Blog Entries from the WeHuntSC.com blogging crew
It seems like time just slips away on me and before you know it deer season is almost here and I feel like I?m behind on my envisioned schedule. This past weekend I pretty much dedicated the whole day on Saturday to accomplishing some things I?ve wanted to do for a while. There are always cameras to put out or move, feeders to set up, stands to move & check, ground to plow, and the list goes on and on. Up until now I?ve been doing some of this whenever I could, but with the season right around the corner for me I had to get on the ball.
I ended up not getting home after our game on Friday night until 2am. I had an 8 o?clock meeting on Saturday morning to do some work so, as you may expect, I was a little tired. After getting a biscuit and a Bojangles sweet tea I was good to go. We took the tractor over and did some plowing on one of our hunting properties. I?m planning on doing a separate blog about these food plots so I won?t go into too much detail other than to tell you that the tractor messed up on us after plowing the first plot. We had to stop at this location shortly after the tractor quit running. I did walk the land some taking a few pictures and as I walked down one area something caught my eye?a 4 foot long snake! I did have my snake boots on and I was glad that I did because initially just seeing this thing scared me. I looked closer at it and saw that it was just a black snake and that calmed me down a little bit. I tried to get a picture of it, but it scurried off before I was able to get the camera on my phone turned on.
Also, walking down this same path I saw where some turkeys had been ?dusting? on the edge of the woods. I had never heard of a turkey ?dusting? before until last spring when Mr. Puette told me about it. Apparently turkeys can get mites that aggravate them and to remedy this they choke the mites out by wallowing around in dust. I guess it makes them feel better, but you could definitely see the circular patterns of dirt on the edge of this area and the turkeys had dropped some feathers there as well. I guess it?s a good sign to see that you have turkeys on the property though!
After my walk (and since the tractor quit working) I moved on to the next business I had on schedule for the day. I traveled down to my in-laws house where we put together a new deer stand. Last year at Christmas I got a deer stand as a present and I exchanged it for a ?buddy stand? and have been meaning to get it together and put up for some time now and I finally got around to it. Turns out putting this deer stand together and putting it up was quite the process. My father-in-law and another member of the family helped me assemble the stand and it took 3 of us about 3 hours to figure it all out and get it properly assembled. The parts weren?t labeled and the directions weren?t the greatest. The winds from hurricane Irene were blowing enough to keep it somewhat cool, but every now and then they?d stop and the sun would come out and it was really hot. We had tons of pieces of this deer stand just lying around on the driveway and slowly but surely we figured it out. In retrospect I don?t think one person could have gotten it done by themself and if so, it would have taken about double the time necessary. It was a project to complete and some bonding time with my in-laws nonetheless.
After getting the stand assembled it was time to get the stand up. One of my in-laws who was assisting just happen to have a new tractor and the tractor made it really easy to carry the parts back down into the woods since there was already an old road there. We drove the stand there in pieces and then put them together and got it up on the tree. The stand is higher than I would normally like (around 17 feet) because I don?t like heights, but it?s pretty sturdy so I think I?ll make it. It seemed that the biting flies back in these woods particularly liked me for some reason. I had several encounters with biting flies and on some occasions they won and on some occasions I did. Putting up a deer stand while being harassed by biting flies is not one of my favorite past times! We took some extra straps to go around the tree and up the tree as I moved up the ladder to ensure safety. After getting to the top I winched the stand as tight as I could to the tree. The stand had two wenches and I got both of them really snug and then we put the roof on which I also winched really tightly. After everything was set up I put the skirt on and unzipped the windows to look out and see the new perspective on the scenery. It looked good!
I sat in the stand and as I looked out I thought to myself that if I ever got a deer out of this stand that I would remember this day and all the sweat, time, help from others, and fly bites that were necessary to get all this accomplished. A lot of energy was put into getting that stand up in that tree. Hopefully I?ll be able to get some good footage and maybe even a good buck out of the stand this season.
In case you were wondering how I go that much free time on a Saturday let me back up and say that earlier that day my wife and her mother went shopping. Yes, that explains it all right. When they were leaving they asked if we needed them to pick us up anything. Sarcastically I responded and said ?Pick me up some deer corn? because I knew they weren?t going shopping anywhere that I would have deer corn. After all of our work we returned from putting up the deer stand and they had returned and my wife said ?I?ve got your deer corn in the back? and I almost couldn?t believe it. Yes, I?ve got a good wife! She had picked me up a bag of corn. I was still dirty and sweaty and figured I might as well go put it out while I was there and able to. I didn?t give her a hug at the moment because she wouldn?t have it, but I did thank her and grabbed the bag and headed back to the woods. As I turned I noticed that my father-in-law had an old large PVC pipe leaning on a building. It could potentially make a great feeder if he wasn?t going to use it. I asked him if he had plans for it and he said no?10 minutes later I had a skill-saw out cutting it at the bottom and smoothing the top off. The only problem was that this thing is white and stands out like a sore thumb. I?m going to paint it at some point, but for now it will just have to suffice. So I headed back down into the woods and had me a homemade feeder and a bag of corn. I strapped it to a tree and filled it with corn. I?ve had a salt block down there now for a couple of months and they are definitely licking on it. It?s starting to get smoothed out. The corn feeder is right beside of the salt-block and they are both about 30 yards in front of my stand. Hopefully all this hard work, some feed, and a salt-block out there for the deer will keep them coming in regular. If I get lucky then you?ll probably read about it on a future blog sometime.
All in all it was a very productive Saturday even though the tractor quit working half-way through our work at the first location. I was dead tired by the end of the day and I downed 3 gatorades in a row when I got back to the house. My body was hurting?literally. My eyes were burning from the sweat getting in them, my back was aching, and the sweat had dried on me making me feel just sticky and grimy. Combine all that with the sting of the biting fly bites and you?ve got how I was feeling. Needless to say it didn?t take me long to get to sleep that night.
I think about all of this hard work, time we put in, and energy we hunters spend in preparation for hunting season and wonder if it?s worth it. I can remember hunts where I?ve harvested deer and know that it?s very worth it when you?re able to have that experience in the woods.
I?m looking forward to this coming hunting season and guess what?s going on this coming Saturday as well? another work day!
Regards,
Clint