Deer Camp - Rambling

Plans for yesterday fell apart. Wife informed me of other commitments so had to scrap the Evans. trip. Picked up some updated topo maps yesterday of local hiking trails and public hunting land including roadways. The area that I used to hunt has become orange saturated the last few years so I'm on the lookout for a good deer camp locale. I have permission to hunt some private land but it's not really ideal for what I'm looking to do. Kinda picky anymore about who I'm setting up deer camp with. Nothing personal at all with certain fellow hunters I know but I don't drink, I'm not there to get away from the wife and kids and it's not totally about the "big buck" with me. I love the experience. From scouting the area and planning the trip to setting up camp and time spent around a good fire with good friends. Then there's the actual hunt. I like to be in the woods well before sunup. This allows me to get settled in and for things to quiet down a bit and to get my eyes and ears adjusted. I prefer to ease in and stalk out of the woods but a lot of fellas just stomp right to their stand (or ride their 4xSomething) and for them the hunt starts when they're sitting in their stand, which usually happens well after sunup. I get quite a few deer drove my way by hunters entering the woods late so can't say it's such a bad thing.

Since I've mentioned tree stands I should say that I don't use one all the time. I like to set up under a fallen tree or any natural concealment. I'll build me up a little shelter with broken limbs and debris and make myself real cozy. If I hunt this spot enough I'll build it up a little more each time I use it. I'm not against tree stands, I have a climber and we had quite a few permanent stands on my inlaws former property. Not sure if I mentioned before but 105 acres with a newly built hunters cabin, all surrounded by gov't land were sold during the divorce of my mother and father inlaw. Kick myself daily for not finding a way to hold on to that property. Anyway, guess I like to mix it up a bit when deer hunting. Really enjoy stalking but it kinda depends on the area and the amount of orange in that area.

Probably should mention, if somebody were to stumble across my blog and this post, which is doubtful because my blog seems awful boring so far but if they did one might say something like "you can't be building little shelter type stuff while deer hunting, the deer'll notice any change in their environment" or "what about the noise you'll make doing that" or "you have a much better view from a tree stand" Remember, it's all about the experience for me. What and how I enjoy it. Maybe not the same for someone else but I'll say this, back when I started hunting I took it serious for the most part but that was a different time in my life when I was pretty wild and there were times when I got drunk in a tree stand, passed out, woke up and pee'd all over the place then shot a six point buck that was running with three other buck before I got my zipper up. I've crapped all over myself, undressed and tried to clean myself off with the remaining part of my soiled longhandles and tried to bury it all in the freezing snow and shot a doe an hour later that almost walked right into me. I've set against a tree eating a candy bar making all kinda noise with the wrapper and a bunch of doe's came up behind me peaking around the tree to see what the racket was I guess, boom meat in the freezer! Not saying this because I'm Mr. Longstocking and definitely not trying to make myself sound stupid. I just think that deer have become accustomed to human smell and sound so unless your hunting in a remote area or for survival purposes or your looking for a specific experience like myself I say to each his own. Go with the 4xSomething, crap on yourself, whatever. My goal is to get my boys in the woods. Teach them to scout, hunt, track, shoot and field dress their kill. Many other things to teach them about hunting and being in the woods.

Starting to ramble and lose my train of thought. Hard to keep track of where I'm at using cell. Have to keep scrolling up and re-reading to keep thoughts in order. I've mentioned this before, my cell won't let me save to edit so I have to publish then go back and edit. This is a pain and so far I have done very little editing. Would be nice to save and work on as I have time. Hope to get this figured out at some point...rambling again.

Live it all -