I know alot of people say don’t shoot the pigs while they are in the trap because it makes it hard to catch anymore but I really do not have a choice. I do not have anyway of transporting them to another location so I always just shoot mine and then when I get ready to catch some more I just move the trap to another spot over some fresh ground and it seems to not really make a difference to the pigs.

I have 3 coolers packed to the top with ice and meat so in between work shifts we will be boning and wrapping meat all weekend and eating some good grilled pork loin! Monday we are gonna move the trap about 50 yards over by the other feeder and bait it for awhile and see if we can catch the other bunch that have been coming on it. I love my treestand hunting and being out in the woods but if you dont have alot of hunting time and want to fill the freezer quick then get you a pig trap and let the trap hunt when you cant! It does get frustrating when dealing with smart and trap wise pigs but it is alot of fun! Its kind of like fishing, you love the relaxation of being out fishing and feeling them fight when you hook one, but the best and quickest way to fill the freezer with catfish is by trotlining which is a little work but a whole lot of fun too! 

The best part is that I have a freezer full of good pork. Now I can relax and bowhunt for the rest of  what is left of my deer season without feeling any pressure, other than having a unfilled buck tag for the first time in years which really I guess is not the end of the world. Keep ya posted on how the rest of 2010 season turns out. Take care

I have not given up yet but this looks like it is going to be the first year that I did not at least get one deer for the year since I was about 15. I cannot fault anyone but myself and terrible shooting because I did have a couple of chances at least. I also learned something new about my place and that is to hunt them hard during the early season because the bucks seem to disappear after the middle of November.

I have been carrying the boys all hunting one at a time some on Sunday evenings since that is about the only time I am off when they are out of school. I thought since they were so young that they would be moving around and would want to leave about 30 minutes after we got on stand but they all surprised me. Michele bought us a two man ladder stand to setup over the feeder area so I could take the boys and they would not have to sit on the ground. They love it and each time I have taken one of them they are quite and still all the way until it gets dark. The only complaint I have heard from them is that they just wish we could have seen a deer. I always try and explain to them that hunting is just that way sometimes, but deep down I am thinking I sure wish we could see a dang deer too! 

Been getting lots of pig pics coming in on my feeders every night so I am fixing to forget the deer amd start hammering the hogs. I actually think that they are probably one of the reasons my deer activity has slowed way down. Michele got me a Destroyer gun light by sniper hawg lights as an early Christmas present so I could start hunting the pigs at night. I have not really got to try it out on the pigs yet because I only have one night a week off, but from just playing around with it this thing is gonna be awesome if it doesnt spook the pigs. She got me the one with the red led so hopefully they wont spook when it hits them. I will post more about it when I try it out on some pigs.

Got my pig trap set and baited already up by my feeders, so I should at least have a couple of pigs in the next day or so. I have been spreadin a little corn and Hogwild around the outside and inside of the trap. They already have been going inside it so now that they are used to it I set the tripwire up and wait on the bacon! Keep you posted and hope everyone is having a great season!

 I have one of my climbing stands set up across the logging trail from the spot in the cedar and pine thicket where  I have been getting deer pics regularly since July. It is a perfect setup because they come out in the road about 15 yards in front of me, turn left and walk down the logging road bout 20 yards and turn right and follow  a small creek drainage that runs down to the creek on the west side of our property. The only problem with the whole deal is that they do it a lot more when it is dark than when it is daylight! 

I usually get to my stand about 30 minutes before light and I have found from my game cam that alot of the bucks are coming past my stand anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour before I arrive. I usually hunt until about 11 or 11:30am but due to not having much of anything moving around me all morning I decided to climb down about 10:15am  and go check out some other stand sites I have on the property. I had already lowered my pack and bow to the ground and was preparing to climb down. As I was unbuckling the seat of my stand from the tree, the plastic buckle hit the side of the stand and made a small clicking noise and all I heard was a big snort of air and I looked over and there he was looking straight at me! He then turned and 2 jumps later he was out of sight back down in the creek bottom behind me! He was heading back up the drainage out of the creek and would probably have crossed the road right in front of me giving me a perfect 12 yard broadside shot!  I was sick and wanted to cry but that is what I get for second guessing myself and being impatient! Not postive but I am pretty sure it was the buck in the picture below though he is not a monster I would have been really proud to have gotten him!

I have seen a few other bucks walking out of range in the thick stuff and tried calling to them but they are either deaf or pay it no mind. I watched one work a scrape about 50 yards across from me in the thicket one evening and I hit him with grunts and doe bleats and he acted like he never even heard it. He just finished tending his scrape and headed the other way. I have not seen a single doe as of yet this season. I have pics of nine different bucks but also have not gotten a pic of a doe since September which explains why now with the rut on I have stopped getting buck pics these last couple of weeks. I think I have figured out that with my property being mostly creek bottom and thick stuff that alot of the does are hanging out on the property that borders ours on the west side. It is not as thick as ours and has a lot of small openings and scattered timber and I know how much does like that stuff. Also it is for sale and as far as I can tell no one is hunting it at the moment so I am almost 100 percent sure that the pressure we have been putting on our place has made them seek refuge in there for awhile.

I can only really blame myself for making them as nocturnal as they are right now because I was in and out of my hunting area almost every other day this spring and summer but now that I have gotten the place fixed up pretty good after hunting season the place is gonna be kept quiet and undisturbed with as little human activity in there as possible. With me working six days a week now instead of having four days off like I used to have, I should have no problem staying out of there. I cannot help myself sometimes because I love being in the woods, but I know now that to make it a great hunting place like I know it is capable of being, it has to be left alone with as little impact as necessary or they will go nocturnal on you quick!

I have never seen as much pig sign in my life as I have here and not seen pigs. They are nocturnal as well, but they are coming in on my feeders every night now which could also be one reason my deer activity is slow. Of course with the full moon and warm temps we have been having lately I think every thing is moving at night right now but there have been some good deer being killed around here lately. All my vacations are used up for this year, so now I can only hunt the mornings after work but I will be back after them again starting Thanksgiving morning. We have a big cold front that is supposed to come in Wednesday so I decided to give my area a break and not go back in there until Thanksgiving. They should be up and moving around because the temps are supposed to be in the low 30’s so hopefully luck will shine on me and give me another oppurtunity that I won’t mess up! Hope everyone’s season is going good and hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving!

We filled the feeders and turned them on and planted about a half acre food plot the first of September. We got rain the same weekend we planted the plot and it started coming up great, but it is  looking  pretty bad now because we have not had a drop of rain since.We are in a drought pretty much here in Northeast Texas and Southeast Oklahoma. We have not been getting the rain that other parts of the state have been getting so we really need some bad. As far as the rest of the weather here, I do not think you could ask for any better for the first week of bow season.

 The temps have been really cool and the winds have been very light and calm. My buddy has been hunting my place with me but so far neither of us has seen a thing. We have only had 3 stand sits and all 3 times the weather was absolutely beautiful and perfect even though we have been skunked so far! We were supposed to hunt Tuesday morning also but I forgot to plug my cell phone in and it went dead while searching for signal all night from our cabin. Since it went dead and the alarm did not sound we woke up well after daylight lol!

When I woke up and found it was daylight I got to admit I was a little ticked off, but I got really ticked when we went and checked the game camera on the trail to the pond I am hunting over. I had 4  good size pigs on the trail at 7 am that morning! Oh well that is just the kinda luck I seem to have. I woul have really been sick if a big 10 pt buck had been there though lol!

Even though we have not scored yet we are still having a good time just being out there. I am not discouraged at all because I have pig and deer sign everywhere around the pond and logging trail that runs through our place. I have not found any rubs or scrapes yet but I figure that should pick up within the next couple of weeks. I am still getting pics of young bucks,does, and fawns pawing at the salt licks I have put out. The pics of the deer I have been getting has been anywhere from 9 at night until 4:30 am. Hopefully with the rut getting closer their daylight activity will pick up soon.

I will be going again in the morning and tomorrow evening and then call it quits for a couple of days to spend some quality time with the boss Michele! With her busy schedule and my crazy work schedule now we do not get to spend very much alone time together anymore so Friday we plan on spending together. Saturday I will take the kids down to the camp and have an outing with them since they are in school now and do not get to go very often and Sunday I will be in church. I plan on hunting Monday morning a little while but have to be back at work that evening. Besides a few short morning hunts I will have to wait for Saturdays to hunt all day if we get them off.

My next vacation will be Oct 25 and everyone I have talked to tells me that is when the rut usually starts in the area we are at. I hope they are right because that is the week I have been looking forward to all year long! That week is the time I will be on stand all day long. I will not say that I won’t get skunked, but I can tell you that it won’t be from lack of putting in time and effort! I just thank God for blessing me with a place to go and enjoy his creation. I hope everyone is having a great 2010 bow season so far and hope it only gets better! Take care and I will do my best to keep ya posted on my season!

I also have pics of four different bucks that have been hitting it hard. They are all pretty good looking bucks.They are not monsters but they all look pretty healthy and are all rack bucks. The one in the pic is the biggest one I have got on cam yet.  I have seen the time where he would have looked big coming through the woods. Two of the other three bucks I have gotten on camera are gonna be solid 6 pointers. The other has damaged his left main beam somehow because it appears to turn and drop downward. If I keep getting pics of these guys then the one with the messed up main beam will be the one I try and target during the early bow season. Not because I think there is anything wrong with his genes or nothing, I just have never killed a buck with a messed up freaky looking rack.

I have gotten several more pics of single does with no fawns. I guess they were too young to get bred last season, but I hope they keep hanging around and bring me in lots of buck action this fall. The doe and fawn below are the ones that stay on the lick the most. All in all things are starting off right this year so far. I am already pumped even though it feels like it is 110 degrees outside. I just wish I owned about three more game cameras though. Them things can get addictive! 

 I have heard of so many different ways to make salt licks or mineral licks that I cannot count them all. The way that works best for me is to just buy those cheap 50lb white salt blocks, dig a hole deep enough to bury the block but leave  the top sticking out about an inch above the ground. Then I fill in the hole around the block with the loose bag salt,  and  cover the top of the block with loose dirt and more bag salt mixed together with a rake. Then I pray for rain.

I mix the bag salt in with the dirt and cover the top so that the deer will start using them sooner. I learned that one year when I put out a couple of blocks and just buried them up to the top and nothing ever touched them. I figured that the deer where I was must not like salt. The next spring rolled around after the block had dissolved into the ground and had been forgotten about, and  I noticed deer were tearing the ground up where the blocks had been the year before trying to get the salt. So if the deer start hitting them pretty heavy and it’s not raining enough to melt the block into the ground some, I will just keep recharging the licks with bag salt until they stop using them for the year. 

I put four licks on our new property this year. The deer have already started using all four. I put one by each feeder and one by each of our ponds. I know that some people will say to use the brown blocks because they have more mineral than salt, and have more of what the deer need. I myself have used the brown blocks and white blocks side by side and never had anything touch the brown blocks, even after they melt into the ground. I do not put out licks to grow monster bucks anyhow, I just want to hold deer on and around my property. I try to do so by keeping as much stuff out that appeals to their cravings. The pic below is one of my licks I made at the first of April, it was completely covered with dirt and salt when I made it and now the deer have dug all around it.  

He will always admit when he got skunked, but most of the time he connects with what he is after! Brian, his dad, and his buddies are all cool and make the show great even when they are having a hard time connecting with something. They are true hunters and will tell you real quick that is why it’s called huntin’ and not called killin’. I love watchin Primo’s, Michael Waddell, and Mossy Oak’s hunting shows because they keep it real and are down to earth cool guys also, but PigMan is my favorite show. If you like hunting shows check it out on the sportsmans channel. I think the new episode for the week airs on Wednesday evenings.

I had checked it Thursday and the batteries were still showing 75 percent, so I decided to move it back overlooking my feeder to see if any deer or pigs had found it yet. After checking it today I had a little over 700 pics of more coons, squirrels, and birds in two days time and the batteries are still at 60 percent! I was a little disappointed that no pigs or deer have been hitting my feeder, but I am still more than happy with the D40 so far. It has taken almost 1100 pics and still has more than half the battery life left.

Before I left I went and set it back up along the creek crossing where I had placed it before. I am just gonna leave it alone for a couple of weeks now and then go see what it got. I know deer and hogs have been crossing there, but what I would really like to see now is some turkeys! I will post the results when I get them. The pic below is one of the does that has been crossing our driveway.

 I am happy with the performance of this camera so far. I have it set on low quality image due to the fact I think the higher quality setting will make it slower. The pic below was taken around 5:25 am, and the deer was 15 to 20 yards from the camera so the flash is workin great. I love this new camera and if it continues to work this good I will have to get at least one more before October.  

I just turned 39 this past week, and for my birthday my mom and dad bought me a new Moultrie D40 Gamespy camera. I have read good and bad reviews on this cam, but so far I love it, just wish I would have had it back in October. I actually got it earlier this month and went and set it up over the same feeder that I had my wildview over, and was only getting two or three dark pics from. I set the Moultrie up to take 3 still shots when triggered and in 2 days I had 366 pics of coons, squirrels, and birds. Some were night shots and the flash is great, the pics are clear day or night. The camera runs on six Dcell batteries and after 366 pics they still showed 95 percent full.

Another thing I like about this camera is I can set it up to take either a 10 second video or 1,2,or 3 still shots whenever it is triggered. It also stamps the date and time on each pic which would have been very helpful when I had all the hogs coming in on my feeders at night a couple of seasons ago.

I moved it off the feeder Saturday to a spot I found where deer and hog tracks are crossing the creek. I will check the camera again this weekend and post the results. I am not really expecting alot just kind of playing around to see how good it works and how the batteries hold up. If it keeps taking pics and working like it did the first two days I set it up, this September and October I expect to get quite a few pics of some bucks when they start moving around getting primed up for the rut.