New Mineral Plot Tore UP!!!

So I have been experimenting with mineral plots since the beginning of last season. As you may have already read last season was my first season ever. I had mixed results none of any were great. I did salt blocks beside corn piles and such. The ones near where a I knew they traveled always turned out better than just putting them where I thought they may travel at some point in time. They all had activity though. I know this time of year deer are seeking as much minerals as they can intake so I decided to do a new in a new location on the opposite end of the property than I had put them last season. This was in my last entry to my blog. I found a trail I knew they have been traveling due to me actually seeing them travel at the end of last season and a few times this year.

      I went to a somewhat remote area of the trail that runs along the barbed wire fence that separates our property from the neighbors property. I made my way about 15 feet off of the whitetail trail. I then cleared a spot about 6 feet round and cleared off the leaves with my boot to expose the dirt. I took my left over Deer co-Cane and hand spread it dry over the exposed soil. Once I had covered it white I then took the remainder o fit and sprinkled it from the mineral plot out to the whitetail trail. Then I left.

      I went out Monday and Tuesday and checked it. It had been untouched at this point. Wed I didn't have time to go check it. This takes us to Thursday afternoon around 7:30. I decided to take one of my sons out on a three wheeler ride. We ended up checking the mineral plot and good lord it was tore slap up. There were hoof prints and hoof scrapes everywhere. I was so excited I almost crapped myself. I took my son back to the house and ran back out the door with the camera. I took a bunch of pictures but they turned out bad door to the lack of lighting and the flash working against me. I took pictures of the plot Friday and when I looked closer I noticed there had been more activity there again. I went out today and once again more scrapes and hoof prints.

       I am changing the recipe to an old one that I heard about. It is salt and KoolAid. You are supposed to use one pack of KoolAid mix per pound of salt. I plan on putting out the mix tomorrow. I will continue to do this throughout the year and keep everyone posted on the progress as the year goes by.

        I don't have any trail cameras due to lack of funds to purchase even one cheap one right now. I hope to be able to buy at least one so I can keep up with the deer on our property.  I kind of enjoy seeing the evidence of whitetail without actually seeing them. It keeps me guessing and trying new things. If anyone who reads this has any suggestions on this subject feel free to suggest. I am always up for trying new things. Even if they have minimal results, it is still fun to experiment.

        Until next time, get out and enjoy nature and these great lands our God gave us to enjoy.

Not an average morning in the woods.

I know I started this blog to talk and share about my whitetail hunting but, when its not whitetail season I still have a natural feeling need to be in the woods. So I decided since I have two turkey tags to fill I would try my hand at hunting them. I am a bow hunter at heart but, still enjoy shooting a rifle or shot gun every now and then. After all, I did harvest both deer with a powder fueled lead projectile. One with a 30-30 and the other with a 12 gage slug without a scope. Hit him twice. One at seventy five yards and the second shot running at 125 yards. Yes it was with a ball sight only. I do have pictures of both holes on the deer. Anyways, enough of the bragging. This morning was my third time out hunting the ever elusive gobbler. We have not had the best of weather for them. From what my research has touch me, they love warm sunny weather. We had that opening day but, its been awful Saturday mornings since then.

       This morning was not much different then last Saturday. Rain all night then stopped just in time to get out before day break. Last week it started raining again about an hour into the hunt and the tornado force winds started in. So that was the end of that magical hunt. Yes there was a touch of sarcasm in that last statement. I had a bad feeling about how the hunt was going to turn out before I even made it to the hunting spot. For starters I felt like crap when I woke up at 5:15am. since I didn't feel like walking the 3/4 mile hike down to the hunting area, I decided to take the old 3 wheeler instead of walking. The starter has been acting up so I didn't even hit the button. I grabbed the rope and pulled. Normally this thing starts first pull no problem. Not this wet miserable and out of the ordinarily cold morning. It was 48 degrees normal for this time of year here is around 60 in the morning. I pulled three times and on the third it kicked back and liked to have ripped my arm off. This wasn't a good start. determined I was not walking I choked it with half of my finger tip numb and pulled three more times. Nothing. Finally I tried the starter. It turned over but was dragging. I turned the light off and it finally hit. It started and then shut right off. Dang it!!! I tried again and it finally started.  I got down to the first pasture fence witch is a barbed wire gate opened it, drove the three wheeler through it and realized my contacts were still in there case on my bathroom counter. Oh well, just going with out them. At this point I was almost ready to head back to my worm bed with my fiancée. I made my way down to the next gate and it went fine. I was finally there. I turned off the three wheeler, turned on my head lamp and made my way to my chosen tree. Luckily this morning the rain did not start back. It just did not clear out when the sun came up. I was positioned against a tree on the edge of the opening where we had seen them and had them calling back opening day. When I refer to we it was my brother and me. This was my first hunt without him. I sat and called for about an hour with nothing answering back except a few crows that were out of range of the 20 gage. I finally gave up and headed out on the ATV trail back through the woods. 

        I went about a 1/4 mile when twenty five yards and out of the woods came my hunting passion!!! A huge whitetail. It and I use that term due to the bucks not having there antlers right now I couldn't tell if it was a buck or doe not to mention the lack of vision from me forgetting to put in my contacts. down the trail he jogged right around the next bend in the trail and out of sight. That sighting right there more than made up for not seeing the old Tom this morning. My hunt was a bust but my morning wasn't. I have a stand set up so I can start trying to catch some of these beautiful creatures on camera. I don't use trail cams at this pint in time. Partially due to my unemployment and full time schooling I don't have the funds. I do have a camera and I intend on getting some shots on digital format during this off season.  

        I decided to give it a try. I haven't set in this stand since I hung it and I could tell I hung it before the trees started getting green on the. My view was awful. I sat there for a good fourty five minutes o so and remembered I still have not started a mineral plot for the deer to find and use throughout this year. I thought why not now. This is the perfect opportunity to go grab the bag of Deer Co cane and set out in search of a good deer trail to apply it near. After retrieving it from the storage building I headed out to where I have my spring food plot. Once there something, maybe instincts, told me not here. I headed over to an area that I had considered hanging a stand later this year. I hadn't hunted this spot or even been there since middle of bow season last year. I had saw signs of deer travel at that time but, just never took the chance and hunted it. 

        A brief description of this area is in order. It is  on the outside edge of the property. There is a barbed wire fence that runs along the edge of the property. Our neighbors have a huge corn field that the deer are constantly dragging ears of corn from and eating it along the edge of the thicket area that is full of pines and cedars. There is a grown up ATV path that they travel to and from the cornfield between the fence and edge of the thicket. as I made my way down this path I started finding old rubs from last year here and there. I crossed the creek and as I did I saw a nice whitetail trail that was way more used than I remembered it being. I found three more old rubs in about a twenty yard span. This was it. there are plenty of trees to hang a stand also. I moved about twenty feet off the trail cleared the leaves to expose the dirt and spread out the Deer Co cane. I know you are supposed to mix it with water but with the rain we have gotten the ground is super moist and we are supposed to get more next week. I then sprinkled a light trail from the new mineral plot on out to the mane trail. I hope this works. 

       This morning was not a normal morning in the woods and at first it was not that great of a time but with a little thought and effort it turned into one of the most enjoyable times in the woods to date this year. I guess it goes to show when it all seems to be going wrong, something small could trigger your mind to rethink and take action to make the situation  into something  more enjoyable. I think as humans we should try to do this more often. Not just in a hunt gone bad but in any situation that does not turn out as we would like it too. 

        Until next time, get out and enjoy some time in nature and remember, Just because it doesn't turn out as planned doesn't mean it wasn't a good thing. 

Me!!

I guess I should start with who I am, where I am from, where I am now and why I wanted to start a blog. I am a 32 year old male Industrial Engineering major that did not grow up in a hunting family. I grew up with my dad shooting guns and reloading. We would often sit in the kitchen with his portable work bench. I would clean and resize the shells and he would let me press the primers into the shells. He would then measure out the powder. Then he would allow me to put the shells in the die and press in the lead. My favorite cartridge to reload was the 30-30. It was also my favorite to shoot at the range. This was the gun I used to harvest my first whitetail. My favorite hand gun was his Ruger .359.  Oh yes at the age of six he let me shoot it and I was hooked. We went to the local range a few times a year to discharge those shells we had worked so hard to reload. Then it was collect the brass and continue the process. As I grew older the reloading sessions became fewer and farther apart. So did the trips to the range. By the time I was sixteen I had a new interest. Yes I was a normal red blooded American boy and the elusive female was on my mind.

Dad and myself have talked about going to the range and he has reloaded a few shells here and there since. The only shooting I have done up until last August of 2010 was a little shooting at some cans with my .380 and a six month stent of shooting clays every weekend.

I have always loved the outdoors but, growing up in the city I was limited on my woods time. I grew up in a neighborhood where there were very little woods and I did not know anyone growing up that hunted. I did however discover bass fishing in a few local ponds when I was around nineteen. My long time best friend Kevin bought a little bass tracker ten foot pond boat and I had the Ford Ranger to haul it in. We fished like we were training for a pro tournament every day after work, every Saturday morning and any holidays we had off from work. It was great. We fished so much the boat started falling apart. It was great. We did this for a good three springs that I remember. These are memories I will never forget and will be able to tell my sons about them one day. Even if we never caught a fish or can't remember any of the fish we caught the time we spent together was well worth it.

As we grew older we both stopped fishing. Only fishing in ponds I found here and there but, it was never the same. I soon found my way to the asphalt. Taking on the open roads on sportbikes and triple digit speeds. this lasted about eight years. Then my son was born and I stopped riding so I would be around to raise him. After four wrecks and numerous close calls with death, it seamed no so important when he was born. I had a bike at the time he was born and due to his birth and other reasons I care not to discuss on here I sold it.

This brings me to last year. I met my now fiancée and moved out to her families property. Total it is a 200 acre track that is a combination of woods and cow pasture. Something I didn't mention is I have brothers that are twins that are six years younger than I am and started hunting when they were sixteen. They had asked me to hunt but, the opportunity never lined up just right to find myself in the woods with them. I had no interest in hunting anything except squirrel until last season.

I was out in the woods checking things out one day and came across signs of deer. I started seeing tracks on the ATV trails here and there. I soon found myself becoming more and more intrigued by the things I was finding. Then I saw one up close and personal. By that I mean about 50 yards out. I fell in love. It was such a beautiful creature and for some reason I had a strong desire to kill it. I have no idea where this primal desire came from but, I liked it. I soon found myself talking to my brothers about hunting. What to do, where to be, and when the season started.

By this time it was a few weeks from deer season. Late August. We started putting out corn, salt blocks and peanut butter. It didn't take long for the deer to start consuming all of it. I soon found out from family that this property had not been hunted in twenty five years. I picked up one of my brothers bows and was hitting center consistently out to twenty five yards within a half hour. I practice more before season started and borrowed a bow to start out with. I am now a pretty decent shot with a bow and plan on only hunting with a bow this coming season. I will only use a rifle if I go 3/4 of the season and harvest nothing.

As I learned to shoot a bow, Archery became another passion of mine. I enjoy it so much Jess and I opened an outdoor field archery range Named Stick N String Archery Range. I am now fortunate enough to be able to nock and release between 200-500 shots a week. If you would like to check out pics of our range we can be found on Facebook. here is the link for the business page. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stick-N-String-Archery-Range/128804750523861

Opening day. Both of my brothers were here. I was hunting a ground blind. One brother in a ladder stand and the other in a climber stand. My fiancée and I were in the blind together. Let me describe my blind. It was homemade and probably not ideal or great at all even. I went out and bought some rope and camo burlap from the good old Wally world. I found a group of three trees that were in kind of in a triangle shape wrapped the rope around it and zip tied the burlap to it. I know, not the most ideal way to make a deer blind but, I did not want to spend the money on a stand if I ended up hating hunting.  I put out corn a few weeks before. The alarm went off at 5:00am. Jess and I got a scent free shower, put on scent free deodorant, pulled out scent free washed camo, sprayed down with scent killer, put on our headlamps and headed out to our chosen places of wooded paradise. As we sat fighting off harpooning mosquitoes for a little over an hour the sun started to rise. I felt sure we would see nothing. It was around 7:30am and out of nowhere we heard this snorting blowing sound!!!! turned our heads and there were three whitetails waiving as they took off!!! WOW!! Adrenalin rush!!! We had no shot but it was awesome.

That day I became a deer hunter. By definition I believe a hunter is a person who enjoys continually learning about their quarry. Never knowing enough and never being satisfied with the knowledge they have gained and only wanting to understand more. I had what I believed to be a decent first season with a doe and a buck under my belt.

I will do another post later to tell about both deer I harvested and the hunts in detail. I also plan to fill everyone in on detailed blogs about last season and catch everyone up on activities I do to prepare for the upcoming season.

I wanted to start this blog more for me to share my maturing hunting experiences with others who may find it interesting to follow a new hunter in his adventures. I am not a professional writer nor do I ever think I will become one. Hopefully I will have the writing skills to translate my blog and make it interesting enough with stories and things I am doing to keep your interest. I love to hunt now and I think it will be interesting for others to enjoy my stories.