Whitetail Christmas

They're pretty amazing creatures to be surviving thru a polar vortex.  This is one of the occasions where the brassica food plot is highly valued.  It's still green, nutritious, and stands up taller than the snow.  When it warms up, there are turnip bulbs to chew on too.

Be sure to check out the time/temperature stamp on these photos to get a sense for the kind of weather that they are up foraging in.

The Next Gen Hunters

I always like to see the next generation getting involved in hunting.  I consider it a wholesome outdoor experience that exposes kids to nature, conservation, where their food comes from, and ethics.

This is Paul who assisted his Dad on a recent doe hunt.  He didn't pull the trigger but he got to sit in the woods and shiver.

I've been working on a business deal with his Dad, Jon.  In the course of the deal we discovered that we're both hunters with an interest in conservation.  One of these days we'll have to get Jon and Paul out to the farm.

Congrats to Jon and his assistant hunter Paul.  Enjoy those backstraps.

In other news, if you are a follower of this blog you are probably familiar with what is known as the Piketon Massacre.  In 2016, eight members of a family were murdered at three different locations all of which were within a couple miles of the farm.  It sent shockwaves thru the community and made national news.

This week, the first member of the family that plotted and executed these murders was convicted at trial.  Just recently he was sentenced to 8 consecutive life terms with no chance of parole.  Two other family members took pleas and one remains to stand trial.

It has been fascinating to watch this process play out and to live thru the twists and turns. If you're interested, there is a podcast that will take you thru the timeline as it played out.  I found it in the Apple App Store and it may be accessible other ways.  The Piketon Massacre Podcast.  There is a lot of media coverage that you can find just by googling.  Here's an article on the sentencing. CNN Coverage  The local paper, Scioto Valley Guardian, had good day by day coverage of the trial. Scioto Valley Guardian

There has to be a movie about this eventually.  I hope that the conviction gives the surviving family members a little bit of justice. There's no replacing their loss. This is the kind of case where the death penalty seems entirely appropriate (although not applied here).

Here's an article that concisely summarizes the years of investigation and drama,  Overview of the Piketon Massacre Case

Happy Holidays.

Short Visit - Security Patrol

It's bonus gun weekend but I'm not hunting.  Daisy and I ran out to check cameras and patrol the property for trespassers.

We had a good walk that covered most of the property.  She was spayed 12 days ago and hasn't had a lot of activity until now.

She was having a really good time.  We saw scrapes and rubs galore.

And lots of stuff that would qualify for poop of the week but I had to keep them from being gobbled up by Daisy so I didn't get any shots.

After our walk, I tried to patrol the perimeter via Ranger but I ran into some obstacles. 

We must have had a pretty good wind storm at some point.

Not sure how much longer this beech can stand.

Here's last week's activity - on the way to the stand.

On the way back for the tractor.

The recovery of the doe in the bucket.

The delivery of the gut pile to the woods.

The doe on the way to the processor.

Visitors to the gut pile.

Two foxes.

This fox has a chunk of something in its mouth.

More fox.

Possum and fox.

The scrape by the driveway stand remains active.

Some typical doe activity.

A nicely posed young buck.

The bobcat.

Coyote.

First Crossbow Kill

It wasn't especially pretty.  A little bit of a rodeo.  But I got it done.

Eric arranged for me to have this Ravin crossbow a year ago and I just haven't had a chance to put it to work on a live animal yet.  With the buck tag filled, it seemed like the thing to do.

So I was in the driveway stand on a calm evening.  I saw a total of seven does.

Eventually, a mature doe walked within 30 yards and I decided to give it a go.  Of course, I had an audience of 4 other does but I managed to get the shot off without getting busted.  To my horror, the doe went lame, wouldn't put any weight on the front left leg, and hobbled almost out to the driveway.  I could see a gash in the upper leg.  The rest of the crowd ran a little bit and then turned around to stare at me.

Panicked that I had wounded a doe, I got out the crank, re-cocked the crossbow, got another arrow out of the quiver, got it loaded, ranged her at 50 yards, got on her and let another one fly.  She crossed the road, went up the bank, entered the prairie patch, and, I thought, probably fell down.

I had 30 minutes of daylight left.  I wasn't sure how well I hit her.  I wanted to give her time but I wanted to find her in light.  I went looking for the arrows and only found one (luminocks are awesome).

Near where she stood at the driveway, I found good blood.

I was able to follow a substantial blood trail into the prairie grass and found her 20 yards in.  What a relief.

The second shot was on the mark and made quick work of it. I can only guess that I got on the 20 yard dot (instead of the 30) on the first shot.

Here's the evidence.  

It was an easy recovery.  I drove the tractor right up to her, put her in the bucket and got her to the barn for clean up.  She weighed 115 pounds field dressed which is pretty typical for the adults here.

In the course of that activity, I discovered that the tractor bucket looked weird and I was dragging a bunch of dirt and mud around. I found that one of the two supports that is used when you take the bucket off the tractor had lost its pin.  I had no idea when that happened but when I checked trailcams, I found this.

I guess that I'd been dragging that around all day while I was bush-hogging to fight back the locust trees.

This is an example of my battle with them.

I have multiple spots that I have to defend.

The locust has these sharp spikes - I'm not sure if it is honey or black locust.

I also had a nice walk and checked the cameras.  Encountered lots of sign.  Buck bomb above and doe pile below.

Bonus poop of the week - not sure what this is - coyote?

More buck sign.

This is a tree where I used to have my camera mounted.  I guess my camera was cramping their style - they've rubbed it up since I moved it.

I was disappointed that my camera didn't show much activity at the gut pile.  It had clearly been worked over though.  Stomach contents showing with some obvious corn.

This is me preparing to take a photo of the scrape beside my licking branch at the driveway stand.

And this is the scrape itself.

It has been getting hammered with activity.

The cameras also had the gun week activity.

Mr. Nubs on the way to the processor/taxidermist.

And, lots of the usual suspects.