New Gun

Well, new to me anyway. This Winchester Model 12 is 81 years old and has seen its fair share of use. Unfortunately, the stock was cut and a white line recoil pad was added some time in the 50's. I removed that and fitted a reproduction Winchester recoil pad.

I have been looking for a Model 12 in this configuration for quite some time. This is a 16 gauge with a 26" full choke. The barrel is made of the earlier, lighter, Nickel Steel. Fit and balance are tremendous. The range of these shotguns which were produced with a factory 16 gauge 2 3/4" chambering and a Nickel Steel barrel only spanned about 100k serial numbers, of which many were 12 and 20 gauge guns.

The 16ga M12 was built on the 20 gauge frame, so it is incredibly light. It weighs in at a little over 6 pounds. This is undoubtedly the finest hammerless repeating shotgun ever built. This configuration is what some referred to as a Five for Five gun. It was said that one could go into the woods and kill five grouse with five shells. I'm not that great of a wing shooter, but this will be my go-to gun for squirrel hunting.

Nuts!

Over the weekend, we headed to far northeast Ohio to try to find some black squirrels. It was cold, wet, and very windy. We didn't see anything all day. Still, it was fun and we collected plenty of nuts. The Hickories up there seem about a month behind ours. Fresh nuts were on the ground. The Red Oaks were raining acorns in the wind. It was a very good crop of acorns this year.

We always pick up some nuts while we're in the woods. Julie feeds them to our backyard squirrels. I try every year to get some hickory trees to sprout. We came home with about a gallon bucket of acorns, hickories, and walnuts. Some of the oaks were sprouting. Kind of odd for so late in the year, but I put them in the ground.

The red squirrel also know as a mountain jack is a small squirrel with reddish to reddish-gray fur on top and a white or cream underside. It has white around its eyes. Its tail is not as long or bushy as the tail of other tree squirrels. In the summer, the red squirrel may have a black stripe on its sides. Some people mistake this squirrel for the chipmunk, but the red squirrel is slightly larger than the chipmunk, had a longer and bushier tail, and nests in trees like the fox and gray squirrel.

Deer at Deer Creek

Today was another great Saturday of hunting at Deer Creek. Andy hunted with my Winchester model 12, 16 ga full choke. I used my usual 20 ga with the improved modified choke. We ended up with Andy - 2 fox squirrels and I got 1. I started out in my usual spot that we call the buckeye grove. I have decided that I am done hunting that particular spot for a while. There is nothing there but mountain jacks. While I was sitting there listening to the mountain jacks be their noisy selves I heard something to my right. At first I thought it was another mountain jack, but to my surprise a 4 pt. buck came walking slowly up the path. He was no more than 20 ft. away from me. He took his time eating and wondering down the path. I even had time to reach into my pocket and get my phone out and take a video of him. That was a beautiful sight.
After nothing but mountain jacks for several hours after that I decided to move to what I call the oak tree spot. There is a tractor path that you follow to get there. That proved to be a bad hunting spot also. I did see a fox squirrel there on the ground, but there was so much underbrush that if I had actually shot a squirrel there I never would have been able to find it!
I then decided to cross the creek onto the island at Deer Creek. As I am making my way to the back of the island not more than 10 ft. away I spot a fox squirrel on a bush about 4 ft. up. Now that was a close shot! Finally I got to shoot my gun. I spotted 4 more squirrels, but never had any shots that I could take as I worked my way to the back of the island. I think next weekend (weather permitting) I will try to hunt the island again. Ah the fun of finding the perfect spot to hunt.

Oh how I missed hunting!

OK – I know it has been over a year since I last posted. Shame on me! Hopefully now I am back to hunting and I will try to keep this blog updated a little more.
I had forgotten how much I love to hunt. There is just nothing like shooting a shotgun! We got up this morning at 4:30 a.m., left the house by 5. Pulled up in the parking lot at Deer Creek around 5:45 a.m. Takes about 1/2 an hour to hike into the woods in the dark. Then just wait for 6:34 a.m. to come because sunrise was at 7:04 a.m. today and you can start hunting ½ an hr. before sunrise. The beauty of the woods waking up is something that is just indescribable! The birds start singing, and the squirrels start moving around. It is usually still too dark to see them very well for another hr. but it is fun to listen to them making noise.
I hunt with my 20 GA Remington 11-87. Andy switches around what he hunts with last weekend he used his 410, today he used his lever action 12 GA. Part of the fun of watching for the squirrels is you never know if it is going to be a gray, fox, or mountain jack. Of course you always hope for a fox squirrel, but you never know until you finally spot one. Today Andy was lucky enough to get a fox and a gray one. I on the other hand shot a fox and 3 mountain jacks. Fox squirrels are bigger then gray ones, but both are good eating, mountain jacks on the other had are just very small annoying little shits. We go ahead and kill the mountain jacks because believe it or not they are mean. They will raid the fox and gray squirrels nests and bite the nuts off the males so that they cannot reproduce! At first we thought this was just an old hunter’s tale, but after a couple of years ago when we shot a male fox squirrel we couldn't believe that its nuts were gone. There were a lot of the mountain jacks in the area. After researching this tale we found it to be true. So now any time we see a mountain jack we try to shoot it. They will overtake and entire forest if given the chance.
Well Hope I haven’t bored everyone too much with my hunting blog.

Sorry for not posting as often as I should

Sorry it has been so long since I posted. A lot has happened since I last posted. I didn’t get to hunt much this winter. Back in October I had a surgery, which took me a little while to recuperate from, but it was worth it! Because of this surgery I was able to have my trach removed in November! The hole from the trach did not want to close on it’s own, so I had to have another surgery in January to close the hole. I am now trach and hole free. This will make a huge difference in when I hunt this next fall. Another great thing with this surgery is that I have lost about 50 lbs!
In other news I am about to become a grandma. In some ways it is hard for me to accept that I am going to be a grandma at 43, but yet I am excited about it. My daughter has 4 more weeks to go, and it has been touch and go for so long with all kinds of complications. We know that it is going to be a girl. My daughter has decided to name her Annabelle Grace and call her Ella. I can’t wait to spoil my first grandchild.
I am going to start trying to post more often.

Has it been 2 months?

I'm sorry for the lack of updates. We had a safe and enjoyable deer season, but came up empty handed. Between the holidays, business travel, and some other hobbies, I just haven't been out hunting much since then. I'll be back home on saturday and we're looking forward to hunting sunday morning with a friend and his son. I'll be sure to post some pics afterwards.