Hunting the Phantom- Blacktail Deer

Ok, that didn't work...

2010-08-26T18:50:00.001-07:00

I went out to the shed today where the 3D deer is. Well, the plastic expanded and popped the duct tape off in a single piece. With the visqueen hanging out it kinda looked like the deer's guts were spilling out. A little odd to see when I walked into a poorly lit shed. I will probably try again with less plastic. Given how much stopping power it had before, I can probably like with a little more arrow penetration. I'll update again after the next repair.

Archery Targets

2010-08-22T22:43:00.000-07:00

I am cheap. Despite my overindulgence in buying hunting equipment, I would really rather not spend anything on whatever I want to do. Case in point- archery targets. I've purchased a block-style target from Sportsman's Warehouse and a Legend Deer from my local archery shop. But neither was really suitable for field points because the foam held on to the arrow too tightly, and neither stood up to broadheads for very long.
I needed a backstop for these targets (because I'm in a suburban area) and it couldn't be too rough on the arrows, while still being able to stop them (65# compound). I made a frame out of 2x4s and draped old carpet over the frame. This gives 4 layers of carpet with a 4 by 5 foot window to shoot into. If I miss completely most arrows with field points will only go in as deep as the fletching. The trick is to not miss.

So what to do about field-point-friendly targets? The local shop sold a burlap sack with the image of an animal printed on it. The theory is that you stuff the sack with loose plastic and shoot away. Guess what- you can stuff a lot of things with loose plastic and shoot arrows at them.

I tried this first with cat litter bags. They're basically a plastic burlap, and they're free with the purchase of my cats' litter. I turned one inside out, stuffed it with plastic bags from the grocery store, stomped on it to compress the grocery bags and then stuffed in some more. Duct tape keeps these closed pretty well. They don't work at all for broadheads, but they do a remarkable job of stopping field tips. Plus, when the outer bag is used up (and it will be) the bags can be reused in another bag. If they get too wet, the inner bags get funky and are reusable, but kind of gross. Leaving them in the weather makes them brittle. Pieces of blue painter's tape make great targeting spots.

Since the proof of concept worked, I thought I would try to repair my 3D buck's vitals area. They're super hard to find, and expensive ($50) when I could find them. But- brown duct tape is available from Amazon. I taped over the back of the vitals' opening, making several layers to help keep the plastic from poking through. Then I laid the target on the ground, stuffed the opening with clear visqueen, stomped on that and stuffed in more. I think I ended up making five layers over the front. The brown isn't perfect, but it doesn't look too kludged, either. It was getting dark, but I put the deer in front of the backstop and gave it a shot. The arrow only penetrated 3". I am very pleased with my work, and repairs are super easy with more layers of tape.

If you try this, or come up with your own variation, let me know how it works for you.

Uncle Ted....

2010-08-18T14:47:00.000-07:00

This was on today's Yahoo news feed. I'm not generally a big fan of the Nuge, but I give him complete credit for being upstanding about his error, admitting that it was his error in not knowing the regs, and paying his fine. Maybe next time he'll go feral pig hunting so he can get an animal with some meat on its bones (and fat to grind with his venison sausages).

Ted Nugent takes responsibility for deer baiting
1 hr 16 mins ago
MARYSVILLE, Calif. – Ted Nugent says he should have been better informed about California game laws after pleading no contest to misdemeanor charges of deer-baiting.

Nugent said on his website Wednesday that he takes full responsibility for the hunting incident televised on a February episode of his Outdoor Channel hunting show.

California game wardens watching the show saw Nugent kill an immature buck during the hunt in Northern California. Investigators found that the deer had been eating bait before being killed.

Baiting wildlife is illegal in California.

Nugent pleaded no contest last week to baiting the deer and not having a properly signed hunting tag. A Yuba County Superior Court judge ordered Nugent to pay a $1,750 fine.

A little different

2009-04-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

I've been considering squirrel hunting this past week. Seems easy enough- they're basically a pest and they're everywhere. Before you go calling your local PD to have me arrested, I'm not talking about going to a local park and opening fire. These would be woodland critters- freerange, organic woodland critters. I've been looking up recipes and have even come up with a suitable culinary term "Aquerne," the olde English term for the buggers.
Of course, I can claim that I'm doing my part to reduce the population of an animal that has successfully ousted the local squirrels. But mostly it's because I'm curious what they taste like and there's a trend in Europe (the U,K. anyway) toward serving them in restaurants. Learning to skin and tan the hides will be good experience, too.
I think I'll bring the old WZ-48 22lr rifle and give it a test- I'll leave the scoped 10/22 in the cabinet for now.

Financial considerations

2009-02-17T18:38:00.000-08:00

The wife and I have been considering buying a 1/4 or 1/2 beef. The good news is that all of the local places I've looked at online claim to only grass feed the cows, they're processed locally and we'd have an inkling of what's in the meat we'd be eating. The most expensive has been $4 per pound and they claim their halves are about 300-350 pounds (place "A"). The least expensive has been about $2.65 per pound, plus 53 cents per pound for butchering and their halves are closer to 250 pounds, as I recall (place "B"). All weights are "hanging weight," which means you lose about 25% of that weight during the butchering process.
So that's $800-$1400 for a half of a cow, ranging from 188 to 262 pounds of meat, making the actual per pound price $4.26 (place "B") to 5.34 (place "A"). Of course, every half cow has its own cost and the cost will likely increase each time we buy.

Let's compare to my hunting adventures. I've figured that I've spent about $2100 so far on equipment and licenses. Yes, I went overboard and I certainly could have done it cheaper (especially in terms of hunting clothes- that's a later entry). But it is what it is. Let's say that I down a 150# blacktail. Estimates of loss are at 50% of pre-field-dressed weight. so that's 75# of butchered meat, a skin for tanning and I'm sure I can have whtever bones and sinews I want (I'd keep the head for the skull and horns). But sticking just to the meat, my first deer would cost $28 per pound. Each deer thereafer is approximately exponentially cheaper per pound: $14, $7, $3.50, $1.75, 88cents.... I'm heartened by the math! If I keep my gear for 18 years like my hunting buddy, and if I get soemthing each year, the meat is practically free in 10 years. There's maintenance to the bow (string replacement every other year, silencers, etc) and arrows (but I have over a dozen that are suitable for hunting) and broadheads (half dozen plus replacement blades in store) to consider and they are what make the reduction in cost each year "almost" exponential. Oh and butchering is around 75 cents a pound at the place that's nearest me, so that should be figured in so as to make as direct a comparison as possible.

Snow- ugh!

2009-01-05T21:13:00.000-08:00

Well, it's looking like the snow isn't going to be good for the deer populations. I picked a helluva year to start hunting. Nothing to do but wait until September, I suppose.

I need to call WDFW to submit my "hunting" report- I wonder what they'll ask.
Edit- hey, I did it online AND I got a bonus entry into the deer special hunts for this year. Maybe I'll get a chance to traipse through some unfamiliar territory and then come home empty handed :)

Not about deer...

2008-12-22T15:08:00.000-08:00

Last month I got a great idea... since it's illegal in WA to use full metal jacket (FMJ) ammo I needed to find something that was affordable enough to practice with but also suitable for hunting. The 203gr Silver Bear ammo isn't expensive but it's 203 grain- the closest I have for practice is 182gr Bulgarian milsurp.

Enter Midway USA. I had talked about reloading earlier this year when I was really, really into guns and their gadgets. With that in mind I ordered a basic Lee loading press (the 40th anniversary pack that included the reloading manual), a bullet puller, the loading dies for 7.62x54R and 300 Speer 150gr soft point spitzer point Japanese 303 (.311) bullets. Phew! That's a lot of jargon.

I read the manual while waiting for a ferry on the night before opening day of late season. That's a LOT of info, but frankly it's mostly how great the Lee company is and the history of their products. It's also fairly intimidating- you can see where the company is coming from.
I put the press in the closet with my hunting stuff- I won't be doing any 'yote hunting this year so I don't need any soft points. Plus I need to figure out which of my Mosins is most accurate.

Speaking of which, I went with the .311 bullets because when I slugged the bores of my rifles, only the Finn's were at .310. The worst was the M44 at .314. So I thought I'd split the difference and go up .001" to help fill that gap. When I took the new Finn to the range it was as inaccurate as any of the others until about shot 10. I think they need some fouling to fill in the grooves to help with stabilizing the pressures in the barrel. The Bulgy milsurp is actually .3105 so I wasn't doing myself that much of a favor (but every little bit helps, I suppose).

This morning I decided that I needed to do something. I'm tired of reading, video games make me feel like I'm wasting too much time (plus they make me loopy when I go to do something else), there's nothing on TV but I'm out of propane so I can't forge anything (it's been snowing and I think there's at least 6" of snow out there- Artemis (my car) wouldn't make it to the gas station and back). Reloading it is.

The only issue I had was that I needed a crescent wrench to lock the dies in place and even then there was a little movement. The Forster collet bullet puller pulled the bullets like a charm. It needed less than a 1/4 turn to lock onto the bullet and then to release it. The Lee bullet loading die inserted the bullets like a charm and the instructions with the Lee dies gave me good info about the minimum bullet lengths. I measured against the Bulgy for comparison- five of them had a 0.0035" variance. Mine had about 0.0015" variance.

I didn't load my own powder or seat my own primers because I don't have any brass that's reloadable. I could make a hydraulic piston to press out the Berdan primers but then I can't find Berdan primers to replace them. But overall I'm pretty proud of the steps I took and I hope to go to the range before the end of the year to give them a test.

Deer 5- dude at range 0

2008-12-11T14:50:00.000-08:00

Well, it's not just me. I went to try my new Finn M39 today (I've had it for at least two weeks but haven't had a chance to get to the range). Since the cease-fires were being measured in glacial epochs I got to talking to the guy next to me, Dave Something. He was shooting a 6.5mm and a 30-40 Krag to prep for a hunting trip in Texas. That 30-40 is 109 years old and put five out of five in the black- even his "flier" was in the black!
So he was telling me about how he's been hunting in WA for at least the last twenty years and every year he's come home successful- and apparently without much effort... except for the last two years. Last year and this he didn't see any real sign, no deer and obviously came home empty handed. That's part of why he's heading to TX to a ranch that his uncle owns, or his uncle's friend owns or some such. Something about 60% die off a couple years ago during winter... I sincerely hope it gets better for all of us who aren't spending just one weekend out in the woods.

Back to the Finn... it was spectacular! Once I put about 10 rounds through its shiny bore it started to ... dare I say... group! It actually started to put rounds in the black. That's good news because it's tiring to go to the range and shoot and shoot and shoot but have the rounds going all over the place. I slugged the bores for the other 4 and the other Finn is at .310. I assume this is the same. The worst of the other Mosins is at .314! I'm not sure what to do about that but I'm hoping that using .311 bullets and not cleaning all of the fouling out will help. Of course, they need to be cleaned each time because the Berdan primers are corrosive, but I won't go so far as to use the JB Bore Cleaner until all the rifinling is shiny and the patches come out clean. Apparently a little fouling is good.

Deer 4- Kris and Nick, 0

2008-11-30T01:22:00.001-08:00

Well, I went to my brother's (and sis-in-law's) place in Wenatchee for Thanksgiving. We got up at 5:30 Friday morning to head out to the Swakane GMU. I had to wait for Nick to get out of the shower because there were no towels to be found in the house... dude took twenty minutes! Then I took a quick shower and changed into several layers, anticipating some chilly eastern WA weather. I wasn't disappointed as we stepped into sub 30 degrees with a wind out of the north.

The night before, we printed some maps so that we wouldn't get lost and Nick assured me that he knew right where we were going. Long story short, Magellan got us on the wrong side of the river and about 20 miles out of our way. Neither of us were at all familiar with the area and I drove about 5 MPH until a guy in a minivan tried to drive up my bumper. When we found the official trailhead we got out because we weren't sure if we could drive in any farther. Well, a couple of trucks driving past bolstered our courage and I made sure I had my use permit in the glove box before we started down the road.

The area wasn't quite as busy as it was made out to be by a few folks online. There were several people there before we arrived but it wasn't exactly shoulder to shoulder. What no one bothered to say was that the entire unit is practically vertical. There are a few areas that are low but for the most part it was the kind of "rolling hills" that you see dirtbikes and 4x4's climbing. We got out in one spot that looked promising but were stymied by elevation and altitude- I'm not used to climbing, and I'm even less used to climbing at any sort of altitude. I was completely winded withing 100 yards of the vehicle. We went about 50 yards at a time and got to a point where it looked impassable.

On the way back to the car we took a little detour looking for sign. I don't know if a deer skeleton officially qualifies as "sign" but at least we know deer are in the area. We didn't hang out too long looking at it because it was underneath a rocky overhang and I didn't want to be cat chow.

We drove the same direction out as we did coming in. It's a one lane road with infrequent turnouts and most of the traffic was going the same direction we were. Along the way we saw the "sweet spots" that had been spoken for by the RV campers and the guys with the large canvas tents and their woodburning stoves. I can't say for sure that they were successful, but the areas the campers were in looked a lot better for hiking around than the places we'd found to pull over and spot-n-stalk.

I was (am) disappointed, not gonna lie. It's discouraging to get out of a warm bed, to leave the wife that early in the morning, to step into uncomfortable nature, to do all that driving to not even SEE a live deer- again. I don't plan to get back out this year, which is again disappointing but there's next year and plenty of folks don't get anything or even see anything each year. I may get out one more time but I don't know when that might be.

Deer 3- Kris 0

2008-11-24T23:30:00.000-08:00

They say if a hunter manages to be successful in the first FIVE years you have an addict. I'm really hoping we'll find out if that's true.

I started this blog to, well, journal my experiences as a hunter in the northwest. Quick background: I wasn't into hunting until this year. When I thought about hunting previously I always thought the only "fair" hunting would be to use a bow. Now that I've been out there a few times, I'm not sure that napalm is unsporting. In all seriousness my mom was the only parent in the house and she was very anti weapon of any kind and the way my brother and I argued and fought, I really can't blame her. Plus we weren't exactly rich. I recall that my brother wanted to go on a snow camping trip with his scouting troop and she begged and borrowed nearly every piece of clothing and equipment that he used. We saw firsthand how expensive some of this stuff can be. So, there wasn't really a budget for good boots and clothes that would stand up to being in the elements while keeping yours truly warm and happy. I do recall her saying a few time "ick!" when the subject of hunting was brought up and even now she's reluctant to have the topic brought up. As a result of her anti-hunting stance I was also anti-hunting, anti-guns, etc. because I didn't have any other exposure AND to bring up the topics would have just caused a (another...) fight between me and mom. Though I knew a couple of guys in high school who hunted I sort of felt kinda guilty by associating with them.

I can't really say what changed my mind. Maybe it was to explore the unknown, to find out some truth for myself. So this year I bought my first gun. Mostly just to have one around to learn about them. I took beginner home gun safety, beginner rifle, beginner shotgun/trap shooting. I was hooked. I'm currently looking at the 6 rifles that don't fit in the gun cabinet.

Knowing very little about hunting, I bought a bow. I went to hunter education (it's mandatory for folks born after Jan 1, 1972 in Washington). I learned that being a bowhunter has a slightly smaller chance for success, but a MUCH smaller chance of being shot by a rifle hunter. My wife said that her dad told her when she was a kid that there were "too many drunk rednecks out in them woods with guns!" That didn't stop his hunting (and I'm not calling anyone a drunk redneck- that's just a quote). I'm a fan of hunter orange and I keep a vest in my pack, even when I know I'm the only person in the woods. I'm not a fan of the stories in the local media about "hunters" accidentally killing themselves or others during modern firearm. Don't get me wrong, in terms of sheer numbers of guys in the woods with guns, I'm sure the % chance of being injured or killed is extremely small.... but if it bleeds, it leads and the news media loves a good killing. As for my part in hunting, I know that it's because I want to be several more links up the food chain. I know that meat does not come in plastic wrapped styrofoam containers. But so far, that's the only way I've been able to get it. Heck, it was a big deal for me to learn how to cut up a whole chicken into fryer pieces.

So here's the year to date:
Sept 14/15- Went out in Unit 624 and saw one doe but she had moved over the hill I was on. My partner was too far away for a shot and he didn't actually see her, so whateryagonna do. We found a souple other sopts with lots of sign and we did some driving around looking for places to hike in. 67 mosquito bites on yours truly the first day. I was determined to investigate bug repellant.

Sept 27/28- this was an evening hunt followed by a morning hunt. Not a lot of time. I sat in one spot for a while and finally decided to get up and walk around. I spooked a fawn and followed her into the trees. She looked at me, cocked her head to the side and went back to eating... then she looked up and walked away real slow. I guess that's a success...

Nov 19- Late opener. I was in the field at 7AM- 10 minutes after open. I decided to look for sign and I found several bedding areas and even some fresh poo. I followed some trails looking for beds, but nothing. I stopped for lunch and to do soem homework and a guy came up to the trail at about 2. He says the spot is usually good, but he had a tree stand back in the deeper woods while I was doing some spot and stalk. He wasn't dragging outa deer when he left and I didn't hear a ruckus, but who knows.

Next stop: Eastern WA with my brother over Thanksgiving. It'll be muleys this time but I don't really care. I'm not eating "tag soup" my first year out. If I'm still not successful then I'll have to wait for school to be out, but then I'll be hunting around Christmas... we'll see how it goes.