Tryin to stay warm

Made a big pot of venison chili this weekend to start gettin' in the mood. It's been pretty cold here, we got down to the upper 40's one night!

Thoughts and concerns for the new season

I thought this might be a good time to address a few concerns and plan ahead for the fall season. As far as lodging, we have the 3 rooms upstairs, the 2 sofas on the main floor, and a rollaway in the junk room on the main floor. I did build a set of bunks in the basement, and hope to have a full size bed down there as well. I am working on the plumbing, so we can turn the pressure up a little to make for better showers.
I may (???) have a friend and his 16 year old son coming for 2 days, but he doesn't know for sure what days, as he works a rotating shift at a 24-7 ethonal plant. If everyone from Yankton shows up, we could be a little crowded. If the old gray hunter wants to bring his portable blind(private bar), we could set it up next to the house as in previous years. Do you still have it all set up in Yankton?
As to the potential deer supply, based on previous years experiences, I think I have it all figured out. All summer, in the trees behind the barn, there has been a doe and triplet fawns. If Roger shoots the doe, then he and deerslayer should be able to harvest the fawns, as they stand looking at their dead mommy. If not, deerslayer can follow a school bus around, pick up a roadkill, and shoot a hole in it. I have seen a one-eyed cripple that TX boy should be able to catch up to. Topher can pass on multiple good shots, and choose to look for something better. If we drink enough good whiskey, the great white hunter should be able to shoot a "tirty" point buck as it walks up the driveway. Pistol Pat should be able to shoot enough with his sidearm to make up for everyone's misses. Everyone else is more of a talker and drinker than they are actual killers, so they can sit around camp and help me haul in the meat.
Did I miss insulting anyone?
As time gets closer, if everyone could let me know for sure when they are arriving, I will have everything ready. (translation-have their deer hanging in the shed for them).
As it is still very wet, and corn is not drying well, we probably will have standing corn to provide shelter for the deer.
SOON, the old farmer

Swamp Buggy country

I Know It's a fussy picture but this is a little shot of my patrol vehicle. I think we need to build 1 for the farm. Chevy 350, bad ass trany and geared so low I could pull a barn across the county. I'll try to get a picture of the buggy with out the good looking drive so as not to take from the vehicles looks.

MN Early Antlerless

This coming weekend I get to participate in the "early antlerless" hunt in northwestern MN. We were worried when deciding whether or not to participate a few weeks ago, that it might be too warm if we got a deer to cool down the carcass. The 10 day forecast says highs will be 32-37 degrees and gray with snow showers... This ought to be interesting since there's no heat yet in the cabin. We just finished roughing in the breaker box last week when I was there. I guess that will light a fire under our asses to get the outlets wired up! Nice part is, we also witnessed a herd of 25 deer walking out into the alfalfa field from the woods as the sun was setting.

$7.50 each for up to two "early antlerless" tags (2 days only), that was hard to refuse (nice thing is that they are OTC there). I've decided to be slightly cocky and limit myself to guns with no scopes. I'm actually going to leave my trusty .270 slaughtermaster in The Cities on purpose. I'll be hunting with the .45-70 govt. and my .45/.50 muzzleloader as backup. So I'll let ya'll know whether I've been humbled or not in a week. If both guns fail, I'm stripping down to the blaze orange loin cloth and using a sharpened spruce sapling.

Wish me luck!

Tag update

Looks like there were plenty of tags left over from the first drawing. Second drawing needs to be in by Oct 13. Then us out of staters can submit (must be in by Oct 26th) . I assume that this means that Old Gray Hunter got his tags.

I am in the process of taking hunter's safety education online. In arkansas its required for any hunter born after 1968. they accept any safety card from your home satate though. The irony is that I have to take a test, but they will let Phil hunt here since he passed when he was in junior high. *sigh* if only they knew. (thus far no questions about school busses).

Anyway I thought you would like this page from it, see inside a deer:

http://70.61.99.50/Class/Section04/C/Games/Game01.aspx

Later,

PP

First Kill of the season.

Finally hit a few of the little buggers this morning... So far I'm 5 for ~40 or so... Maybe I won't make as much fun of Pistol Pat this year.... naaa. Note the picture with the houses in the background. We were actually hunting a field with a major freeway to our back and the housing development you see on the other side. There were doves everywhere. I'm claiming first kill cause nobody else has said anything... Losers! ;-) And finding one dead on the ground doesn't count Old Farmer.

Mac's 1st hunt!

Mackenzie went with me dove hunting this afternoon. She seemed to like it right up till she put her hand in a fire ant mound. I'm still dove skunked but at least I got a bunny rabbit. Gonna give it another try in the morning.

Thanksgiving weekend

Sorry folks, first chance i've had to write in awhile. Time to start thinking 'bout fall. Ryan, you coming up? I know that Nelson put in for tags in KB county. I think Pat and I are going to try to make it over there for that weekend.

I've been missing the open country of SD. Yeah, I love the woods, damn, i've seen some beautiful sights this summer (despite the lack of college girls), but I often think back to the crisp fall air over prairie fields. Snow covered corn stubble and the condensing puff of breath out of of a big doe. So I can't wait to see ya'll, suppose I should look up the NR applicaton dates soon....

Dove lease

I'm thinking about doing a lease here in TX for Dove hunting... what do you think? http://djfarmsdovelease.com/
They also allow hunting for anything else except deer. Dad, take a look at the website they run an operation similar to what you want to start.