When you write, it can often come across that every time you go out it’s a success ……. but\u00a0it kind of\u00a0depends how you define success. If it is game in the bag, you have your misses like everyone else. As a hunter, I consider myself ahead of the\u00a0curve everytime I get to spend\u00a0a day\u00a0in the field. But when I have my writters hat on and testing new equipment\u00a0while up against a deadline, success is often measured against getting the material you needed to write your article and meet the deadline.<\/p>\n
I’ve mentioned that my family and I are in the process of moving from Indiana to Minnesota, and while waiting to sell my house I’ve been flying back and forth every week, which\u00a0has been cutting into my hunting season this year. I keep telling myself that once relocated I’ll have access to tons of\u00a0hunting opportunities in the Dakotas as well as Minnesota, but it’s put a premium on my hunting time. What compounds the problem for me is that I have several new guns, pellets, scopes, calls, and other gear to test. So I try to make the most out of every chance to get out; where I used to hunt three to four time per week I’m now lucky to get out on a morning\u00a0or afternoon hunt during the week. Against this backdrop, a failure to bag my game has ramifications on my writting assignment. So rather than\u00a0base this article on\u00a0an earlier hunt, I thought\u00a0that in the name of balanced reporting\u00a0I’d share\u00a0a recent hunt where I struck out……. no matter how good you are (or think you are), no matter\u00a0how much time you spend in the field. or how honed your techniques are, this will happen from time to time.<\/p>\n
I was flying back on a Friday night with my plane arriving at 10:00 pm, and knew that I’d get home at 11:00, spend an hour getting my gear together, and\u00a0catch a few hours sleep before a 5:30 wake up call. That would be the signal\u00a0to throw on my camo, pack my guns and gear,\u00a0for the\u00a0drive up to one of my squirrel hunting spots. My plan was to drive\u00a0a couple hours north, to a local public hunting area that is comprised of several thousand acres of woods and lakefront that I hunt quite frequenly. I grabbed two guns that I’ve been shooting, one of the new .30’s and a .25 rifle\u00a0in which I was trying out some newly release pellets. My plan was to head out with the .25 to bag a few squirrels, then hike back to my vehicle and swap out guns, grab my Fox Pro E-caller and work the margins where the harvested cornfields ran up against the woods and try to call up a coyote. I got on site before the sun came up and\u00a0set up in\u00a0a stand of hardwoods where I always see bushytails. It was a cold morning and there was snow on the ground. I\u00a0wore my warm snow patterned camo overalls and coat, and was feeling\u00a0that this was going to be a good morning. Sitting with my back against a tree, which let me overlook a gently sloping hill with a lot of deadfall, I waited. After 15 minutes I sensed motion to my right, and slowly turning spotted a couple does walking off to the side. After they’d wandered by I herd some noise and saw a flash of movement, and after a few minutes spotted a red squirrel about 40 yards away moving down a tree, then digging up nuts and feeding. I\u00a0tracked him through the scope, but as I don’t hunt these little guys, satified myself with watching. After a few minutes, another squirrel ran down the trunk of a tree 30 yards to my left …… another red! I sat this stand for a half hour and saw nothing more, so decided to move on.<\/p>\n
Hiking 15 minutes on, I spotted a fox squirrel moving through the trees in my direction, closing in from about 100 yards away. I sat down and prepared to shoot when he popped up in range. I never saw him again. But 10 minutes later a nice little four point buck came walking right past me. It figured, now that I was squirrel hunting I couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a deer! Funny how that works. I waited another few minutes and caught the outline of a squirrels head peering over the fork of an oak branch about 40 yards away. I brought the gun to shoulder and found my target …… another bloody red squirrel! I spent the next two hours in what should have been great conditions, in a place I knew head squirrels, and there was nothing to be found. I decided to give up on squirrels and give some predator calling a try before giving up altogether.<\/p>\n
I drove a couple miles down the road\u00a0to an area where I’d heard coyotes when I was out a few weeks earlier, parked, grabbed my gear, then hike about a half mile to a harvested corn field surrounded on three sides by woods. I worked into a spot that gave me a wind\u00a0advantage and tucked into a snow\u00a0dusted\u00a0bush along the border. With the call positioned about 20 yards in front of me, I started with a soft rodent squeal before changing to a cottontail distress and increasing the volume. 10 minutes in I saw a yote pop out of the woodline about 200 yards away from me. He started charging in to the call on a dead run, then at about 100 yards he started circling into the wind. I don’t know if he saw me bringing my gun around (I was moving at a painfully slow speed) or winded me, but he turned tail and bolted back to where he’d come from. And that was all she wrote, a couple more sets but no more action followed.<\/p>\n
So there you go, those of us that\u00a0write about\u00a0hunting may give the impression that we never come back empty handed, but that’s not the case. Especially for those of us that hunt public land as well as private property, you take the strikeouts along with the home runs.\u00a0After\u00a0a couple days off\u00a0for the holidays, I’ll\u00a0get back out for some hunting before I go back to work. If all goes well, I’ll have a success story for you in my next post ….. but you never know! That’s why they call it hunting!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When you write, it can often come across that every time you go out it’s a success ……. but\u00a0it kind of\u00a0depends how you define success. If it is game in the bag, you have your misses like everyone else. As a hunter, I consider myself ahead of the\u00a0curve everytime I get to spend\u00a0a day\u00a0in the … Continue reading