticket to keeping her interest, and also mine. With other properties out there to explore and take advantage of their resources, maybe it is time for me to take the path away from my convenience. I need to get out there and make the most of my, and my family's time on the hunt.  I need to go back and hunt the lands of my past and I need to explore the news lands available to me now. I need to pack up the kids and hit the road. I think it is time to travel.

Screwed By The Time Change

Who has unlimited amounts of time to hunt? I don't, and this time change thing has really made it frustratingly clear. Sunset is 5:30? Really? I don't get off work until 3:30. Add picking up kids from school, meetings after work etc, I'm looking at a mad dash across two counties to get to the spot where I need to be. Finding that spot will now at best only afford me maybe an hour or hour and a half of shooting light. To rub salt in the wound, now sunrise is an hour earlier! Christ, now I have to get up at 4:00am to get a bite and a cup of coffee to be in the stand before astronomical twilight. No worries though, I'll do it. And I'll drag my children out of the bed to be there with me. They may sleep for an hour in the stand, or be walking sleep deprived zombies, but they will be there. I know there have been legitimate reasons for the time change in the past, but I'm not really clear on why we are doing it today, especially during hunting system.

A Minimalist By Accident

As I watch the many hunting shows on television, and boy there are a lot of them these days, I'm constantly amazed by the amount of gear being carried into the woods. I can appreciate that there may be more to it than I realize. For instance the the guys may be sharing the load of carrying filming equipment etc, but I also regularly read blogs and posts where people go through the lists of what they have in there packs. Boys that's a lot to carry for 4-5 hours in a stand. I have been lucky in that I have never had to travel through hundreds of acres of public land to find a hunt spot. I have always hunted privately owned land. If always hunting public lands were the case, I am pretty sure I would have a different perspective on what I needed to survive if something did happen to me in the middle of no where. In fact I'm sure of it, but these guys are walking across a corn field to a stand that is a thousand yards from their truck at best, and they look like they have the gear for a two day hike. I will agree also that there is a lot to be said for preparedness. Be Prepared is the scout motto and it is something I have lived by for most of my adult life, but there seems to be a lot to be said for unpreparedness. It's kind of a Murphy's Law sort of thing, you know? If you have an umbrella with you it doesn't rain. Well, regarding the hunt, some of my best experiences in the field occurred when I showed up with no gloves, no knife, no flashlight and could only find one bullet under the passenger seat in my truck. Completely unprepared, yet hyper focused because there was no room for error. I heard a man once say that you should only go in the field in search of game on an empty stomach and hungry. That way you were focused on the task at hand and all of your senses were peaked, like an animal looking for its next meal. I think there is a lot to be said for that idea. As an adult, with a wife and three kids, I have to admit that I am more often than not better prepared than I used to be when I hunt. However, everything I carry fits in a small fanny pack with room to spare. A flashlight, my release, a pocket knife, rangefinder and my phone. That's all I have. During bow season I don't even bother taking binoculars. I figure if the deer is close enough to kill, I'll see what it is then. Any movement using the binos is just gonna get me busted by a deer I don't see. Everyone has their own formulas for success and comfort in the field. Maybe if I thought about it harder I may have more success, but so far things have been pretty damn good. Enjoy your time in the field and take whatever you feel you need. I would suggest though that sometimes you go into it with very little, the absolute minimum to get the job done, and discover how little you actually need.

Balance In Life

I feel like I should give a brief explanation to readers on where I am coming from with this new blog. My entire life has been spent running around in the woods. From the time I was allowed to go outside unattended, I have roamed and explored to the point of getting lost a couple times. I was however always confident that no matter how lost I was, nothing really bad could happen to me. I would eventually find my way back home or at least somewhere near by. At the worst, someone would find me! Creeks fascinated me with all the animals and plants that live in and around them. I've always loved rocks, and in the south, rivers and creeks are where you can find the greatest variety. The woods, full of there ridges and valleys, bright green in the spring and colorful leaves in the fall were where I wanted to stay. Cane poles were the norm for me and my friends. Skinny dipping in the summer and sliding on the ice hoping not to break through in the winter were pleasures I dearly miss. As we grew older we graduated to BB guns and then pellet rifles followed by .22s and shotguns. My grandmother use to come stay with us in the summer time, and it was my goal in the winter to have the freezer as full of squirrels as I could so when she came she could cook them up. She loved them and with her touch at the stove, so did I. As I grew older I spent a tremendous amount of time in the Boy Scouts, and I was blessed to have leaders who took us camping every month. What I learned in the outdoors during those years will stay with me forever. One thing among many things I learned was to cook on open fires. When I left home and had to start cooking for myself, cooking on a stove was ridiculously easy. Its amazing how creative a cook can be when they are in a kitchen with regulated heat and not on the their knees next to an open campfire. Anyway, all of this time in the outdoors growing up could only translate to a love of the outdoors as an adult. Through the later part of high school and during college the ranging grew wider and the hunting and fishing only better. As an adult I have had a passion for hunting and a love for fishing. I've been fortunate to have friends during these years who feel the same. Through jobs and wives and kids to name a few we have all stayed true to what we loved and remained committed to the hunt. That was all true for me until my Mom died. It was a very difficult period that was the result of Alzheimer's and the years leading up to her death were difficult. A couple months and a long night of food poisoning after her death, I realized that I had been coping with Mom's situation with ridiculous amounts of Wild Turkey and bad living. Upon returning home from a trip to hell I decided to make a change. First I'd go from two liters of bourbon a week to one. Later that would change over to wine and a shitload of salads for dinner. The road to personal redemption was laid. Later in the spring of that year I saw that the local Alzheimer's Association was hosting their first annual sprint triathlon. I now had a goal. I started walking and then running. This lead to cycling and swimming with a goal of kicking this triathlon things ass. In the end I did it and had a great time. I never participated in another after that day. I had reached the goal and saw no need to carry it further. What came out of that experience though was a love for road cycling, and no I'm not talking about riding a motorcycle. I'm talking about 15 pounds of carbon fiber between my legs with 23mm tires under me and just killing myself to go faster. This became an uncontrollable passion that lead me to forsake damn near everything in my life short of my job. 5 years passed and every year my hunting buddies would text and call wanting to know where the hell I was at. Every season came to pass and I was a no show. No fishing, no dove, no bow hunting for deer or the sweet smell of gunpowder after pulling the trigger. This all worked well and good for me though. I had made new friends and was immersed in a cycling culture that was very positive and driven by ridiculous amounts of testosterone.. At 45 years old I am in better shape than I have been since I was in my early teens. I can get on a bike and eat the lunch of most anyone in my area, including college kids, and I love it. There is a very strong and positive feeling of accomplishment here. My wife now cycles as well, and she is getting stronger with every ride, but she's a badass to begin with. It's something that we love to do together. The epiphany  for change came at some point several months ago as I was flipping around the television. I came across a show on the Sportsman's channel and the host of the show was discussing how important it was to share his love for the sport with his kids. While watching I reflected on a tremendous number of experiences in my life, some of it discussed above. I thought of my friends and our experiences growing up. I thought of my oldest daughter and how proud I was of her when she killed her first deer. I realized that I had to get this back! I've got a 9 year old and a 6 year old who are just begging to go do stuff with me, and that bike does not facilitate that. A boat does, and a tree stand does and I've got to go back there and get it going again. Balance! I've got to find balance between my newest passion of cycling and the passion that brought me through a tremendous number of life's trials. I've got to get back to the woods and take my kids with me. So here I am. My first deer killed was with a bow so I decided to go back to where I started and take up bow hunting. As with most things, when I do them I go all out. I visited the local bow shop and purchased a Mathews Helium and decked it out. I bought a couple dozen arrows, and had my hunting arrows and broad heads professionally tuned. I have probably shot my targets close to 3000 times in the last few months. I've drawn my bow on two deer, a doe and an 8 point and I've double lunged both. This bow hunting is every bit the blast I remembered. The biggest difference is the change in technology from a Bear Flare II to a Mathews Helium.  80% let off is just crazy! Also, I had never hunted with a release; amazing. Anyway, this blog will hopefully provide some insight over the next few months and years into my rediscovery of myself and a window into my daughters introduction to the great outdoors. Thanks for reading!