A Gun For Dinosaur

Only a few short days are left before the opening of spring turkey season in Goethe State Forest, and I was fortunate enough to get a limited entry permit for the first phase of hunting this year.  Even more fortunate, my old friend Charlie, the man who was pivotal in reintroducing me to hunting with my trips out to beautiful Catalina Island, is able to join me for a few days of scouting and hunting.  I'm really looking forward to seeing him, as well as the mental health boost that a few days of companionship in nature will afford me.  I've been super busy and stressed lately, dealing with massive renovations at home and a flood of activity at work (see the recent unfortunate events in Seffner, FL for the reason for this) and some nature time is exactly what I need.  A few meals of wild turkey would be pretty sweet too.

I realized this morning that I never covered the story my tentative attempts at turkey hunting last spring on this blog.  Not sure how I omitted that, but here it is in summary form:  After applying for and getting a turkey permit for Goethe II last season, I decided my old A5 wasn't going to cut it for turkey hunting and that I needed a new shotgun.  I have a form of OCD that really short-circuits my brain when decisions between closely equivalent things are concerned but after my usual agonizing protracted mental ordeal of choosing I decided on a Mossberg 835 turkey rig that was actually available at the local Wally-World.  Its a handy little pump action shotgun, I do like the feel of it. 

The 835 is chambered for 2 3/4 to 3 1/2 inch shells.  I'd never actually shot a 3 1/2 inch shell before, so I acquired a box of them when I went to SC on an early Spring visit with my family.  I test fired the shotgun at my brother's house, using it to blow vent holes in his new burn barrel (you laugh, but it's by far the easiest and most fun way to accomplish that goal).  Standing about 20 yards from the barrel I racked a 3 1/2 inch shell into the chamber, aimed and fired.  BAOOOM! went the 835.  SPANGGGGG! went the pellets against the barrel.  Back rocked the barrel.  Back rocked me!  When I got vertical again I looked over at my brother and uttered a very un-church-going string of words.  I would not like to shoot very many of those in row.

As far as the hunts go, I practiced with a basic box call until I sounded only like a slightly afflicted turkey.  To my utter amazement I managed to call up a tom late that first morning.  He appeared, of course, when I was taking a short break after holding my gun at the ready for hours.  I was almost frozen at the shock anyhow.  By the time I snapped out and started to raise the gun the tom had spotted me and turned turkey.  I'll never forget the extreme case of tunnel vision I had while my eyes were laser-locked on his Rudolph-red neck and head.  That got the heart pumping, let me tell you. That's as close as I got to roast wild turkey in 2012, although I heard a good bit of gobbling on my two subsequent attempts.

The current plan is to scout tomorrow and Friday afternoon and evening then hunt the weekend and possibly Monday morning as well.  Charlie has some experience hunting turkey in Cali, he's actually bagged a few so I'll be deferring to his seniority on this.  I got to go over on Sunday afternoon to do a little scouting, I have some areas in mind but I'm pretty flexible on it.  Wish us luck an all.

Florida Maple greening up on the pond.  Breath 'o spring and such.

BTW, the title of this post references both the fact that turkeys, and all birds, are descended from a branch of the dinosaur family tree and also the title of a short story by the science fiction author L. Sprague de Camp , which was adapted into a great episode of the classic Sci-Fi radio show X Minus One.

Gone Coastal: Coastal Prairie Trail, Everglades National Park

 

The Coastal Prairie Trail is a single-track pathway that strikes out westward from the D-loop of Flamingo Campground, Everglades National Park, generally adhering to the route of an old wagon road plied before the establishment of the park by hardy and optimistic people seeking to gain from the unforgiving wilderness.  The southernmost mainland foot trail in the United States, this pathway continues out over seven miles to Clubhouse Beach, a marly shorefront on Florida Bay peppered with mangroves and shell fragments and the site of a backcountry campsite with famed sunset and sunrise views.

This trail has haunted my list of unobtained Florida destinations for many years.  There it sits, a taunting dashed line on my maps, far, far away from my Gainesville home.  I had already failed one attempt at traversing its siren path, when in late December 2002 an ill-fated camping trip to the Everglades was cut substantially short.  Suffice it to say I spent that Christmas day on my couch, sipping codeine-laced syrup while attempting to survive pneumonia.  I didn't watch any comedies because laughing made it feel like something was about to tear loose in my right lung.  Ah, sweet memories.

It seems almost every winter since then I've tried to plan the several days and fourteen-hour total drive needed to walk this forlorn trail, but fates successfully disrupted in enterprising ways.  Alternators failed the evening before.  Ill-timed illnesses were contracted.  Mysterious winter storms caused plans to be cancelled.  Two years ago the husband's parents both suffered unrelated debilitating hip-related incidents at the same time that resulted in me being left to tend four dogs by myself for over a month.  Last year my own father's health problems intervened. 

This year, 2013, I put my foot down and said, no more, cruel fates!  I shall achieve this goal!  And lo and behold, I wasn't struck by lightening.  More importantly, things actually began to work out.  Beautiful weather was in the forecast, low humidity and very tolerable highs.  No last minute emergencies arose, either mechanical or medical.  And so, the first light of dawn of Friday morning found me rolling southward, the proverbial wind at my sails and anticipation in my heart.

Many hours later I set up my base camp at the front-country Long Pine Key campground, surrounded by the pine rockland habitat of the eastern Everglades.  As explained by a park ranger at the evening program, Long Pine Key is an isolated island of relative uplands surrounded by seasonally flooded marl prairie, cypress, and freshwater sloughs.  As the extreme southwest extension of the limestone ridge that lines the southeast coast of Florida, it represents the largest unaltered remnant of the South Florida slash pine forests that once flourished on the Miami ridge where high-rises, subdivision, and tomato fields now sprawl.  While not the favorite domainof the Florida panther, they definitely do utilize the habitat that surrounds the campground.  Later that night I enjoyed a bike ride along the paved park roads, gliding along in the bright moonlight while fantasizing about a panther sighting.

As the skies lightened the next morning I was up and driving southwest on the main park road towards Flamingo.  A glorious sunrise flashed across the sawgrass prairie, but I did not stop, for anticipation drove me ever forward.  By 7:30 I had reached the back of D-loop and stood slathering on sunscreen as I faced the trailhead signage for Coastal Prairie.  With one last check of my water supply and snacks, I grabbed my faithful walking stick and lit out into the West. 

Dried marl trail about 8:00 AM

I quickly realized just how well my luck was finally working for this trip.  The footpath consists of a thick layer of a material colloquially known as "marl" atop a limestone bedrock.  Marl is a somewhat antiquated term (yes, that's the geologist bleeding out) but essentially denotes a material that has substantial components of both calcium carbonate fines and siliciclastic silts and clays.  In practical terms, when this stuff is wet, its a fiercely slick mud and when its dry it does a good job of imitating concrete. I managed to arrive when it was closer to the concrete-like phase, so walking was good, but thousands upon thousands of hardened footprints, some several inches deep, were a constant reminder of the difficulty this trail would pose in the wet season. 

Bleached bones

I learned from the literature that the park had on hand that the coastal prairie itself is sort of a by-product of hurricane activity.  As the storm surge washes over the shore and the mangrove forest, it deposits layers of salty mud on these open areas, stifling all but the hardiest of plants.  At several sections of the trail, the sun-whitened skeleton forests gave mute testimony to past storms.

Trail through the buttonwood forest, fairly easy to imagine the old road here.

Although the trail does traverse substantial sections of coastal prairie, it also spends considerable time below the splotchy shade of forests of buttonwood (Conocarpus erectus), a close relative of the true mangroves.  I read that one way people attempted to make a living in this wilderness was preparing charcoal from buttonwood trees.  The forest itself in the dry season had a feel of places much farther west, and reminded me at times of the oak groves of the California coastal chaparral. 

Wild cotton (Gossypium hirsutum)

Along the trail I encountered a blooming example of another reason humans trekked into this harsh environment.  At first the the wild cotton plant, like it's domesticated descendants, was exploited for the fibers that surround its seeds.  According to a ranger, its said that the itinerant pickers planted as many seeds as they picked, looking towards job security.  Later, in the 1930's, the WPA sent teams of workers into the Everglades wilderness to eradicate wild cotton, as it was believed to constitute an agricultural threat to cultivated varieties.  The effort wasn't completely successful, but close enough.  Wild cotton is now extremely rare, and is classified as an endangered species in Florida.

Salt tolerant and not so salt tolerant.

The main ground covers of the coastal prairie are salt tolerant succulents such as glasswort and saltwort.  These also grew under the sunnier sections of buttonwood forest as well.

Cardinal airplant (Tillandsia fasciculata)

Like elsewhere in the Everglades, epiphytic bromeliads are common.  One of the largest, the Cardinal airplant, was in abundance.  It didn't seem to be the correct season for blooms, as the flower clusters were mostly gone to seed, but I did find a few fresh stalks. 

These plants don't take any sustenance from their tree hosts, as is evident in this photo of Cardinal's continuing to live on dead buttonwood.  According to a flyer published by Big Cypress National Preserve, just to the north of Everglades, in addition to deriving nutrients from insects and organic matter trapped in their leaf bases, these bromeliads also feed off of nitrogen compounds created by lightning.  I need to find more information about that for sure.

Red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle)

As the trail nears the last stretch of prairie before Clubhouse Beach, it crosses over Slagle Ditch, where a photogenic little colony of Red mangrove has encroached.  Somewhere near this point is the original location of the town of Flamingo.  I was actually unaware of this that day, or else I would have surely been bound to find the townsite, where old foundations are said to still be evident.

Not a single track.

Not far past Slagle Ditch the trail opens up considerably, following the muddy plain of the prairie.  Although quintessentially Floridian, this area also has a primal feel and would have looked equally at home with elephants and gazelles in the distance, or even a family group of sauropods with pterosaurs circling around.   The dried trackways were reminiscent of the lithified footprints of our distant ancestors that have been found in Africa, imprinted as they traversed a plain of fresh volcanic ash.

Finally, as I trudged along in sunlight that had become very bright and a tad warm, a sign appeared directing me to take a hard left towards the coast.  I willingly followed it's suggestion.

And Lo!  The goal was achieved!  More than a decade in the making, my journey to Clubhouse Beach was complete. 

A nearby Black mangrove offered a nice spot of shade on the short, coarse sand dune.  I laid out my blanket and took shelter under its boughs, where I sublimely devoured the tastiest peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich I've ever eaten.  I soon drifted off into a near-slumber, lulled by the whispering waves and occasional seabird. 

After about an hour I arose and wandered about investigating the vicinity:

The other side of my mangrove resting place

Muddy marl

Green sea turtle, I believe

More muddy marl

Lone black mangrove

In the end I had nearly two hours to myself on this lonesome strand, with just a few passing sport boats interrupting the sounds of nature.  I finally took one last good look around, packed up my gear, and started to backtrack.  The sun was not getting any cooler, and that peanut butter and jelly sandwich was already wearing thin.  I met a young couple just a hundred yards or so away, I told them I was giving the beach to them and headed back on the trail toward modern-day Flamingo.

P.S.  About a mile later I met two young Army guys with big backpacks.  I mean HUGE backpacks, gear and fishing rods and reels poking out everywhere.  Made my back sore just looking at them.  They said they were hiking to Cape Sable.  This isn't something you can do without bushwhacking many miles and swimming a canal.  Evidently they were aware of this and continued hiking west with their ginormous backpacks.  I was left again with my thoughts, wondering if I could ever manage what they were cheerfully setting out to do.  Definitely a thought for another day.

P.P.S  About another mile later I met a troop of Boy Scouts, being just as loud and unruly as you would expect a troop of boys to be.  I wished the two chaperones bringing up the rear good luck, they managed faint, slightly shell-shocked smiles.  

P.P.P.S  Even after this hike, the burger at the Buttonwood Cafe (actually a food trailer with a screened enclosure attached) in Flamingo was as bad as the service.  Meaning awful.  I highly recommend not eating there, ever.  They are working to rebuild the actual restaurant, which I remember being not so bad once upon a time.  Perhaps it will be again.  Until then, pack a picnic.  

Human track, panther track.  Same space, different times.

There Is No Easy Button

Sometimes, after opening day, when the heady wave of optimism that has picked you up and carried you from backyard anticipation to the wilds of the deer woods has broken on the shore of reality, revealing a sublime pattern of experiences etched on the sands of memory but leaving no meat in reality's belly, sometimes, a type of ennui sets in.  After the steamy mornings of archery, the too-fleeting days of limited entry permits and then the last-ditch out-of-state hunt, even though I'd had no success my drive to continue hunting had all but vanished.  I supposed the (real or imagined) futility of hunting public land that had been under pressure for months contributed greatly to this, but there was also an element of self doubt.  

A few days ago I was already reflecting upon how to tweak in any way the chain of events that may lead to actual blood on my hands next fall, before a repeat of the above could set in.  A certain large manufacturer of archery equipment posted a photo of a familiar red button that was also part of a certain large retail chain's marketing:  The Easy Button.  The question was posited:  Would you press it if you could?  If there was an easy way out in hunting, would you use it?

Many people's initial reactions were that there are already far too many easy buttons, either real or perceived.  Camouflage and stands to hide, sounds and scents to lure.  High fence operations, canned hunts galore.  And of course, the greatest irony from this company that was both founded by a great traditional archery master and still milk the mystique of his memory for all its worth, the popularity of these machines composed of cams and idlers and fiber-optic sight pins that are still called "bows".

Now let me freely admit, I'm not truly "primitive" myself.  My recurve is just as much a product of space-aged technology as the machine bows, all laminated wood and fiberglass.  But somewhere between the two styles something changes, at least to me.  Something that turns an experience that we can share with our ancient ancestors, of taking time to learn postures and techniques that, to some extent, have been shared with every human who has ever picked up a bow, into something far more modern.

But even so, I have spent considerable time thinking about modern machine bows, dreaming of an Easy Button (remember just then when I was talking about how to make next year bloodier?).  Hell, right before Christmas I went and test shot a new one at the above mentioned archery company.  It felt so odd contrasted with the reflexive style I've developed for myself.  I remember thinking, wait, you're supposed to find a deer, draw back with the release, pick a spot on it, figure out which pin to put on that spot, center it in the peep site, keep the bubble in the level centered, then pull the trigger on the release?  It seemed much harder to me, not easier.  Obviously tens if not hundreds of thousands of hunters pull this off every year to great effect, and the web abounds with testimonials of awesome groups at 40 yards the day of purchase.  I guess it all depends on your frame of reference.  The experience provided me enough mental whiplash to realized I'm happy with my current tackle, ennui or no.

I'm not meaning for this to be some blanket condemnation of the compound bow, far from it, not much about making venison with archery via fair chase is easy no matter which you choose.  Hitting a still target is nothing like hunting.  You have to find some way to get within "wolf range" of an animal who's senses (except maybe for color perception) blows ours out of the water.  And things change when you're that close.  The deer is no longer a brown blob but a living, breathing, moving animal, right there with you in the woods, interacting with the same environment that you are submerged in.  And that is primal no matter what.

So I got a set of six of these babies for myself for Christmas instead, new Gold Tip 3555's fletched with pink and white feathers, they weigh in at about 410 grains and fly super straight (no pun intended).  I know the color's not that unusual, pink has great visibility and Fred Eichler, a pretty well-known traditional archer, uses pink fletching too. However, I'd be lying if I said part of their appeal isn't because I feel just a tad subversive using them :)

Swamped! Santa Fe Swamp WEA

The 2012-2013 hunting season saw a significant increase in acreage for Santa Fe Swamp Wildlife and Environmental Area.  Santa Fe Swamp WEA is a dedicated primitive weapons area, starting with archery season in sept/oct then a short early muzzleloader season in October.  For almost all of November and December the area is open for archery or muzzleloader. 

Santa Fe Swamp is a challenging area.  Except for a small portion along it's far eastern boundary, no roads traverse it.  In a wet year, most of it is under water.  Widespread peaty soil makes walking treacherous.  Because of raging wildfires in previous years many of the standing trees are dead snags, pretty unsafe for a tree stand.  I'd only hunted it once before, and that afternoon essentially amounted to hiking the eastern roads with a gun at the ready.  I did have a chance to take a shot at a rabbit, but it would have meant shooting towards the nearby parking area so I passed it up. 

The new addition is to the west of the main parcel, connected to it by a ribbon of land that includes the headwaters of the Santa Fe River.  I'd heard it was largely under water early in the season but it had recently dried up some.  This past Saturday I went over to conduct what would amount to a mid-season scouting trip, but since the season was open I brought my gun just on the slim chance I got lucky and ran across a legal buck. 

Two new parking areas, one on either side of SR 325, were created to grant access to the new parcels.  I started with the western parking area, which was empty of vehicles.  Brush-hogged trails lead away from the truck to the west, branching around either side of a large basin swamp.  I chose the right hand trail, but it quickly became submerged so I attempted to follow game trails around the water.  It wasn't long before these became thicker than I cared to fight with so I backtracked and started down the left hand trail.
 

Dark and dreary afternoon in the swamp.

The left trail followed a marshy logging road for a short distance, running near the property boundary where "No Trespassing" signs were plentiful.  The road petered off into a game trail that passes through some drier areas with a few oaks, not bad deer habitat.  I was attempting to use my iPhone with Google Maps to make sure I stayed on the correct side of the property boundary.  This got a bit confusing at one point, with my phone saying one thing and the physical signs saying another.  

Clouds starting to break up over the Loblolly Pines and Loblolly Bays

I eventually made it mostly around the basin swamp, and came to a dense forest of loblolly pine and loblolly bays (btw, I think Gordonia is just fun to say).  I'm sure this forest is periodically flooded.  I had planned at that point to pick a place to hide and wait until sunset, but suddenly the mosquitoes, which had not been too bad, became a swarm.  I was without the ThermaCell.  After a moment of soul-searching I decided to just head back and briefly check out the other side of the road.

Saltbush releasing seed.

The other parking area was also empty.  Its next to a man-made pond that has a few date palms and the stumps of dense clumps of bamboo.  I guess it was at some point intended to be a home site to have been landscaped so. 
 

The dug pond, it was teaming with frogs and such.

The sun was about to dip below the tree line so I just headed off to the north with the idea of actually seeing the channel of the Santa Fe River, if it existed at this point.  I ended up climbing over downed and half-rotten cypress trees tossed like pick-up sticks before realizing this would be a shitty place to sprain an ankle and headed back to the truck.  I never found  a channel.

Somewhere near the channel, if there is one.

All in all it was much more of a bushwack hike than a hunting trip, but as I said this outing was more for exploring and scouting anyhow.  I only covered a very small portion of the addition, I want to go back on a colder day (if it ever gets cold) and try to push farther.  It should be drier in a couple of months also, by Spring turkey season more areas should be accessible without wading.

Adios, Santa Fe Swamp!  Hopefully we'll have some good days together in the future.

December Morning on the Gainesville-Hawthorne Trail

This post isn't related to hunting or cooking, but it is about a nice way to spend a morning. 

The Gainesville-Hawthorne State Trail is a prime example of the recreational amenities we have here in Alachua County.  The trail mostly follows the path of an old railroad that connected downtown Gainesville to the town of Hawthorne.   Several years ago the pathway was paved and is now utilized by a parade of bikers, skaters, runners and even horseback riders.  I do not personally frequent it much, being a solitary sort who enjoys unpaved trails where the chances of seeing other humans is slight.  However, a good friend of mine recently acquired a nice hybrid bike and I figured he needed to see the trial, which is definitely pretty beautiful.  I do have a decent bike, even though I don't use it that much, so I pulled it out and pumped up the tires for a Saturday jaunt.

Around 10:30 we pulled up in his Jeep at the Boulware Springs trailhead.  The spring, while not much in comparison to some of the other great springs in this state, was once vital to Gainesville since it supplied all the drinking water to the downtown area and the University of Florida.  In fact the story is that UF decided to settle in Gainesville after being promised free water into perpetuity from this reliable source.

Luckily we waited as late as we did for the morning to warm up because it turned out a half-marathon was wrapping up as we arrived.  Only a few stragglers were left on the trail, so that worked out pretty well.  We weren't planning to make it all the way to Hawthorne but our turn-around point was open-ended.  We took detours and biked on the spur trails out to Sweetwater and Prairie Lake overlooks, and took a short walk out on the Prairie Creek boardwalk, were we decided to turn back. 

Prairie Lake overlook.  Not much lake right now.

On the return trip we walked out as far as the end of the boardwalk at Alachua Sink where the usual gators and water birds were engaged in their iconic dealings. 

Unconcerned archosaurs, both crocodilian and avian.

We made it about 13 miles, which is nothing for a real road biker but not too bad for two guys who haven't even really been on a bike in ages.  My legs aren't sore but my butt cheeks are, bike saddles are difficult to adjust to for an ass that's used to being perched in a padded office chair all day.

That's all for now, hopefully more outdoor adventures to come.

His Noodly Appendage: Oriental-like Venison Noodle Soup

When I finished boning out the meat from the shoulder and ham my brother gave me, I realized I must make broth with the bones.  I used my BFC (Big F'ing Cleaver) to chop them into manageable bits and then proceeded to boil them down with onions, celery, carrots and bay leaf in a classic broth fashion.  After a few hours of simmering I strained off the liquid and let it sit on the stove-top overnight.  In the morning the fluid had clarified itself and I carefully decanted it off of the sediment and simmered it down for about a hour more.  I basically ended up with about 20 ounces of slightly salted juicy essence of venison that I chilled in the fridge for a couple of nights.

Before...

...During...

...After

I agonized a bit about what to do with this broth, but I'm feeling a general Asian kick right now after that delicious meal at Xaio Bao Biscuit so I quickly realized I needed to do some kind of venison noodle soup.  Ramen-esque if you would.  I actually did some reading about how to make ramen noodles from scratch but honestly for my first attempt I didn't even want to mess with it.  Instead I just picked up a pack of whole-grain linguini from Publix. I did go to one of our local Asian grocery stores to pick up a pack of miso paste and a package of mung bean sprouts.

I selected a packet of boned shoulder meat for this endeavor.  I spent some time cutting out the more obvious silverskin.  BTW, this was still partially frozen which really does make the meat easier to cube.

Out of the vacuum bag

Cubed about an inch on each side.  I love how dark red venison is.

I took the venison stock (which had actually gelled up nicely in the fridge overnight, very lovely) and combined it with about 32 ounces of water and slowly heated it to a simmer.  Meanwhile I went out to the garden and picked about the only thing I still have growing right now, a handful of young tender collard greens. 

So pretty!

I cut out the mid-rib and shredded the collard leaves into strips. 

I always use a knife to de-rib 6-8 leaves at a time, then just fold the leaves and slice.

I pulled out my trusty cast-iron pan.  I don't think I've written about this pan yet, it was just a run-of-the-mill find from the local flea market, but something about really spoke to me the first time I laid eyes on it.  I've tried other cast iron pans before, but without much success.  For whatever reason, this one is perfect and I've really become comfortable with it.  Hopefully it won't be going anywhere.

Starting to brown the venison.

I then attempted to brown the venison on each side over medium high heat.  I admit, I did get anxious and crowd the meat too much, so only the first side really browned correctly before the liquid rendered out and it really just sort of started stewing in its own juices.  Oh well.  After that was as good as it was getting I dumped the "browned" meat into the stock pot.  I put some more olive oil in the pan and stir fried the collards for a bit with a few cloves of diced garlic, just enough to make it change color and brown it slightly.  I deglazed the pan with a few large spoonfuls of the stock and re-added it to the pot as well.

Starting to simmer.

I poured in about a 8th cup of lower-sodium soy sauce and a few splashes of fish sauce.  I wasn't sure how much was correct so I was pretty conservative.  After simmering a few hours I went ahead and started boiling the pasta.  When the pasta was about ready I dumped the mung bean sprouts into the soup then turned the heat off.  I then took roughly a quarter cup of miso past and combined it with about two cups of warm water, stirring to mix the two.  When that was well mixed I combined it into the soup as well.  The result:

Tasty-looking.  It smelled pretty good at this point too.

 

Turns out I was a little off on the soy to my tastes, and of course I added a bit of sriracha sauce for heat.  I loved the flavor of this broth in general though, and the contrast of soft collard green and noodles with the crunchy mung bean sprout was awesome.

I remembered something from a few years ago as I was scooping up spoonfuls.  On some random hunting forum, couldn't tell you which, a typical thread about what a "big buck" is was rolling.  A short, concise response caught my eye "A doe eats better."   I expected this meat to be a bit gamey, and it definitely was.  A buck shot in the ass with buckshot after running from dogs is not going to be as tasty as a doe dropped in cold blood, I'm sure.  I can see I might as well forget trying to cut any steaks from the ham, as I did with the two Catalina does.  Oh well, there's plenty of recipes out there made to work with gamey, I'm sure I'll find a few.

Beggars can't be choosers, after all.

Thanksgiving, As In I'd Better Be Thankful I Was Given Something

Thanksgiving has come and gone and along with it our trip to South Carolina to visit my family and for me to engage in a few hunts.  We headed up Thursday morning and arrived in time for a great Thanksgiving dinner my sister-in-law prepared for us at my brother's house.  At the end of the afternoon I climbed into my hunting drag and my brother showed me the way to a tripod stand with two corn piles he's placed on some land he has permission to hunt.  Like a lot of things up there that's convoluted, the land belongs to my Dad's ex-woman friend's friend (it wasn't the most amicable break-up), but she seems to still get along with my brother well enough to let him continue to hunt there.

Yes, it is a Decepticon. 

 As anyone who reads this blog knows, sitting up in a more-or-less permanent tripod while staring at a pile of bait isn't my normal style of hunting.  It usually involves a lot more hiking in and out of public land with a backpack climber.  However, the season isn't getting any younger and beggars can't be choosers.  I sat that evening from about 4:15 until after after shooting light.  Just as things really settled down and I had a good feeling about it, at around 5 some kid drove up on a road just through the woods but out of sight and started calling for his dogs (the club on the land next door dog hunts).  I sincerely hope he found T.J. and Levi, because he sure wasn't helping me find anything.  I, of course, came back empty handed.

Is it possible that this could surprise any of you people? 

My brother wanted me go on to his club for a dog hunt with him Friday morning but I started feeling crappy after I got home Thursday evening and by Friday morning I really didn't feel like going out into freezing weather.  I stayed home and popped Advil and by noon I felt like going over to my Dad's and doing some work around the house for him.  When I pulled out the leaf blower the neighbor next door came over to discuss how dust was a primary reason for mildew growth on his pontoon boat.  He's a good friend of ours but he can be peculiar.

Friday evening was a repeat of Thursday, but without T.J. and Levi's owner.  When I climbed down this time I switched out the SD card in the trail cam pointed at the closest corn pile.  Back at my Brother's house I confirmed what I knew in my soul.  The previous week entire herds of deer had been swarming the piles in the warm autumn glow of sunset.  Then all activity ceased the week I was there.

Is it possible that this could surprise any of you people? 

Saturday I got up at the butt-crack of dawn and went out to Cousin George's farm, where he met me in the darkness and ushered me into a ladder stand he had placed in relatively thick woods, only about 20 yards from a corn pile.

I have to say I do love watching the world wake up this time of year.  Song birds were everywhere before dawn, yelling their lovely melodic obscenities at each other.  Fat squirrels swarmed the forest, jumping down to the corn and back into the surrounding hardwoods.  I sat there for over three hours, and I have to say it was some of the most peaceful time I've spent this year.

About 9:15 I decided to hang it up and climb down, mostly because there was a lot more stuff to do that day.  I had a heavy heart, since these were the last few moments I would spend hunting this season, and in leaving I was admitting defeat. I tossed my heavy jacket down, followed by my trail bag.  I carefully lowered the rifle, then sighed and climbed down the metal rungs.

Of course, as I made it to terra firma, stood and stretched, movement caught my eye.  75 yards behind the stand, in my blind spot, the brilliant white of three jaunty tails bounded silently away. 

Is it possible that this could surprise any of you people?

Right after the deer fled.  I figured I needed a pic anyhow.

George also saw them run as he drove up to retrieve me.  At his insistence he handed me an 870 shotgun that he had in his truck and he made an effort to drive them back towards a cut-off spot he placed me in, but to no avail.  I caught a very fleeting glimpse of them in the distance as they slipped off across the field as he was trying to drive them back.  I was actually OK with this, since I have very negative feelings about shooting a running deer with a shotgun.  Its pretty much the opposite of the strategic humane single shot kill I always envision when I play the hunt out in my mind. 

Free-range, grass fed, organic cattle at the Muckenfuss Bauernhof.  They don't do it on purpose, that's just how they've always raised them.  I keep encouraging him to get hooked up with the farmer's markets in the area, they are walking gold.

I wish I could be like Obi Wan and Yoda:  "That boy was our last hope.""No, there is another."  But no, that's about it for my deer season.  At this point I don't have any more limited entry permits for state land.  I could go over to Santa Fe Swamp, which has an open primitive weapons season.  In fact, I probably will take my muzzleloader over there at some point but I don't have any expectations of finding a legal deer this late in the season, it would be just a hike with a gun.  Which is fun, of course.

Another option is to go back to South Carolina for Christmas, but that would be more money for licenses, etc.  Besides, I'm really looking forward to a laid-back Christmas in our own home, I have five consecutive days off this year and want to enjoy them without long car trips.  So that's probably out.

As a consolation prize my brother did give me a shoulder and a lower ham from a buck shot on his club the day I didn't go.  I got it home and cut it up Sunday.  The ham was peppered with buckshot wound channels, not good but I managed to salvage a lot of it, so at least I'll be able to put some new recipes up on here, I have a few good (I hope) ideas. 

BTW, one of the inspirations came for the restaurant we ate at Saturday night, a new "Asian comfort food" restaurant in Downtown Charleston.  Xaio Bao Biscuit is owned by a man who is probably a distant cousin of mine and his wife.  They treated us very right that night, great food, great beer, great conversation.  Frequent it if you are in the area.