The Gumball Machine

We built a couple new feeders for the squirrels this fall. It does a great job of keeping the squirrels out of the bird seed and it is great fun to watch!

First Deer!

I finally brought home a deer!

We have been deer hunting together for 4 years now and this is my first. We have done plenty of reading and learning, but this just boiled down to spending time in the field. We finally have a spot that we like (public land of course) that isn't crammed with other hunters. We're starting to learn the lay of the land and getting better at deciding where to sit.

Yesterday we spent 12 hours in the cold and came up empty. I don't think it got above freezing the whole day. I only saw 1 deer the whole day. Unfortunately, he saw me first. It was noon and I was hungry. I had just reached into my pouch and pulled out a granola bar. As I sit rattling the plastic wrapper, trying to tear it open with frozen fingers, I heard a noise. I looked up to see a little 6 point about 20 feet in front of me. He immediately turned and bolted. Within 2 jumps, there were enough trees between us that I didn't chance a shot.

This morning was even colder at 19 degrees. This doe walked right in front of me about 15 minutes after opening light. I had to drag her over a mile back to the truck. Julie helped me along much of the way. After seeing how much work it is dragging a deer out of the woods, I promised Julie that I will drop everything to come help her out when the time comes.

The bonus weekend is in two weeks. I'll be setting Julie up in my spot, hoping that she gets her first as well.

The Next Generation

Our oldest daughter started shooting with us several years ago. She will shoot anything from handguns, to shotguns, to rifles, but her favorite by far is .22 benchrest shooting. The younger daughter has never been interested in shooting and wanted nothing to do with firearms. She has shown interest on a couple occasions, but when it came time to go to the range, she always backed out when it was time to go.

While over for dinner last week, she asked when I was going to take her shooting. I was a little surprised, but thrilled that she wanted to go. She had saturday morning off from work, so Julie and I cancelled our hunting trip and went to the range. We stopped by her place on saturday to pick her up and sure enough, she was ready to go!

She is an excellent learner. While in the car on the way to the range, I went through the 10 Commandments of Firearm Safety with her. At the range, I held the Colt Officer's ACP and showed her the function of the slide release, mag release, and safety. I explained how to align the sights. I helped her work on shooting stance. We learned that she is a left eye dominant shooter. She soaked up all of this information like a sponge. I could point to any part of the pistol and she could tell me what it was called and what it did. She even told Julie that she wanted to take the rifle out squirrel hunting!

We had a great time at the range and I was pleased to have passed our firearms heritage down to the next generation.

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.