A Couple Hunts

I have been spending most of my free time chasing fish lately, so not much going on in terms of hunting. I did, however, get a spike (yeah, I know, shooting a little buck is a no-no, but it was a 10 yard broadside shot!) with my bow back in October, and a pair of geese in November...that's about it. Here they are!

Swhacker did a good job

Virginia Bow Kill

   My little brother connected with this awesome deer on Saturday morning. In his words: "I looked to the top of the hill and saw him headed towards me about 100 yards off. He wouldn't present a shot when he got close, and kept coming closer, I had kept my cool, but I lost it and started shaking really bad when he was 10 yards away, still not presenting a shot, and looked straight up at me. I held still for a while and finally he took a couple steps and went behind a tree, I drew and shot him at roughly 8 yards."
   I was in a stand close enough to him that I heard a loud "whack!" when he hit the deer, but I was confused when I only heard it run for a few seconds, not really crash, and certainly didn't kick around. Turns out the buck simply ran 35 yards and keeled over, never flopped a bit after hitting the ground! 85 Grain thunderhead proving itself...

Here are the pics:

Congrats to Wyatt for such an awesome deer, and thanks for reading!

Snow Birds

 

Yup...

Sunday Hunting in Virginia

   Looks like things will be different this fall! http://hamptonroads.com/2014/02/end-sunday-hunting-ban-near-after-va-senate-vote
    I am very excited to see the lifting of the Sunday hunting ban in Virginia, it will be awesome to have the option to hunt Saturday and/or Sunday. I am not sure on details yet, but it is almost certain that we will be able to hunt Sundays next season.

Here are some pictures of ducks and others from the last day of duck season and youth waterfowl day:

January 26th

 Youth Day

Buffleheads and Thunderbolts

   This Saturday, my brother and I went duck hunting (at least as close as we can get to duck hunting in Virginia) with a friend on Lake Anna. We arrived at the lake well before daylight, and headed to a small island just below the power plant. We anchored the boat up as close to the island as we could, set out decoys (2 dozen goose floaters, a dozen bufflehead floaters, and 3 bluebill floaters). We had a drake bufflehead swim in to the decoys just after daylight, my brother shot it but it still managed to get up and fly to a boat dock where we couldn't pursue it (he short stroked the gun trying to make a follow up shot). Three buffleheads swam in after that, on my brother's side of the boat, what it came down to was 5 empty hulls and 3 buffleheads laughing at us from the safe cove with all of the boat docks in it. We got out of the boat to moved the bufflehead decoys closer, and the next 3 that cooperated died. We had a single goose, that we assumed was crippled, swim in to about 45 yards and decide that he didn't like the looks of our spread, he turned around and swam back to where he came from. We also had a flock of about 15 (geese) pass over without looking at the decoys, we guessed they were going out to feed. Our hunt was cut short at about 9:30 when out of the blue, a bolt of lightning struck less than a quarter mile away from us. We quickly threw the decoys in the boat and motored back to the ramp! On our way back in, I was surprised to see many rafts of buffleheads and possibly other divers in the middle of the lake. So my plan is to go back in my kayak after I camo it with burlap, and try to hunt some divers and possibly geese. We'll see how it goes! Thanks for reading.

  (all 3 of our buffleheads were not-so-attractive hens and I was too embarrassed to take a picture of them to post!)

Goose Hunt at a Loafing Pond

    This past Tuesday, conditions looked good for a hunt at one of the loafing ponds we have permission on in Orange County. Hunting these ponds can really be hit or miss because of the corn in the area that gets cut at various times throughout the season, greatly affecting the patterns of the birds, but we have figured it out to where we can put the odds in our favor. On a cloudy day, we have almost never seen geese use these ponds. However, if it is clear and sunny, the heavens open up and geese rain down from every direction.
    We set up before daylight, an unusual thing for us to do, since the flights are usually 10-11 o'clock, and nothing before or after that. Birds had been coming early in the week prior, so we went for it. We only used 8 or 10 decoys, because the pond is only 50 yards across at it's widest point, making the entire pond pretty much in gun range. We don't have much cover, but there is a little bit of marsh grass growing next to the bank that we can hide in and around, which usually works for us. There were 4 of us hunting, my dad, my little brother Wyatt, my friend Kevin, and myself, meaning we could take 12 birds.
    About half an hour after legal shooting time, we spotted 6 geese approaching from a long ways off, wings locked, not making a sound. I called a little bit at them, but it didn't look like they needed much, since they were looking very committed. The birds decided that they would continue past the pond and out of the area, not good... 20 minutes later, we heard LOUD geese behind us. A pair of geese that had sounded like a dozen or more cleared the trees and coasted right in, we put them both on the water stone dead. After that, the action slowed, and we didn't see anything for the next hour or so, but finally another flock was headed our way, this time it was 5 birds. While the birds were coming in, I told my brother and my friend that I would shoot the 2 birds on the right and leave the other 3 for them to take care of (my dad wasn't shooting since he was taking pictures from 20 yards behind us on the edge of the woods). I brought my two birds down and looked to my left only to see the 3 birds flying away missing only a few feathers, even though 6 shots had been fired. Luckily they circled back over and we brought one straight down, the other two coasted away into a field, and we did recover them both.
     While we were picking up those birds, about 20 geese came over. We lied down on the ground and hed still, but they knew something was up, and checked out. We set back up, and had a pair fly over and circle many times, but they didn't come within gun range, and checked out like the last flock. We had a nice group of birds, probably a dozen or so, come right to us and drop straight down into the decoys backpedaling like mallards dropping into flooded timber. They didn't even circle before coming in. We put four of those on the water (someone's gun jammed, and I straight up missed 2 out of my 3 shots), and had another flock bust us when we were trying to pick up the dead birds. With one goose left until we limited out, we decided to pack up and get out of there so we didn't educate the rest of the birds. We had a very good hunt, although our shooting was definitely not up to par. I shoot a 20 gauge, so I can use that as a halfway decent excuse of why I am not bringing the birds down, but ultimately what it comes down to is that I need to step it up when birds are in the decoys! Thanks for reading!

 Most of the birds we shoot are lessers, but we did shoot 2 "big 'ol residents"

All Good Things Must Come To An End

   To my dismay, I recently lost the permission to use firearms on what have been my "stomping grounds" ever since I took my first deer 8 years ago... I have grown up hunting on a few properties that border one another (including mine), they aren't very big, all 5-20 acre pieces of land, but altogether add up to around 100 acres. After the arrival of new neighbors from Boston two years ago, all of these properties have slowly been degraded to "archery only" areas. This isn't because I have been putting anyone in danger, it is simply because these new neighbors don't the slightest idea about guns in general, and voice their opinions to my other neighbors that let me hunt, and eventually have managed to get their way.
    Don't get me wrong, I love to bow hunt, but I can't exactly hunt geese, rabbits, squirrels, or anything that isn't normally hunted with archery equipment without things getting really expensive really quickly, not to mention the fact that it is 10 times harder to do it with a bow. And trying to hunt deer in rifle season is not like hunting them in bow season, this time of year the deer spook from the slightest things, and aren't forgiving at all. We used to have a really fun deer drive that my two younger brothers and I would do in the evenings, where two of us would push a whole bunch of deer by the other brother, and after one or two were down, we would work together to field dress and get them back to the house. That is definitely one of many traditions we had that will no longer be possible because of the archery only policy. So even though there is the "why can't you just do it with a bow?" point of view, many things will never be the same because of this.
    I wish I could sit down to talk with my neighbors and explain to them that they don't need to be afraid to be in the woods, but that simply won't happen, we have talked to them many times to try to explain what we do, and they honestly don't have a clue. It sure is sad to watch everything wither away like this, because even though it's "only guns" being revoked now, it started out as "just high-powered rifles", so who knows how long I will actually be able to hunt here. But I'm trying to forget about it, I will have my driver's license by next season, so hopefully I can hunt some other places and not worry about this mess. I have been hunting for 8 years here, and have made countless memories with family and friends, or even just by myself, that continue to stick in my mind like they happened yesterday, but all of a sudden, even though I'm still here, the land is still here, and the game is still here, the opportunity is not.