Cast and Blast weekend


chromage

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Bowhunting101

This is a little old but I guess it’s better late then never, right?? My plans for last weekend were to catch some steelies and shoot a deer. Having to get through school with all this excitement was quite hard.

I was suppose to sleep Wednesday night but I couldn’t and found myself on the road at 5 am, thursday. Next stop...the ditch.

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Road were as clean as your house when you have a date over. No snow, nor ice were on the road until I found a field with snow drifts. Hit one doing about 45 and there was nothing I could do. The snow drift was as long as the field. Thank God there were willing people to be late to work to try and help me out. Finally, after half an hour being stuck, I was on the road again.

I fished a northern pier head but didn’t bother going out far. No hits, no errors.

Then it was off to meet up with my buddy Luke. The next question was whether to hunt or fish. We opted to lay a little corn out and give the river a try. The weather was perfect, over cast and nice warm temps. Luke hooked up with the first 2 steel and lost both. I was next and followed what he did.

Next hole after a few drifts I tied into this nice hen. First steelie trip of the season and I get my first steelie of 05/06 on fresh steelie skein wrapped in chartruese bags.

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Luke then followed with a handful of fish including this beautiful skipper. The pic doesn’t do justice.

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This pic of this skipper doesn’t do it justice.

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Friday mournin we arose and was off to the property. On the way to the property luke told me about the property and some hunts. After hearing lukes stories and there Qdm ideas, I barely could wait to get into my stand. After not shooting any deer all season and already calling it a successful season I could not imagine it getting any better. We tip toed to the stand and got all set up. I was amazed to see all the deer tracks that were around. After waiting and watching the snow fall, the first doe showed up at my bait pile. My heart beat and I thought for sure this girl was mine. I waited, and waited. She finally went broad side and I went to pull my bow back and it made a noise and she spooked immediately. Dang...

20 minutes later...one doe shows up, two doe, three doe...nine does came out. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Years previous to this one I was lucky to see one deer, but not this one. They were pretty much headed away from me when a few b-lined towards my bait pile and started chowing down. For the next half hour I watched as the deer ate and played. I kept my eye on the biggest one and watched all the other deer. Was I going to get a shot?? For some reason the bigger does got nervous and the one I wanted went broad sided. I pulled back and she looked right up at me and she started running. In full draw I didn’t know what to do. There was one doe standing in the bait pile and I decided I would try to take her. After 9 years of bowhunting, my first shot was here. I aimed, and let go... AHHHHHHHHH. I could have swore I missed, but I got out to make sure. Yup, I did:( I couldn’t believe it.

30 minutes later we headed in. After a nice snooze, I found myself in another stand looking over a food plot. You could see the deer had been through and the bait we laid was completely gone. 15 minutes after gettin into my stand I have a doe come up from behind me. I waited patiently for her to come in. She walking at a pretty good pace and is 4 feet away from my shooting lane. I pull back my bow and she stops, go figure. So I stay there at full draw for a few minutes. The second I go to let off she starts to move again so I pull. She looks up at me and I aim and let go. Over her back, I couldn’t believe it. I heard so many different things about shooting out of a tree it confused me in which pin I should use. I should have used my 15 yd pin like I thought I should. Instead I used my 20. Probably half how later another doe comes in. She gets within range and is looking straight in front of her so I pull. She then spooked, oops??? This happened several more times before I finally relized what I was doing wrong. I forgot deer have perferbula vision(sp??) So even though they were looking in front of them, they could see me...lesson learned. The night came to an end and we were headed back to the house.

Next mournin we opted to fish some more steelies. Luke took me to school and landed several nice steelies.

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He also fought a fish that thought it was still fall. The fish also fought like a salmon but it turned out to be a fat steelie. Talkin about salmon, the run must of just ended on this river. There were still a ton of dead salmon carcesses around. Luke also landed this beautiful brown.

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The only question is, is it a lake run or native??? I also hooked into one of those steelies that thought it was fall after going air borne several times and then breaking me off.

I know I didn’t want to leave and I don’t think Luke did either but we then rushed back to the house to get into the woods. 4 o’clock I was finally sitting. I decided to take the muzzle loader out. I sat for a long time and was starting to loose hope. Finally 6 does appeared and I put my cross hairs on the biggest doe. For some reason one of the fawns took off and the other deer were alerted. I seen another big doe was broad side and I didn’t want to mess up on this chance. So I switched deer, put my cross hairs on her shoulder, took a breath, and pulled the trigger. All I could think of was please go off. Luke had a lot of trouble earlier with this gun. It didn’t let me down this time and went off. The deer took off at first lookin like she was not injured and then her shoulder started going down and then tripped over a stump and crashed. I watched her thrash around and that was all she wrote. I let out a sigh of relief. I waited in my stand for awhile and then got down to look for blood. At first I couldn’t find any and it was getting to dark.

After awhile of waiting we decided to go get her. He taught me how to track a deer which of coarse lead us right to her. My second deer ever! Then the fun stuff started, lol.

After dealing with my deer, luke got a call. One of his buddies shot at a deer and needed some help. So we geared up and headed out around 9:30. At first we couldn’t find nothin but hair. Then we started finding blood and more blood. The weird thing was we tracked the deer through 3 river, for 4 hours and the deer never laid down. It looked like we were jumping her 5 hours after the shot was made. We decided to give up and call it a night. I am not sure whether or not the guy ever found the deer.

Sunday mournin I headed for home. It quite amusing to see people looking and pointing at the deer. Love how some people would fly by me and then slam on the breaks to see what I got. It was a good feeling knowing I was coming home with a deer finally. I thought as I drove home, I bet no college kid is bring home a deer for his family:)

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We ended up deciding to process the deer ourselves. One of the reason I haven’t got this post up until now. It was definently a learning experience and I want to thank everyone for the advice. Most importantly, I also want to thank Luke for inviting me into his home and for the hospitality. Also, thanks to Luke I feel like I am a much better hunter. Is it Oct 1 yet???

Merry Christmas to everyone! Now it’s time for some steelhead and hopefully get out one or two more times to see if I can fill another tag. What a great season! I highly doubt it will get any better.

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