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! 

We have had a couple of flash floods up there since they have finished but no where near enough rain to fill it up. We planted bermuda grass on top and around the inside of the dam to keep it from eroding so much while we wait for it to fill up. Seems like it just stopped raining now but probably just as well until the dam gets covered in grass. Hopefully it will be full by next spring and we can start stocking it.

We plan on stocking it with bluegill and fathead minnows first so they can get established good as feed for the other fish. After they get going a few months we are gonna stock about 100 largemouth bass and 100 channel cats. That’s what we had in our pond on our old place, and they provided hours of fun for us the kids and also quite a few good meals for us all. We love our new place and about the only thing we been missing especially this time of year is our pond. Hopefully next year we won’t be missing it at all. We just prayin for some of those slow,steady, two and three day rains to get here. I am posting a picture of it below but it is from a cell phone so it is probably hard to tell much about it. You can see in the pic the little pond down in the middle and behind it is the new dam.When it fills up all the ground in the pic should be water.

I did a stupid thing when I was about 17 and quit high school. I do not want to say that everyone who quits school is stupid. I know that some have to quit for circumstances that cannot be prevented. For me it was stupidity, because I quit for the simple reason I did not like school. I began researching jobs when  I thought I would be losing mine. I figured out quick that nowdays without a high school diploma or GED I was screwed!

I signed up for GED classes and after 6 weeks of studying and going to the classes I am proud to say I took the test and passed! I have been stressed and worrying about this for awhile, but now I feel really good. I just got my certificate in the mail yesterday and it feels so good to have that behind me. Now if my place of employment ends up shutting down I do not have to spend time preparing to get a diploma, instead I can go enroll in some college courses or other vocational courses.

All I can say is that if you don’t  have a diploma or GED then it might be time for you to consider going for it. I know that some think they will never need it just like I thought for a long time because I was so secure at my job. Well that way of thinking came back and bit me. I still have a job for now but I don’t  know for how long and it’s sure not very secure anymore. I was scared I couldn’t  pass it, but really with the classes they offer a person it is not all that hard. If you can read, write, add, subtract, multiply, and divide you can pass it.

I don’t  know how it is where you live, but here you cannot even get a job digging ditches without at least a GED. You also have to have one to enroll in any college vocational courses. I have been checking into a taxidermy school that I want to enroll in next spring and they even require a diploma or GED. Could not quite understand that one but it goes to show me I could not do anything career or job wise without it. So if you do not have a diploma or GED go ahead now and go for it. If I can pass it then you can too!

With all that said and everything back to normal now I will have quite a few new posts coming up. I have had a few projects going on and I am so pumped and ready for bow season. With all the stress and worry behind me for now I can get back to what I like talking about the most HUNTING! Thanks to everyone who reads and comments on my blog. Hope you continue and if you have any ideas about hunting or anything else for that matter send me a email I am very interested in hearing ideas and hunting stories.

When you are a hunter or any kind of outdoorsman eventually you are gonna have encounters with snakes. Alot of people will try and kill every snake they see, but myself if I encounter one in the woods I will usually just leave him be and go along about my business. I remember a few years back I was bowhunting one afternoon. I climbed out of my stand about dusk and was slipping through the woods making my way to the field where I was gonna go pick up my buddy. It was not hot but just kinda cool and I was wearing a thin pair of camo pants and some camo hiker type shoes.

I stopped at the edge of the field and was gonna make sure no deer were on it before I stepped out because I did not wanna spook them, when I felt something hit my shin. I really did not pay any attention to it because I thought I had just stepped on a stick and it popped up and hit me until I felt it again while I was standing still! I shined my flashlight down and saw that I was standing on about a 2 ft copperhead that had struck again, and this time got his fangs hung up in my pants. Needless to say I left stuff scattered everywhere trying to get out of there! 

Finally after calming down and picking up all my stuff I scattered, I realized I had not been bitten. I guess the only thing that saved me was my pants were kind of baggy and hung him up. I will tell you though that I bought me some snake proof boots after that and if it is above 55 degrees I wear them. I do not blame the snake though because I guess if I were in his place and someone stepped on me I would bite them too! Not the snakes fault he was born a snake, he was just trying to protect himself the way that he knows how.

The other day me and my dad were up at our deer camp and encounterd the cottonmouth water moccasin in the photo above, right behind our cabin. We ended up killing him because he was almost right out the back door. I hated to kill him but with all the kids we carry up there, I cannot take a chance on having one of them get snake bit. He never really struck out at us or showed any aggression besides coiling up and throwing his mouth open as a warning to stay back. I was really surprised that a cottonmouth would be that close to our cabin when he should have been down on the creek.

I really am thinking of getting some snake tongs to keep up there so that when I see a venomous snake I can catch and relocate it away from our cabin to the woods where it belongs. Michele thinks I am crazy and should kill them but to me they get a bad rap. Snakes do not seek people out to bite, but if you surprise one by stepping or sitting on it, or reaching into places without looking where they could be, then you are very likely to get bitten. I do not blame anyone for killing a venomous snake if you find one where children play or lot’s of people frequent who could end up being bitten. But just remember that the snake is not there looking for someone to bite, he is just somewhere he should not be. They really want to be as far away from people as people want to be from them.

 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.  

I chose not to hunt in the evenings because after about noon the wind always picked up and swirled very bad, so I figured I would be doing myself more harm than good by even going in the area. I have not gotten any more pics of them on the Moultrie D40 either so I thought that they must have been just passing thru, or I spooked them by leaving  scent around the feeders.

 I will be the first to say if that is the case these are the spookiest, most skittish deer and hogs in this area I have ever seen. I always try to be careful and not touch alot of stuff and leave as little scent as possible in my areas, but I guess I am going to have to start taking extreme precautions. From now on I will wear rubber boots and rubber gloves when checking and filling feeders and even checking my game cameras.

I know that it had to have something to do with it, because even though they abandoned the feeders, they have not left the area. We have 2 small ponds on our place and one is less than 75 yards of the feeders, and they have been all over it rootin’ and makin wallows, so from here on out I will be extremely cautious about scent control and hopefully they won’t even know a person has been anywhere around.

I plan on getting after them again this weekend, but to tell the truth, I just can’t seem to get very much into it right now. After finding out at the first of the month that the plant I have worked at for 20yrs is about to layoff 260 people by August, I have been pretty stressed out trying to figure out what I am gonna do.

 I know that we are just now feeling the economic effects that thousands of other americans have been feeling for 2 years now, but if  Obama, Biden, Nazi Pelosi and all the rest of those communist’s that call themselves democrats stay in office much longer, you can bet that there will be thousands more! At least I can say I didn’t vote for em’!!!  And for the people who did because they wanted change, well all I can say is congatulations, they got it!!

  After asking  a few neighbors and some of the guys who maintain the county road if they have seen any turkeys around, I have come to the conclusion that if there are any it’s very few. So that is kind of a bummer since I have taken a vacation to hunt spring turkeys, but I still plan on getting out there after them and hope that there is at least maybe one gobbler around in the vicinty.

The good news is that after reading on another site that adding rasberry jello mix to corn in and around a feeder attracts pigs like crazy, I decided to try it and I hit the jackpot. Two days after refilling the feeder and adding the jello mix to the corn, the Moultrie D 40 got several pics and a couple of videos of some nice pigs. I am pumped now because I had just as soon shoot some hogs as a turkey. The video below is one that the D40 got this morning and hopefully by the end of the week I will have a couple of these pigs in the freezer!

That load was pushing around 3050 fps and grouped about an inch to an inch and a half on paper at 100 yards which is perfectly ok for hunting, but I wanted to experiment and try to get it better. I started playing around with IMR 4895,  which is a faster burning powder, under the 85 grain sierra and think I finally got a load that I really like. With 36 grains of the 4895, the 85 grain bullet is pushing right at 3100 fps. After the velocity test through the chrono, I shot a four shot group on paper at 100 yards to test the loads accuracy.

All four shots were no more than a half inch apart, so I thought I probably should call it good and leave it alone! Just for the heck of it I decided to set up a dr pepper can I emptied while I walked down to check my target. When I got back to the table I was shooting from, I fired my last two rounds at the can from 100 yards. When I retreived the can I was very happy to see two shots touching each other, almost forming one neat hole right through the center of the can! 

So actually I gained 50 fps velocity and tightened my groups up with seven grains less powder using the 4895. I will continue to try and improve because I get bored and like tinkering, but I think I found the load for the old 788 .243.

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.