An Early December Evening

     The doe stared in my direction.  She had seen something, something in the field moved.  I was on my belly crawling across a field to get a shot at a doe, when things got crazy and a smaller doe headed in my direction.  To make matters all the more interesting, there were 5 more deer feeding nearby, making any other movement than crawling nearly impossible.
      I was hunting a double field that evening of December 5th.  Why do I call it double?  It's two fields separated by a thin line of trees, with enough branches in the way to only give me one or two shooting windows into the back field.  My hopes for this hunt and the other hunts I've had there is that the deer would come to the field directly in front of me, giving an easier shot (which has happened once, when I wasn't there and only observing from 100 yards away).  I had been there the night before, seeing 6 deer all at once and never getting a shot.  That wasn't the first time something like that had happened.  I've always seen at least 3 deer there at once (it has become apparent to me that I'm dealing with a doe group).  Tired of not getting a shot while having plenty of deer in front of me, I decided that that was the night I would shoot at something.
     I set up around 4:20 p.m. in such a position so that I could crawl into the field easily, if needed.  Not long into my hunt, I had 3 deer in the field.  Then that number increased as not one, not two, but three does jumped a fence to join the does already in the field.  After watching them feed for a few minutes, with the deer appearing to be slowly moving away to my right, I decided it was time to move.
     My crawl started well, only having to stop for short instances when a doe in the back field looked in my direction.  Just as it seemed I would get a shot at a good doe, the smaller doe mentioned above entered the field I was in.  Trying to sneak up on a deer in a field is not an easy task by any means, never mind the fact that there are SIX deer that could look at any moment and spot me.  While she fed/stared at me, I turned around and head to a tree that was on my left since the does had changed directions. I made it to the tree, which I was able to hide behind and look for a shooting window, which I found.  Once the deer passed into it, I aimed for the biggest doe.  BANG!!!  The shot missed.  All the does scattered from the field, though two doe fawns were reluctant to leave and wanted to see what shot at them.  After they eventually left, I went home empty handed, but willing to come back for a second chance.

4 Years of Snow Camp Outdoors!

It just hit me today as I was thinking about my hunting past, on November 28th, 2015, Snow Camp Outdoors has been up for 4 years!  This year, while I didn't post an overwhelming amount, I saw one post get used by the RMEF for their youth newsletter!  One of my favorite posts was one I did very recently, when I wrote about Mom's first hunt with me!

One Special Evening

This evening was one where God again made things fall into place.  I was able to harvest my third deer of the season, a small doe (who looks even smaller because of picture angle).  The shot, my longest ever made, was 100 yards (it's NC woods okay!) with my .30-30 Winchester 94.

And while getting a deer is a blessing, this is not the main reason that this night was special.  It was that this was the first hunt my mom had ever done with me.  She was mostly there to observe, but it made no difference to me whether she's shooting or not.  She was there with me, and that's all that mattered.  

She apparently came at the right time too.  We had been in the stand for around 30 minutes and we saw a doe feeding off the opposite side of the field we were next too.  We watched her for five minutes, and she went away.  Only a couple minutes later, 3 more does came into the field, this time closer to us.  While they did not present a shot from the stand, I was able to climb down and shoot while she watched the action from above.  She's now experienced the thrill of the hunt, and I hope she'll come back for more.

Trail Camera- a Good Buy For Anytime

Hello!  This will be short and sweet.  I wanted to say that one of the camera's I have recommended in the past, the Axe 2 by Wildgame Innovations, has apparently been phased out, at least in name.  I think the WI Red 4 is the next generation of the Axe 2.  Both are about the same price, and both should do very well for a budget camera.  See you later!

Know Your Distance

Hello all!  A couple weeks ago I was out hunting in the evening.  I was set up close to where I had seen deer feed under some oaks.  Around 6 p.m. , a buck came up towards me.  After waiting a few minutes to make sure he wouldn't see my movements, I pulled back my bow for a shot and settled the 20 yard pin right behind his shoulder.  The distance from me to the buck was longer than I thought, because the shot went right under his belly.  He came back, and gave me another shot.  I misjudged again...twice...but I got very close on the thirty yard shot.  Anyway, the point of the story is: know how to estimate yardages correctly. Now I know where to aim when I go back to that spot, I just wish I would have the first time.

How do you learn to estimate yardages correctly?  Practice at varying ranges.  Get good at it.  If you have a life size deer (elk, bear, coyote) target, all the better, because you can see what that animal looks like at 17, 24, 32 etc. yards.  When you see that in the wild and remember what it looked like in target practice it helps a lot.  For example, I see a deer come out in front of me, and it looks about as big as the target I have at home when I shoot from 28 yards, I aim for 28.