CatskillCrawler
Handloader
- Jul 30, 2011
- 1,205
- 4
Just finished hunting at my sister’s property in central NY State. They have a nice camp in the woods surrounded by cow pastures, hay fields and small winter wheat and corn plots. The woods up there are mixed deciduous with mostly hard maple, beech, cherry, ash, hemlock and white pine. Rolling hills and river valleys dominate the landscape. They have a basic cabin which has no utilities and enough room for 8 people to sleep. It’s the perfect accommodation for my bro-in-law, nephew, father, son and me.
Cabin
Sunrise
Some views of the area and type of woods
Son in his stand
We saw a lot of does, lamb and young bucks the first two days but nothing anyone felt like shooting. My nephew was going to shoot any legal buck but things didn’t work out for him. My son and I were the only hunters on Monday, the third day of the season, as work and school commitments forced the rest of our party to return home.
At 10:00am I heard loud crunching of beech leaves and something crashing through the low branches and a series of loud, short grunts. Three deer started to appear thru the maze of branches and trees. First a large doe, then a deer I couldn’t identify followed by a forkhorn. I then heard the sound of a tractor in the distance. The deer seemed to be concerned with this interloper and it was probably the reason for their flight towards me. It took a few minutes for me to finally see a 3 tine antler on the one deer and its body mass seemed to indicate a deer worthy of shooting. He was standing behind a stand of young beech making it impossible to get a shot off. There was a small opening two feet in front of him which would offer the only shooting opportunity within 20- 30 yds if he continued in his current direction.
I kept the scope on him and waited him out. He rubbed a small sapling for a while, kept tabs on the doe who was now unalarmed and slowly working her way towards me, and he occasionally looked over to where I assumed the forkhorn was standing. I was not going to take my scope off this buck to look at the other buck knowing that if I did, the larger buck would walk past my narrow window of opportunity. My eyeglasses started to fog on a couple of occasions and I would tilt my head to the side to try and escape my breath. I was laughing at my predicament knowing that I must have looked the fool trying to avoid this fogging. The buck started to stomp his right hoof while looking at the forkhorn's direction. At first I thought he was alarmed and getting ready to bolt but his tail was relaxed and he started to make head shaking gestures similar to a mad bull. I was holding on him for what seemed like ten minutes but it was probably three or four minutes. He suddenly stood upright and started to walk towards the doe. I squeezed, and squeezed, and squeezed, suddenly remembering I had my BLR and its creepy trigger and not me crisp Rem trigger in my hands, and bang! The buck's body contracted and then he bounded off for twenty yards then stopped behind another stand of beech saplings. I couldn’t see him at all but felt I put a good shot into him. After 4 or 5 seconds I heard a muffled crash and saw a few tail flicks through the maze. Exhale.
I waited twenty minutes and lowered my climber to the ground. I found him behind the beech saplings. The 225gr GameKing entered mid-rib and exited rear rib cage with pronounced effects. His left antler was snapped off one inch past his brow tine, his right side formed a graceful curve with four points. Not an impressive rack but he was a nice fat, healthy buck. I field dressed him and dragged him back to the cabin for lunch and a cold beer. Life is good.
First success with the 358W BLR
Field dressing
Our Hi-Tech Loo
Time to start butchering.
Cabin
Sunrise
Some views of the area and type of woods
Son in his stand
We saw a lot of does, lamb and young bucks the first two days but nothing anyone felt like shooting. My nephew was going to shoot any legal buck but things didn’t work out for him. My son and I were the only hunters on Monday, the third day of the season, as work and school commitments forced the rest of our party to return home.
At 10:00am I heard loud crunching of beech leaves and something crashing through the low branches and a series of loud, short grunts. Three deer started to appear thru the maze of branches and trees. First a large doe, then a deer I couldn’t identify followed by a forkhorn. I then heard the sound of a tractor in the distance. The deer seemed to be concerned with this interloper and it was probably the reason for their flight towards me. It took a few minutes for me to finally see a 3 tine antler on the one deer and its body mass seemed to indicate a deer worthy of shooting. He was standing behind a stand of young beech making it impossible to get a shot off. There was a small opening two feet in front of him which would offer the only shooting opportunity within 20- 30 yds if he continued in his current direction.
I kept the scope on him and waited him out. He rubbed a small sapling for a while, kept tabs on the doe who was now unalarmed and slowly working her way towards me, and he occasionally looked over to where I assumed the forkhorn was standing. I was not going to take my scope off this buck to look at the other buck knowing that if I did, the larger buck would walk past my narrow window of opportunity. My eyeglasses started to fog on a couple of occasions and I would tilt my head to the side to try and escape my breath. I was laughing at my predicament knowing that I must have looked the fool trying to avoid this fogging. The buck started to stomp his right hoof while looking at the forkhorn's direction. At first I thought he was alarmed and getting ready to bolt but his tail was relaxed and he started to make head shaking gestures similar to a mad bull. I was holding on him for what seemed like ten minutes but it was probably three or four minutes. He suddenly stood upright and started to walk towards the doe. I squeezed, and squeezed, and squeezed, suddenly remembering I had my BLR and its creepy trigger and not me crisp Rem trigger in my hands, and bang! The buck's body contracted and then he bounded off for twenty yards then stopped behind another stand of beech saplings. I couldn’t see him at all but felt I put a good shot into him. After 4 or 5 seconds I heard a muffled crash and saw a few tail flicks through the maze. Exhale.
I waited twenty minutes and lowered my climber to the ground. I found him behind the beech saplings. The 225gr GameKing entered mid-rib and exited rear rib cage with pronounced effects. His left antler was snapped off one inch past his brow tine, his right side formed a graceful curve with four points. Not an impressive rack but he was a nice fat, healthy buck. I field dressed him and dragged him back to the cabin for lunch and a cold beer. Life is good.
First success with the 358W BLR
Field dressing
Our Hi-Tech Loo
Time to start butchering.
real good job.
