Good evening Suz...0530 comes early you know...

I don't sleep well, I've been wakin up around 4am anyway. I can make some coffee to go and some snacks.....I dunno tho...my stomach...I may not go.

You tellin me, I should get to bed? Probly right...



nightynight
Suz

Ok went out this AM, no rain, no wind, no deer. I climbed all over that hill in every direction, sitting, spotting, nothin. At least I didn't get rained on. Forgot to take my pills this morning too, now my heart is fibrillating, gotta take an asprin, just in case....I'm not going to tell you the words I have for myself right now. I could eat a horse too......."Jon!!.....Get me a horse!!" (sorry Bushy, no offense intended)

Suz

LOL.

Suz got my deer at 12pm today. I wish you good luck and then some.

take care.

Oh Omini!!! Good for you!! Photos please!

Maybe I shoulda stayed out later....I left about 10:30...was too worn out tho, all that climbing.
Still haven't gotten the weather they were predicting.

Suz

Well done Omni...as Suz said ...a pic or two would be great...make us all jealous.

Suz...tired...go chew a few nails mate....seriously, have your iron levels checked...Tricia (She Who Must Be Obeyed) has low iron levels and it makes her tired.

Cheers, Vince

Ho-Leeeeee Crap, it was cold and wet here! Leaves are still on the trees so it was rough going. There were as few of deer as I've ever seen. Except for 100x worse weather, it was nearly a repeat of my smokepole hunt as far as number of deer we saw.

I finally spotted a small group of deer with a buck about 2 miles off with the spotting scope, told my wife "ok so I think they are going to cross this canyon, go over that ridge, continue that trail over yonder, up past that ravine" etc etc. I told her to hike down the ridge we were on 800 yards away to a landmark and wait there. She did ... waited maybe 20 minutes and no lie, that buck came along and walked within 50 ft of her. Sadly she couldnt see it due to being on the wrong side of a bunch of oak brush, it finally heard her and busted out of there. She was bummed.

Shortly thereafter we got a massive downpour. Nothing was moving that that point so we called it and came back home and dry out. I have a camo-goretex jacket that kept my top half dry but from the belt down I was soaked. Tossed most of my clothes in the dryer for an hour.

The storm picked up dropping snow 2,000ft elevation above where we were. The cloud layer came right down to the valley floor so I wasnt sure if we were even going to go out again in the evening as visibility got down to 100ft.

It sortof broke for a short time so we headed back up, soon as we got the ATVs unloaded and headed up the trail the rain picked back up, and down came the clouds again. Visibility was around 100 yards if that. It was gloomy and rather spooky I'll admit. Being already on the mountain, with less than 2 hours till shooting time ended, we slowly putted around and road hunted.

Finally with less than 20 min of light remaining, the clouds broke up again (its rather amazing how fast clouds can come in, then disappear) so we rode down to some meadows that usually have deer in the evenings. Right as we got to the end of the last meadow, we came around a corner and a small buck was standing there with some does. Wife was able to get out her 30-06 and kill it.

A good friend of hers passed away a few hours before, so she was happy to end the hunt on the first day so she can help out her friends family. So, its all good... and I get to sleep in tomorrow.


-DallanC

Suzanne wrote:

Maybe I shoulda stayed out later....I left about 10:30...was too worn out tho, all that climbing.

More glassing less climbing!

Quote::

Still haven't gotten the weather they were predicting. Suz

I think we are getting it all. Putting my snowplow blade on my ATV tomorrow


-DallanC

Dallan wrote:

She did ... waited maybe 20 minutes and no lie, that buck came along and walked within 50 ft of her. Sadly she couldnt see it due to being on the wrong side of a bunch of oak brush, it finally heard her and busted out of there. She was bummed.

How unlucky is that mate. Sorta reminds me of my level of luck lately...if it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any.

Good to hear that she finally filled her tag though, and its a good feeling knowing what she did with the meat too. Please pass on my commiserations to her and her friend's family mate.

Cheers, Vince

Vince wrote:

How unlucky is that mate. Sorta reminds me of my level of luck lately...if it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any.

Hahah no kidding. I'm watching through the spotting scope and they are both in the same field of view. I told my boy after the buck ran off "it was a TERRIFIC plan!" I absolutely nailed it in predicting where that buck would move to... just from my vantage point in telling her where to go sit, I couldnt see her view was obscured. Ah well.

Quote::

Please pass on my commiserations to her and her friend's family mate. Cheers, Vince

Will do, thanks.


-DallanC

Do you carry any sort of communications gear Dallan? When my mate and I hunt, we both carry a small handheld UHF radio. They have a range of about 5km max (line of sight) and it is a great way to keep in contact. Might be worth considering as you could have told her to move to the appropriate vantage point. Or if nothing else, tell her to "duck" so you could tap him.

Cheers, Vince

Vince wrote:

Do you carry any sort of communications gear Dallan? When my mate and I hunt, we both carry a small handheld UHF radio. They have a range of about 5km max (line of sight) and it is a great way to keep in contact. Might be worth considering as you could have told her to move to the appropriate vantage point. Or if nothing else, tell her to "duck" so you could tap him. Cheers, Vince

Hey Vince, here's a quote from the 2010/2011 Iowa hunting regulations.

"Use of CB or Mobile Transmitter
You cannot use a two-way mobile radio trans-
mitter to communicate the location or direction of
game or furbearing animals, or to coordinate the
movement of other hunters."


It would be nice to be able to use 2 way radios, I don't know how it is in other states.

That's a bit of a bugger.

The primary purpose for our carrying them is safety...but of course we also pass on info of what is about where we are at any given time. If one of us was to hurt or injury oneself, then we have a method of contacting the other. Where we hunt there is no mobile phone coverage, so they are out of the question for a safety device.

Cheers, Vince

Guys yer suppose to be hunting. Not engaging and defeating the "enemy"...

As Vince said...For safety only, but not for game location or tactics...

I could be wrong, but I believe most states prohibit the use of radio, or any other tele-communications for anything other then safety.

Already 5 pages and still Suz didn't get her shot
Bad method or the wrong spot?
Better come over, here this morming while dovehunting, suddenly a (young) roebuck stood there at about 20 m, right between our plastic decoys. Don't know where it came from. So maybe it's a good trick to put some plastic doves in the field, deer might come over to have a look...
maybe I should check my vocabulary, I might have send the wrong prayer to our St. Hubertus or maybe his GPS has problems and he put that buck at the wrong place.
But better not lose hope, sometimes you get results in hunting after 5 minutes, other times after 5 days or even weeks... still don't know what gives most satisfaction afterwards...