Outdoor Adventures

[trkyhntr]

We closed and winterized camp Rip-N-Tear today.  The week was interesting, to say the least.  Not a lot of hunting pressure except for our camp and one other.  The problem is that in order to hunt in our little corner, one has to walk at least a quarter mile off the road, just to get to our cabin.  We had three hunters in camp for the entire week (Dave, Larry, and yours truly), and were joined at times by Crawford, Dave's nephew Judd, and Stan, aka Bluetick from the other site not to be mentioned.  I did not have a tag for deer, except for a DMAP for the Mt. Davis area, so I went there the first morning.  I have never seen as many hunters there.  Cars and trucks were parked everywhere, and after trying to get away from pumpkins for a couple of hours, I gave up and went back to camp to cook dinner.

Dave and Larry reported in shortly after dark. Each had seen deer, but the only buck Dave saw was a four point. Dinner was my tenderloin recipe I stole from a poster on the other site named Zummer. As usual, no leftovers.

Tuesday was another day in the woods for Dave and Larry. I read a David Baldacci novel and did a couple of short pushes for the guys. Stan did a lot of walking and saw a whole lot of deer. Dave and Larry did mostly stand hunting and saw fewer. Larry had still not seen a buck, but Dave had one of the big boys cruise past his stand at Mach 8 or so and was unable to get off a shot.

Wednesday brought in bear season, so I was out and about. Crawford showed up and saw seven deer, one of which was a legal buck, but Crawford is picky and passed on him. Larry saw a bruiser with what he described as a “wide rack,” and got off a shot. No blood was found, and we looked for about an hour and a half, so one shirt tail for the wall.

Thursday was Larry’s day. I know you all will understand when I say us hunters work hard and hope for a dumb one to come our way. It happened for Larry. Wouldn’t you know that, while sitting under the same hemlock tree, the same buck came past and Larry downed him with one shot. I heard the shot, and shortly got a text message to bring the deer cart. When I got to Larry, he had the buck just about gutted. I took one look at it and said, “I think we need Dave.” With a lot of grunting and cussing we managed to get the buck back to camp. The PGC’s weight tape estimated the buck at 161 pounds dressed. Outside spread is 17 inches, and officially it is a nine point with three fighting tines broken. We know it was the same buck because it had a crease where Larry’s Wednesday shot grazed in on the back.



The rest of the week was pretty uneventful, with the exception of Stan taking a doe on Saturday when they became legal. No bears were sighted, but there was a goodly amount of sign, so we are a bit puzzled as to why we didn’t.

The total number of hunters we saw other than our group:
Dave saw three, Larry saw none, Crawford saw none, Stan saw five, and I saw three. There was more shooting today than all the other days combined, probably since baldies were legal. I doubt that this area ever had a pumpkin patch. It is just too out there. I am sure that hunting pressure is a lot less than it was twenty years ago.

I enjoyed my week at camp, even though I had no deer tag to fill. A bad day of hunting beats a great day at work all hollow.