Sunday, October 11, 2009

Back, didn't kill anything

Cell phone coverage was pretty spotty so I didn't get a chance to post much while down there. Anyways, here's a recap:

Day 1


Traffic out of Atlanta was awesome.



There was an air show in Peachtree City and it was freaking me out with all these jets flying around while I was trying to drive. I had to stop at the grocery store and snapped this pic of an fighter jet doing some stunts. I think it's an F-15 F/A-18 but it's hard to tell from the pic:



I got to the lease around 5ish and set up camp:



After I got everything set up and went to sleep, it started pouring. I opened the tent door and saw this:



And then I found this stick bug inside the tent:



OH GOD IT'S ON MY FACE:



The stickbug was released unharmed.

Day 2


Got up at 5:30am and everything was wet. It poured all night. All of the important things (gun, clothes, gear, etc) were dry but the bottom of the tent was a small lake and my sleeping bag was soaked.

I made some coffee and got out to the treestand by around 6. It didn't get light out until around 7:15. I didn't see shit. I climbed down and went back to camp to eat some lunch. After lunch I did some reading then went back out hunting from about 3pm until it got dark at 7:30. I didn't see shit all day. Here's the view from my stand:



It was hot and humid and mostly horrible the whole day. I really prefer cold, dry weather for hunting. The mosquitoes are terrible but having a ThermaCELL saved my life in the treestand.

Day 3


This morning everything was mostly dry, there was no rain. I forgot to let my sleeping bag dry out yesterday (oops!) so I had to sleep in a wet sleeping bag. That was awesome. Anyways, I got up at 6 and made it out to the treestand by 6:30. This time I saw 2 deer, around 8:30 - they walked right in front of my stand, about 50yds away. It was a doe and a fawn. I didn't shoot. I was pretty excited about seeing deer though.

I left the stand around 10:30 and walked around the trails for a bit then went back to camp and took a 4 hour nap, then packed up my gear and tent and loaded everything into the truck. Around 5pm I went back into my stand and sat there until it started getting dark. I walked back to the truck and saw a deer on the trail, but it was too dark to see if it was a doe or buck. It was also facing away from me so I didn't have a shot anyways. I moved and it ran away. After that I changed clothes, got in the truck, then came home.

Not sure what I'll do tomorrow yet, maybe just relax at home and catch up on some TV.

5 comments:

  1. Looks like an F/A-18. It would be easier to tell if the vertical stabaiizers were visible.

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  2. Jon,

    I believe that aircraft to be a F-18 F SuperHornet. The bug is nasty!

    Dad

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  3. Jon,
    You may need to lay down a trail with Tink's lure or what you can find, also you need to call, try buck grunt, doe bleat and try rattling, make a fake scrape. If I could I would be down there and we could set up and kill some deer.

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  4. Yeah, definitely an F/A-18. You can see the tips of the stabilizers and they're on the engine and in a V shape. The F-15's stabilizers are beside the engines and vertical.

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  5. Dad, I think it was still too early to try that stuff. Most people that get deer this early set up their stands in good spots - between the beds and the food, on a good trail. My stand was just in the middle of the woods in a spot with good visibility. It'll be good for when the rut starts, but now it kinda sucks. I can get a doe now but there isn't really any chance of me getting a legal buck (4 points on one side) from this stand until later this year.

    I don't know if I'm going out this weekend (first day of rifle season) or waiting a few days. Supposedly next Tues/Wed the sun and moon will be in the right position to make the deer start moving in the afternoon.

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