Following my family

[Carolina_Mountain_Mustangs]

I have hunted all my life. I had a slingshot for my first weapon to hunt with. I bought my first rifle at age 10 and have hunted small an big game all my life. I am 70. This evening I was in a stand by my garage and I took a white tailed deer that will help feed me this winter. One shot and I have it hanging to take to the processor tomorrow. I had not shot the rifle for last 11 years. It was right on. We are allowed to take 7 deer so I hope to fill the freezer. I know some do not like hunting but my family always have lived by hunting. I carry this heritage on and hope more will follow.

 

[73pony]

+1 and congrats on the deer. Lots of them around here in Iowa. I try to do my part to keep down the over crowding.

 

[EdM]

Indeed. I will be heading out for whitetail in SW Kansas on Wednesday.

 

[donkost]

David- Feel free to come to PA and set up your deer stand. lol This state ranks near the top in the nation for deer-related auto accidents. State Farm reported 142,000 deer-related crashes for the most recent fiscal year. I guess that means the other car insurance companies are also handling many thousands of cases as well. My wife hit a deer here back in 2001, and I hit one in 2013. I always thought of myself as a driver with lightning reflexes, not going to happen to me. Nope, split second, damn doe jumped right into my driver's side front fender out of nowhere less than a mile from my house late at night. They must be a suicidal animal and they jump right into the headlights. Congrats on taking your deer and I hope you get six more!

 

[NOT A T5]

I'm more the kind of guy who likes to hunt the 2 legged kind of deer!

 

[turtle5353]

Monday was the first day of buck season here in PA. But with heavy rain showers all day in our area we only seen a few doe and couple small buck.  My son and I will be heading back out each night after he gets off the school bus this week and a whole day on Saturday.

Like you David, I have been hunting my whole life.  My son is 11 now and has been hunting since he was 8.  He even saved up money and bought his own .22 caliber pistol at age 9. We have a lot of fun going out hunting and shooting. Good luck to you in the rest of the season.

Heres a pic of the buck he got last year.

 

[Ed Raver]

Keep up the good work. Feed the family good grain fed protein. We have very few whitetail here in New Mexico so we have to hunt Elk, antelope, oryx, etc. Mule deer do not taste very good but I have eaten my share. Cool pictures !   Ed

 

[donkost]

Monday was the first day of buck season here in PA. But with heavy rain showers all day in our area we only seen a few doe and couple small buck.  My son and I will be heading back out each night after he gets off the school bus this week and a whole day on Saturday.

Like you David, I have been hunting my whole life.  My son is 11 now and has been hunting since he was 8.  He even saved up money and bought his own .22 caliber pistol at age 9. We have a lot of fun going out hunting and shooting. Good luck to you in the rest of the season.

That's awesome, and I am all for passing along that tradition.  I haven't hunted since I was a kid and went along with one of my uncles.  The same uncle used to also hunt bear with a .44 magnum handgun with scope attached.  lol  I was reading an article the other day regarding deer hunting in PA and related issues.  Why won't they add Sunday as a day for hunting?  Also I saw that people said more and more land is being posted for not hunting.  Is this just private property or public land that is being posted for whatever reason.  People were saying that the deer eventually realize they can run to these posted areas and they won't be shot at.  These are the same deer that jump toward oncoming headlights, so I don't know...  I'm all for anything that will thin out the herd.  These things aren't exactly like running into a rabbit when you hit them.

 

[72MustangSprint]

I took a deer with the front end of my tractor trailer a few years ago in PA, does that count ?

 

[turtle5353]

Monday was the first day of buck season here in PA. But with heavy rain showers all day in our area we only seen a few doe and couple small buck.  My son and I will be heading back out each night after he gets off the school bus this week and a whole day on Saturday.

Like you David, I have been hunting my whole life.  My son is 11 now and has been hunting since he was 8.  He even saved up money and bought his own .22 caliber pistol at age 9. We have a lot of fun going out hunting and shooting. Good luck to you in the rest of the season.

That's awesome, and I am all for passing along that tradition.  I haven't hunted since I was a kid and went along with one of my uncles.  The same uncle used to also hunt bear with a .44 magnum handgun with scope attached.  lol  I was reading an article the other day regarding deer hunting in PA and related issues.  Why won't they add Sunday as a day for hunting?  Also I saw that people said more and more land is being posted for not hunting.  Is this just private property or public land that is being posted for whatever reason.  People were saying that the deer eventually realize they can run to these posted areas and they won't be shot at.  These are the same deer that jump toward oncoming headlights, so I don't know...  I'm all for anything that will thin out the herd.  These things aren't exactly like running into a rabbit when you hit them.

Yes if you have ever lived in PA there's a good chance you have hit a deer or two in your lifetime.  No matter how careful you are, eventually your gonna get one with a vehicle. Its even worse for the guys on bikes in the summer! Definitely not like hitting a rabbit, but they sure do seem to breed like rabbits!!! My son and I went out after he got off the school bus last night around 4pm. We were only out till about 5:15pm, when it gets dark. We have a small 2 man ladder stand about 200 yards behind the house. In that hour or so we saw 13 doe.

I believe there is no Sunday hunting in PA just because its an old school state. PA is a commonwealth and its roots go back to the 13 original colonies. Sunday was a religious day and no hunting was done on Sunday, so they have kinda stuck with that mentality. I maybe mistaken but thats just my view on why there is no hunting on Sunday in PA.

As far as posted land...... YES ! Everyone seems to be posting their land these days. All the private land around is posted and you must have the land owners permission to hunt there. Back when I was a kid, it seemed like you could hunt anywhere. Now you need to be on a land lease or know someone with a lot of property. But the good thing is there is a lot of state game lands open free to the public to hunt on. Less than a mile down the road from my house there is a lot of gamelands to hunt, almost 10,000 acres. Here is a link to a map of the area around my place. I live in Whiskerville. https://www.pgc.pa.gov/HuntTrap/StateGameLands/Documents/SGL%20Maps/SGL__095.pdf   It does seem that the deer know where the posted land is that does not get hunted! LOL!!  But I believe its just the presence of a threat in the woods that they can feel and when they don't feel that danger anymore they stop, which is usually in the posted areas. Sure is frustrating to see a bunch of deer just on the other side of those yellow signs!! Anyways that's just my opinion on all this stuff!  Good luck to anyone out there trying to bag a buck!!! and BE SAFE!!

 

[midlife]

It's now Tourist Season here in Panama City, FL. Hunting is easy, but the meat is typically stringy and tastes too much of Canadian Bacon and beer for my taste...

Had a 200 pound pig wander through my back yard a couple of weeks ago early in the AM. Scared me to see a wild boar wander through a residential section. I told the neighbor about it, and he explained that it was probably Anna Mae, a pet pot-bellied pig that lives in the neighborhood. With all of the fencing being down due to the Hurricane, it was simply wandering around. Saw it again a few days later, wandering up and down the street. The wife fed it, as all of the contractors working in the area stopped and stared at the porker...

 

[Carolina_Mountain_Mustangs]

I missed our one doe day last Saturday, darn. There were 5 doe last night just at the end of my shop. I am only meat hunting would never mount another. Never got anything over 152" and that was in Montana.

I had not hunted here for a while. Had been going to Africa since it costs less to go there than to Montana or Wyoming. Most do not believe it but true. Hunting is what has saved the animals of Africa. The government was paying professional hunters to just go kill everything so the farmers could grow crops. Also were killing everything so they could have domestic animals. When hunting became popular and you had a way to get there some of the ranchers stopped killing the animals and actually restocked some that were gone. I have been to Africa 14 times, lol. Hey it costs me about $350 round trip using my air miles from American Express. The ranch I hunt on is small at 50 square miles. They use to grow veges and fruits but decided to put game animals back about 20 years ago. You have to high fence in order to be able to hunt year round. So a fence for 50 sq. miles is a huge cost. It is 12 feet high and several stands of high tensile wire.

So after a couple trips over the owner told me that he had never seen a foreign hunter that could hunt like me. He now lets me stay as long as I want and hunt all I want for free. I stayed over 4 months my last visit.

With going to China to work and building my garage I have not been in several years. I intend to go back this year. I work as a hunting guide on the ranch and know the entire 50 sq. miles. If someone in town wants an Impala I go out and take one and they butcher it and send it in. There were no impala when they started the game ranch and last helicopter census they did there was over 1,100. So hunting has saved millions of animals in Africa from extinction.

I think I have 8 animals in Africa that qualify for world record books. I enjoy spot and stalk and walk for miles and miles each day. Yes there are leopards, cobras, ticks and spiders but that is part of it. I tried to trap the leopard while there last but all our live cages were too small and it would get away.

I have hunted with everything from a .17 HMR to a .325 WSM and also .50 cal. muzzle loader.

I just put a new pair of boots, for Charles the owner, in the mail this week. Was $86.00 for less than 7 lbs.. I also have him a new SS muzzle loader with scope and all the goodies I will leave with him next visit. You do not have to check in a muzzle loader so I can leave it.

If anyone is interested in going to Africa I do have an LLC for travel to Africa and can make all the arrangements and do it for much less than the outfitters online.

So Africa is why I did not hunt the U.S. for so long but my license is only $2.00 now because I am old, lol. 

The kudu you see me with in this video slide show would be the current # 1 if I had taken with the muzzle loader. But by chance I had my .300 Win. Mag. so it is only #25 for rifle. That is bigger than Jim Shockey has ever taken. This is the Eastern Cape kudu which is a different sub species to like Namibia.

People that go usually do two weeks or more one week for touring and visits to game parks and then a week of hunting.

I do not have the current price lists but usually around $350 / day for lodging, food, hunting guide and trackers all in. The animals are a cost / animal a kudu from $1,000 - $1,200 depending on size. Impala $350, warthog $350. There are over thirty species you can hunt.

The best time is June, July and August their winter but you can hunt year round. No license, no limits, no season. I have seen it snow there so not hot like middle of Africa.

I have taken clients to the Okavango Delta and Kalahari Desert. They are expensive to get to due to having to contract bush planes and expensive once there.

You will notice I use several different rifles in the pics. I usually take three. Small caliber for taking pests, muzzle loader and then a center fire rifle.

So here is a link to video slide show, DO NOT WATCH IF HUNTING OFFENDS YOU.

https://animoto.com/play/L40EMEeI7fu6zP5bj2ylcQ

Cheers

 

[turtle5353]

That's a pretty cool slideshow David! I have hunted in Montana, but that about as far as I have ever gone. I have family out there. My uncle has one of the largest Mountain lions in the state.  He is a guide for mountain lion hunts and has his own breed of dogs for hunting. Pretty cool.

Also last night after school my son was able to bag a nice 9 point with a 14" spread.  Pretty nice buck for an 11 year old kid.  We were probably 150-200 yards behind our house. Saw 4 doe in the first 15 minutes or so, then this buck stepped out.  He was in a lot of brush and my son had to wait for him to clear the brush to get a good shot. Took about 10 minutes for the buck to come into a clearing where we had a good shot. He was starting to walk pretty fast, so I told my son as soon as he clears those trees, shoot. The buck came into the opening and I whistled at him and he stopped dead in his tracks exactly where we needed him to stop. Kolton squeezed off 1 shot and dropped him. I was pretty proud of him. Had patience to wait the buck out, not take a poor obstructed shot, calmed himself and kept his nerves at bay, and put on a great shot. I have had more fun hunting with him the last three years then I ever had my whole life hunting myself. And I don't even carry a gun. Anyways here's a couple pics from his hunt last night. Sorry for the low light but it was getting dark quick. 

 

[Carolina_Mountain_Mustangs]

That's a pretty cool slideshow David! I have hunted in Montana, but that about as far as I have ever gone. I have family out there. My uncle has one of the largest Mountain lions in the state.  He is a guide for mountain lion hunts and has his own breed of dogs for hunting. Pretty cool.

Also last night after school my son was able to bag a nice 9 point with a 14" spread.  Pretty nice buck for an 11 year old kid.  We were probably 150-200 yards behind our house. Saw 4 doe in the first 15 minutes or so, then this buck stepped out.  He was in a lot of brush and my son had to wait for him to clear the brush to get a good shot. Took about 10 minutes for the buck to come into a clearing where we had a good shot. He was starting to walk pretty fast, so I told my son as soon as he clears those trees, shoot. The buck came into the opening and I whistled at him and he stopped dead in his tracks exactly where we needed him to stop. Kolton squeezed off 1 shot and dropped him. I was pretty proud of him. Had patience to wait the buck out, not take a poor obstructed shot, calmed himself and kept his nerves at bay, and put on a great shot. I have had more fun hunting with him the last three years then I ever had my whole life hunting myself. And I don't even carry a gun. Anyways here's a couple pics from his hunt last night. Sorry for the low light but it was getting dark quick. 

That is fantastic. Great that you are teaching him to be responsible. Wish the deer were bigger here but they can go out and eat anytime here no really cold bitter winters. They have put the elk back and are doing very good but no season yet.

One of my uncles took the last known native elk in North Carolina in the area now called Banner Elk. The family moved to NC in the early 1800's from Virginia because the game had ran out there. Hunting was part of everyone's life back then.

I have taken my son to Africa twice and took my oldest granddaughter also. She took three animals that would qualify for the world record books. We both shot a trophy bushbuck on her 18 th. birthday. She now lives in Michigan. Will have to see if she has anything yet. I taught her how to shoot and went with her on her first deer hunt. Spotted a buck right off and had to wait until shooting time and she took with one shot. I have video of it. She could not even move it, lol. When we dressed it the deer had two complete livers. She was working for a vet at the time and she took pictures and he said he had never heard of any animal having two of any vital organs. It grew up under tower power lines maybe caused it.

I forgot to mention. When I hunted in Montana it was up the North Fork of the Flathead River beside Glacier National Park. Got to know an old timer there Tom Ladenburg, he has sadly passed. He had thousands of acres of land there that he got for simply paying the taxes on it. Once timber cut was worthless, lol. I have another fried that had cabin there and his cabin and one acre sold for over one million in the 1980's. Anyway Tom always invited us to his home for sundowners and he had this mountan lion pelt hanging over the rail upstairs. He and his wife had been to town and got home got out of the truck and was heading into his cabin. A lion came running out and was going to attack them. His dog jumped on the lion and he opened the cabin door and reached in grabbed rifle sitting right there and shot it dead. He shot it in the head and as you know that is how they score them. As far as I know Teddy Roosevelt has the worlds record. So he did keep the skull and the university of Montana glued it back together and it was the largest ever measured but cannot be scored due to not being in one piece. The teeth were worn blunt it was so old and was killing dogs and calves at the cabins.

I was sneaking out a logging road one day and heard stick break in the forest. I eased over to the side and then the mountain lion roared. Hair stood up on neck, lol. I backed up for a mile, lol. I was with another guy but he had sat to watch clear cut that morning. The cat had walked up behind him and watched him tracks in the snow. It had a print every bit as big as an African lion and had two little ones with it. We hunted a different area that afternoon.

 

[turtle5353]

Just another update. The neighbor got a really nice buck only few hundred yards from where my son shot his.  So there's still a few big buck running behind our house!!

 

[donkost]

Wow, look at the rack on that one! I haven't said that for quite a while. LOL Can you imagine walking around with those on your head? Good to see there are a few less deer to hit on the roadways. Also of course congrats to the hunters. Had to drive to Hershey PA Tuesday for our son's Autism specialist appointment, and I was sitting in the passenger seat of the Navigator so I noticed several deer by the side of the road that had been hit very recently. There is some very scenic farmland on the way with big silos and those classic views. Also passed by a team of Amish men putting a new roof on a house.

 

[Carolina_Mountain_Mustangs]

Kevin,

I wish they got that big here. We do not have the minerals to generate big horn growth. I put salt licks out but does not seem to help. You cannot even have pheasants here not enough minerals for them to make egg shells.

I did score again on this past Monday another small buck a 6 point. My neighbor came over and he says there is one three times that size the he sees outside his kitchen window. So I am out of buck tags and the doe tags are only good in the eastern part of N.C. and not going to travel.

We are due to get a heavy snow over the weekend so a friend is coming over to hunt some. He spent a chunk and went to Montana and in two weeks of hunting just above Yellowstone only saw two does so came back empty.

Here are a few pictures, not anything to brag about, but I never did like to eat horns, lol. I have cut the other one up and will let this one hang 7-10 days if weather stays cold.

I hope the bear shows up that the neighbor has pictures of it is a really nice one.

I took out a shoulder on the last one so I shot farther back through both lungs to save the meat. It went about 150 yards down to the creek. The cart you see in the pictures was one of  my inventions back in the 80's. While hunting in Montana one year a friend shot a heavy deer couple miles from the vehicle. With all the down lodge pole pines you could not drag it so we cut a pole and carried it out. A couple days later my right arm went numb. Went to the Dr. when I got home and the pole had cut the median never in my neck. My arm and hand was numb for over a year while the nerve regenerated.

I decided I needed to come up with a better way to get deer / game out of the woods. I was tool & die maker then so I built a die to flatten and shape the handles where they met the wheel. Made several prototypes and tried them and settled in on this size and style. We tried two wheels but going around our steep hills would not work. Also tried a larger version with one wheel but too difficult to get through the woods.

I went to a patent attorney and he did a search and there had been patents issued as far back as in the 1800's for similar carts. There was nothing to patent and he advised there was heavy liability if I sold them. His logic was that it would be at a camp and some kid might be giving another kid a ride and tip him into a camp fire and they would sue me of course. So I never marketed it. I did make 30 of them and they sold quick. People that use it do not want to give it back, lol. I did take one to Africa also and worked great there. It breaks down to less than 10 lbs. and fits in a suitcase. Has been used in Montana, S.C., Georgia, Canada, Africa. I make a much heavier basket for the center but this one did not have but still works without it. It is also great for getting wood back to camp.

The handles on each end allow someone on the other end to help lift over logs. If you are alone you back up to the log and pull it over. The 20" mountain bike tire is one that is reinforced and the tube is on of those filled with green slime so no flats. You carry no weight just balance the cart.

I also weld a wire loop to the big flat washer where the wheel axle is. This allows a strap to be hooked on and someone can be in front pulling. By pulling on the axle it does not tip the cart. If you try to pull on the cart it turns over.

One of the patents the attorney came back with had a hand brake like a bicycle uses. That will not work when you put the brake on wheel stops and the cart frame rotates and turns over. Some people just do not think. I did make another prototype that I still have that had legs in the rear like a wheelbarrow. You could drag them going down a steep hill. It was a complicated bend to make the two legs that crossed in the back so I dropped that.

They make similar versions now with a motorcycle wheel and it is a gurney used for back woods rescue of injured people.

I was always building something. My boss told me I was constructively lazy, lol.















aluminum chloride cas

 

[73pony]

Nice Buck David. And that is one heck of a crafty invention.