SHEDS EXTEND DEER SEASON

Ever since man first began his love affair with those bony protrusions on the top of male deer, he has been collecting them. First he hunted them and used the antlers for tools and weapons as well as trophies. Today, he also collects racks after the deer discard them.

Sheds, as they are called are dropped by deer following the end of the mating season. Most are allowed to decay anonymously in the woods. But, a growing number of hunters have found that collecting deer sheds is a fun way to extend the deer hunting season. It also is a great way to tell what deer made it through the hunting season and will be available on the land next year. It reflects the health of the deer herd in general.

Shed antler gathering is like being on a treasure hunt. You never know what you will find.

There are some tips that will aid in finding the sheds of trophy bucks. The big guys are usually the first to drop their antlers. Beginning in late December or early January, the bucks are in a worn down physical condition. They have been through the rut that takes a tremendous toll.

During the rut, they are breeding and fighting to defend territory. There is little time to eat. As a result their body condition suffers greatly. Their lack of good nutrition contributes to the dropping of the antlers.

By following deer trails one can pattern the activity of the herd. Big bucks will often remain just off of these trails but still in contact with them. Since bucks will have similar patterns of antler points from one year to the next, it is possible to pattern individual bucks from one year to the next.

After the buck gets to be eight or 10 years of age, his antler size begins to decline but the configuration remains much the same. In the wild, deer do not often get to be that age. But, if one finds one, he may be a wonderful trophy.

Key to finding sheds is knowing deer habitats that are in use during this period. One can drive the roads and observe deer in fields and woods. A good pair of binoculars will allow one to observe the animals without spooking them.

It helps to keep a record of deer sightings in a notebook or on a map of the area. Do not rely upon your memory. Of particular interest are bedding areas. Since the animals spend most of the day in them, the bedding areas are good locations to find sheds. Easy travel areas between feeding and bedding areas are also important. These are usually changes in vegetation or cover which make it easier for the deer to travel through them.

Once the game plan has been worked out by watching deer behavior during this period, it is time to take to the field. In the field, look for signs of bucks in the area. These can be old scrapes or rubs. Often the best location for antler finds is in an area where rubs are found.

Walk slowly and scan every inch of the ground. Often only a point or two of the rack will be visible in the first sighting. It is exciting to see a point protruding out of the grass or snow. It becomes like Christmas to pull it out of its hidden location and find much more than you expected.

Who knows, perhaps you will find the rack of a monster buck that you did not even know existed. And if you can find both sides, and they will be near one another, you will have the trophy of a lifetime.

Shed hunting helps one to pattern deer activity for next year’s hunting season. One can see the growth of a particular buck and know that he will be there for you to pursue during hunting season. Finding the same buck’s rack year after year whets the desire to finding him during the season next year.

                                                         Don Gasaway - The Upland Hunter
                                                         http://www.dongasaway.wordpress.com/

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The Passing of an Old Year…

I wrote this as a newspaper column about ten years ago, and several readers commented that they liked it then. So I will send it out again in hopes that new readers like it as well, and old readers don’t remember it.

There won't be any New Year’s Eve party here on Lightnin' Ridge. Things will be about like they are almost every night. Before midnight, a pair of raccoons will be ambling along the small creek that leads down to the river, looking for food that is becoming harder to find because the crawdads are in deep water and the frogs are buried in the mud, just as it has been for hundreds and hundreds of years.

A great horned owl will leave his perch at the edge of the meadow and sweep down upon an unsuspecting deer mouse without a sound other than the rustling in the grass when he pins against the cold earth with sharp talons. A great horned owl’s wings still make no noise, just as it has been for who knows how long. Unfortunately for the mouse, he won’t live to see the new year, but he doesn’t even know that there is one coming. He didn’t see the coming of the last one. He has lived only 10 months, and that’s a long time for a mouse. The field where he has lived is a home for dozens of field mice, voles, cotton rats, and shrews; nearly a dozen species of small ground mammals, some of which spend the entire winter beneath ground in hibernation.

Fortunately for the owl, and other predators, there are some species of small mammals that do not hibernate, but remain active throughout the winter or at least much of it.

Inside the big oak where the owl sat, a pair of fox squirrels sleep in a small, protected cavity. They will miss the dawning of a new day and a new year if the temperature is well below freezing for a good while. Squirrels do not hibernate throughout the winter, but in periods of extended extreme cold, they will sleep for days, in a semi-hibernation much like the raccoon, the skunk and the opossum.

There are some big sycamores along the bluff over the creek, and several wild gobblers spend the eve of the new year asleep on their branches, their forms plainly visible in the moonlight. Three are big old toms, but there are five jakes which have never experienced a new year’s eve before. They sleep through it, with tightened tendons in their legs securing their toes to the limbs of the sycamore like the grasp of a vice. Their ancestors weathered the passing of hundreds of new years in much the same way. Change is not clamored for amongst wild creatures. It is a resistance to change that ensures survival of the species. It is sameness that gives security in wild places.

In a cedar thicket, buried in the grasses, a covey of bobwhites form a ring, ten of them in all. There were nearly twice as many in November. The new year brings little for them to celebrate. With their bodies huddled together, warmth is passed to the weaker members of the covey by the stronger and they preserve heat as feathers fluff and insulate. When there are too few and the temperature plunges, there is less chance of survival. As the new year begins, smaller groups find birds of another covey and join them, in greater numbers finding greater strength to resist the cold.

Huddled beneath the cedar, they are unaware of the grey fox, which passes as the new year approaches. His is an eternal quest for food, and if he only knew they were there, what a New Year’s Eve party he would have. But like the owl, he will settle for a few small ground mammals on this final night of an old year.

A half dozen mallards spring to flight as a bobcat streaks across the river gravel bar where they rest, upstream from the mouth of the creek. He leaps high to grasp a slower member of the flock with his forepaws and pulls her down, taking that weaker, slower individual for a new year’s feast. The hen mallard is a substantial meal for the bobcat. The rest of the flock circles in the moonlight and will settle into another hole of water upstream.

The last protests of the quacking hen breaks the stillness, but other sounds of nature at midnight are subtle. A buck snorts from a cedar thicket above the creek. A dying rabbit shrieks from the field across the river, as a mink ferrets him from a brush pile. Smaller than the rabbit, the mink can go anywhere, and he wraps his body around the cottontail’s neck and hangs on, his teeth buried in the soft fur as the life and death struggle which marks the beginning of a new year is just as it has always been.

Here where the creek joins the river, where the woodland breaks into meadow, where thickets of briar and cedar stand as they have since men first came to change and scar the land....life goes on. There is no celebration. It is only the passing of another night, the coming of another day.

And I know that for some it is necessary on this night to group together and make much of the ticking of a clock, where alcohol flows and the noise grows to a blaring crescendo. But I’ll walk that quiet wooded ridge above the creek at midnight, and treasure the silence, listening for little more than the distant yodel of a coyote. I’ll survey the river bottoms in the moonlight and be thankful for the stability of unchanging nature...wild creatures living as they always have, evidence of God’s unchanging laws which even man will eventually answer to.

There is perfection here...thank God we haven’t ruined it all. We will in time, I suppose. These mushrooming numbers of human beings will destroy it all eventually. But maybe not this year… On this little Ozark ridge-top, there is life continuing as it always has. There’s nothing special here at midnight, no observance of anything different or new. And I will not celebrate the coming of a new year while I linger there. I will mourn the passing of the old one. It was a good year, one to give thanks for. None of us are guaranteed the will be another one. This quiet wooded ridge overlooking the moonlit river, is a good place to ask the Creator to allow us all to enjoy one more year, to ask that the coming year be a good one as well.... a year wherein wild things and wild places continue to exist.

I could wish you a happy new year but wishing it for you will not make it happen. We should pray for each other’s good health, and work together to make the coming year a good year for all. In living our lives with others in mind, we create happiness for ourselves. If you have seen many years pass, you have learned that. If you are young and have it to learn, may this be the year it comes to you. And may you end this new year with more friends, more peace and more wisdom than you began it with. Those are the three things no man can ever have too much of.

Write to me at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613 or e-mail me at lightninridge@windstream.net My website is larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com.

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The Story Luke Wrote

I had been walking for quite some time, along a trail that looked to be an old, old wagon road, up into the hills where some big white oaks and hickories stood. I figured the acorns would be gone, but it was a beautiful spot not far from an ancient homestead where there was nothing left but a rock foundation, and perhaps the ghosts of generations past that had loved the Ozarks then as I do now.

There were some green grass patches there that might attract some deer, and well-worn paths crossed the ridge top, with nice-sized hoof prints frozen into what had been soft ground a few weeks before. I took off my orange cap and vest, and stowed them in my pack. It is sacrilege to wear such obnoxious garb whilst clutching an old muzzleloader rifle in such beautiful woods. So I would just put on my old fur cap and pretend I was Daniel Boone, and my muzzleloader was Ol' Betsy.

I sat against the base of a big tree, and knew the sun's rays upon me might not make me inconspicuous. But what the heck, it was warmth. In total relaxation, I watched the old road opening before me, visualizing a ten-point buck...or even a nice fat fork-horn. The former would make little but hamburger, something smaller might be fit for steaks. Then I happened to think about how far it was to my boat, and wondered if I wanted to really shoot something I had to drag that far. Maybe a young doe would be just as good. Oh well, you worry about things when it's time to worry about things, not before. The sun was high and I warmed up a bit, and I dozed just a little.

I guess I must have slept a little better than I thought, because I had a hard time waking up. Things seemed different around me as I awakened, and the sun was gone. Some light snow was falling, and there was a hunter walking the old road toward me. He was slender and tall, with a long rifle resting in the crook of his arm, a long leather coat below his waist and a cap that looked like something from the Civil War. His boots were dark with grease, with high leather leggings and worn wool pants above them.

He startled me just a bit, getting so close, catching me sound asleep. But there wasn't anything foreboding in his face. It looked to be carved, with a prominent nose and brow, deep lines in his cheeks and a half-inch of salt-and-pepper whiskers over most of his face. His eyes were deep set and dark, and as he stepped carefully toward me, I noticed he limped a little.

"Don't mind me, stranger," he said in a quiet voice, "I don't mean to problemize yore huntin', I've wandered a bit farther than I meant." He just squatted on his haunches a couple of yards from me and pulled a couple of pieces of dried meat from a leather pack on a long sling around his shoulder. "Have a bite if you'd a mind to, I brung plenty with me."

I took a piece of the jerky, but declined the bread, an old flat looking biscuit of some kind. I thanked him and told him I was a bit embarrassed to be caught sleeping while hunting... made me look like a greenhorn of sorts. I asked where he came from, and he took it literally.

"I got a cabin just up the river at the forks, a wife and four young 'uns... but my folks came from Tennesee when I was just a boy. Times has been hard lately and I strayed up here to these parts to see if'n I could find somethin' bigger 'n squirrels. The deer hit my corn purty hard an' then they thinned out. The smokehouse is empty right now. You had any luck?"

I told him I hadn't. I said I thought I might hunt 'til Christmas Eve though, just to escape the crowds in town, not so much concerned with shooting anything.

"Hit's been a spell since I was to a town," I could hear the Tennessee in him. "But right at Christmas I may hitch the wagon and take the woman and the kids in. We got a Christmas tree all fixed up an' I've made some toys for all of 'em, wooden guns an' whistles and dolls an the like. Hit's a glorious time."

Up to then, I thought he was maybe just spoofin' me, the way that us muzzleloader hunters sometimes do, but I began to look hard at him, and notice that as the snow fell, the surroundings I had awakened in seemed far different. The hair was standing up on the back of my neck.

"I don't mean to be nosy," he said to me, "but ain't you that writer feller who comes to these hills to hunt some, and fishes the river in the spring? I think maybe you and I sees things in common a lot, believin' as we do. Ain't it a sight how folks is forgot what Christmas is all about in their modern ways and fancy things? Tell 'em, those folks you write to, that if they forget what the truths their grandfathers honored, the days of this great nation is numbered."

I just nodded my head--- who would listen to me nowadays! The jerky was good, but very salty. I put most of it in my pocket and nibbled on a small piece. "I know what Christmas is about," I told him, "People who forget become miserable this time of year, they get into a tormented routine they just can't seem to escape. It's a deep rut for lots of folks."

"I like your stories," he told me. "But I like what my grandmother used to read to us at Christmas from her old Bible, by a writer named Luke. Tell folks to not get past Christmas without reading Luke's story. It'll help 'em considerable with their lives."

He stood up to leave, favoring that leg. I asked if he had been wounded in the war, thinking about Iraq. "I took a mini-ball in the leg at Wilson's Creek," he told me. He stood there and looked at me, not saying anything, wanting to see my reaction. And then I realized, as he slowly turned and disappeared down the road, that surely I had just been in the midst of a very realistic dream. And I closed my eyes and drifted back to sleep.

I awakened to see a light skiff of snow around me; my butt was sore and my foot was numb. I grinned about that goofy dream, and realized I needed to get back toward my boat. The snow was still light and there was no wind. I looked for tracks in the road before me and there were none. That was something of a relief.

It was dark when I got home, and I had the urge to write something. I left my coat in the floor and Gloria picked it up, complaining about how I never put my coat where it ought to be. I heard her say... "Where in the world did you get this jerky, it's so salty I can't see how you could eat it."

I am going back to that ridge top after Christmas. He will find me, I am sure. In the meantime, I hope you and your family will observe an old-time Christmas, with a lot of peace and happiness, and goodwill toward your fellow man that lasts way past next summer. And if you liked this story, you ought to read the one Luke wrote.

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THE FISHING ROD

The rod has two purposes: to cast and to retrieve. To cast, the rod is a launching platform. It guides the line, provide a lever and spring action that gets the bait out. Then the line guides, lever and spring are used to retrieve the fish.

Fishing probably began with a spear. That was followed by nets, poison, hook and then came the fishing rod. We can trace fishing rods back to ancient Egypt when reeds or light flexible wood was used to catch fish in about 500 A.D. In the 1840's, lighter more flexible and durable bamboo rods came into use to replace the wooden rods. They remained the choice of anglers for over a hundred years.

In the 1940's tubular steel and aluminum rods came into use. They were quickly replaced in the mid 40's with solid fiberglass rods. By the 1950's tubular fiberglass rods came into use followed in the 70's by tubular graphite rods.

Graphite is a well-known conductor of electricity. During an electrical storm, put down your rod immediately. Better yet place it in the rod locker of your boat. Failure to take precautions makes a lightening rod out of you.

Making a fishing rod is a many step labor intensive process. Companies do not just turn out rods on a rod machine with raw materials going into one end and a gleaming finished rod coming out the other.

Four of the key features of the fishing rod are: the blanks, reel seats, guides and sensitivity.

There are three factors in a rod blank. The strength of the blank is the expected weight the rod can lift without breaking. The action is the deflection curve of the rod when loaded, either during the cast or retrieve. Power is the resistance of the rod to bending. A heavy power rod will begin bending at the same point of the lighter power rod of the same action, but the heavy power rod will bend less.

Strength, action and power of the rod are dependent upon several variables. The first of these is the mandrel diameter and taper(s). This is the base design of the rod, determined by the planned purpose. That is an ultra light or perhaps a rod for a big flathead catfish. The second variable is the material used in construction, followed by the quality of the materials and placement.

While the basic processing steps used to manufacture tubular rods have remained the same for over twenty years, significant improvements have been made in the raw materials, and the ability to efficiently process the materials with consistent results.

The reinforcing fibers used are predominantly fiberglass, graphite, or a combination of both. A composite is formed of a matrix resin which binds the reinforcing fibers and holds them together. The use of graphite in rods has significantly improved the actions and functionality of the rod. Resin systems have continuously improved for adhesion to the fibers, toughness, and durability with more processing ease.

Manufacturers place great emphasis on the quality of materials and placement. The pattern shape, placement and orientation of the material positioned on the mandrel forms the action and bower of the rod. Interactive techniques are used to reach the desired design.

In consideration of the parts of a rod, the angler needs to look at each with a discerning eye. Reel seats on a rod demonstrate a number of significant improvements. The reel seat connects the reel to the rod. One the first improvements was to connect the reel seat to the blank.

Lighter weight materials and design enable one to connect the reel to the rod with a good tight fit and yet still be able to easily remove the reel with no marring of the reel foot.

Guides are aptly named in that they guide the line along the rod blank. The materials from which they are made must be wear resistant and smooth so as not to harm the line. Through rod design guides are sized and spaced to maximize casting distance and retrieve without the line touching the rod blank. The design of the guides themselves has improved with lighter weight, double foot for strength at casting stripper guides, single foot for lighter weight and more unrestrained action.

A rods sensitivity is the ability to feel the fish strike or the bait action. It can be linked to: reduced weight, high modulus, fiber orientation and rod action.

Reduced weight begins with less overall material. The use of high modulus material, lighter reel seats with less dampening material between fingers and the rod or reel seat design. Handle material, such as cork and EVA, that is light weight, vibration carrying and non slip also contribute to the rod sensitivity. Often overlooked is the fact that the ferrules, which joining sections of a multi section rod, will provide good vibration sensitivity tip to butt if crafted properly. Balance also contributes to the sensitivity of the rod. Less fatigue provides not only for better casting accuracy but also to sensitivity.

High modulus is also called modulus of elasticity. It refers to the slope in a stress strain curve where deformation is reversible and time independent. In engineer language that translates to, “If bent it will return to the original shape.”

High modulus materials can be extremely stiff. Less overall material can be used to obtain a given action. Being able to achieve a given action with less material has the advantage of increased sensitivity.

However, less material can make the rod more susceptible to damage. It is therefore very important that the rod be designed using an appropriate use of material to achieve a good casting/retrieve action, while maintaining damage resistance so that the rod can survive normal use.

Fiber orientation will transmit vibrations along the rod blank extremely well. The use of unidirectional fibers is those orientated in a longitudinal direction. They are complemented by the use of hoop fibers which are fibers laid perpendicular to the rod blank axis. These hoop fibers provide the burst strength, the resistance to splitting along the blank axis.

When it comes to rod action, the angler is looking for a faster tip with a backbone in the rod blank. Faster tip action limits most of curvature during casting to the upper portion of the rod.

Modern rod construction has provided the means to have increasingly faster tip actions. These actions can provide more sensitivity, but are not suited for all fishing situations.

Rod construction is a continuing process of evolution. It is a process of change from a lower simple, to a higher more complex state.

When fighting a fish, do not hold the rod above the handle area. To do so causes the load to be transferred to a small diameter section of the rod. That increases the stress on the rod rather than reduce the pressure on yourself or the fish.

                                                       Don Gasaway – The Ground Pounder

                                                       http://www.dongasaway.wordpress.com/

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Kentucky Elk and Ozark Cocklebur

I was informed last week by a Missouri Department of Conservation Department employee who asked that I keep his name confidential, that the elk, which the MDC will stock in the Peck Ranch area of south-central Missouri, will come from Kentucky. The department will get 400 to 500 animals, and the total cost of the whole program will cost more than a half million dollars.I have no idea where the figure comes from or what it encompasses, but that is a heck of a lot of money for 500 elk.

Now it seems that everyone who has a hunting and fishing license is receiving in the mail something referred to as the “Missouri Elk Drawing” from a group calling themselves the Appalachian Wildlife Foundation. It looks as if the MDC has either given or sold to this group a mailing list of Missouri hunting and fishing license holders.I would like to know more about this, and hope to contact some officials in Jefferson City and get some answers this week. This “AWF” group is asking Missourians to buy raffle tickets for 25 dollars, which will be entered in a series of drawings. The grand prize is touted to be worth over 30,000 dollars, and includes a 2011 Kentucky Bull Elk tag. What a coincidence! That’s where Missouri’s new elk herd will come from. I want to know how that Appalachian Wildlife Foundation got my address, and apparently the addresses of so many of us.

I was also informed that the Missouri Department of Conservation, due to financial difficulties, will cut the amount of wildlife management spending on Truman Lake’s 110,000 acres of public land by 50 percent. If there isn’t enough money to work on habitat there for small game and waterfowl which all of us can hunt, why are we seeing so many hundreds of thousands being spent on the introduction of elk, which will allow hunting for only a privileged few?

Truman Lake, which sets in the west central part of the southern half of the state, provides one of the largest tracts of public land available to Missouri hunters that is not part of a National Forest. Unlike National Forest lands in Missouri, those thousands of acres include upland habitat perfect for quail and rabbits and waterfowl. Twenty-five years ago, we could find several coveys of quail each day hunting those fields of natural cover and crops. There were rabbits everywhere, and in the fall, when water backed up into the vegetation a little and flooded the pin-oaks, the duck-hunting was spectacular. It is Corp of Engineers land which the state conservation department could have managed almost in its entirety. You could see that mix of upland habitat and mature forest being a hunter’s paradise. But over the years the quality of that habitat as steadily declined.

The deer and turkey are still there, and furbearers are thick. But waterfowl grow fewer in number each year, and the coveys of quail are down at least 80 percent. Much of that is because in those lowland fields around the lake, cockleburs have taken over, and there are expanses of those worthless weeds where nothing lives but small ground mammals. You can hardly walk through those acres of cockleburs. Last year I saw areas where the MDC, in the name of wildlife management, had mowed and bulldozed huge areas of cover that still remained without the cockleburs, burned off the vegetation and brush piles and eliminated great tracts of wildlife food and cover completely. If there is an explanation for it, no one seems to have it. In one of those areas a few years ago, we hunted rabbits an entire day with beagles, and found an abundance of cottontails. Last year our dogs couldn’t break a trail; the rabbits seemed to be non-existent. In some places where there had been briar and bramble and broam-sedge, the ground was bare enough to leave a boot print in the mud.

One of the Corps biologists I was hunting with shook his head and told me…”Their biologists destroy brush piles because they now call them ‘predator piles’. And while they do provide a place for a fox to raise a spring litter,” he said, “those are also brush piles rabbits use for escape. It is a new way of looking at things most of us old timers do not understand.”

I look at those huge tracts of cockleburs along the lake and realize that if, in the spring of the year, an effort was made to eliminate them and replace such tracts of ground with some natural vegetation and a few rows of crops like milo or soybeans or corn, quail and rabbits could come back. In 2011, the MDC will put no wildlife management effort into any Truman land below the 720-foot level. That is absolutely unacceptable. Most of the time, the lake level on Truman is at 705 to 708 feet above sea level. If you pushed up some low berms, or small dams only a few feet high at the level of about 710 or so, then pumped water from the lake above them, to create only small areas of marsh perhaps only a foot or two deep, where there could be a few rows of crops and selected replantings of vegetation, you could bring in and hold large numbers of wild ducks. It wouldn’t cost much, nor would it involve much equipment or personnel.

I wonder if a group of outdoorsmen approached the Corps and asked permission to do that on some selected spots around the lake, if it might be used as an experiment to show what could be done on a much larger level? I doubt that we could get permission to do anything like that because of government red tape. But any state conservation department certainly could. The MDC says they cannot. They are so strapped for money, and have to cut their management personnel, and practices there by 50 percent. No state agency in the world has more expensive equipment setting idle in sheds around the state than the MDC. They may have to sell some of it in order to pay for those 500 head of elk. Meanwhile, many of us wish they would buy a few hundred head of wild quail and work on establishing them somewhere. Maybe they could set up a new quail-hunting permit to make some extra money, something like the trophy elk permits they hope to sell soon.

For those of you living close enough to Joplin, Aurora or Springfield, I will be at all of these places in coming days. Most of you know I have written seven outdoor books, and I will be selling and signing them and giving away copies of my magazine, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday December 17 at Richard’s Hawgwild Barbecue restaurant in Aurora, and on Saturday, December 18, I will be at Southtown Sporting Goods in Joplin from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Then I’ll be at Christian Publishers Outlet bookstore on that same afternoon from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. I hope to see you at one of those places. I have seven of my books I will be selling at a discount, and signing, for Christmas gifts.

To get more information on acquiring one of my outdoor books or a Lightnin’ Ridge outdoor magazine subscription, you can call my executive secretary, Ms. Wiggins at 417 777 5227. They can be ordered on my website, via credit card… www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com.

Write to me at Box 22, Bolivar, MO. 65613, or e-mail me at lightninridge@windstream.net.

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LATE SEASON PUBLIC LAND MUZZLELOADING HUNTS

Fire and smoke belch out of the barrel. Once the smoke clears we have the opportunity to see if the bullet found it's mark. Just as our forbearers in the Midwest did we are hunting public land of which there is precious little in most states.

Hunting public land means we have to make good use of scouting materials. Topographical maps provide information about natural funnel areas and elevations. Trips to the area can provide other information such as vegetation, feeding and bedding areas as well as deer trails.

With more hunters taking to the woods each year some are opting to hunt with primitive weapons. They have such reasons as: taking advantage of special muzzle loader seasons, additional time in the field, the challenge of a primitive weapon, and a way of combining the technology of modern firearms with the skill needed to hunt with an ancient weapon.

The muzzle loading hunter is forced to hone hunting skills in order to overcome the limitations of the weapon. One has to hunt harder and get closer. He must learn to safely use his weapon and carry out exacting loading procedures to ensure the life of his weapon and his own safety. Lacking patience then muzzle loading may not be the right way to hunt.

The muzzle loader is usually either a flintlock or caplock weapon. The modern muzzle loader is often a reproduction of an older weapon. Shooting antique firearms is not a good idea as they can be damaged and lose much of their value. Additionally, could explode from some hidden defect. A third option is the in-line muzzleloader.

The flintlock weapon requires one to fill a pan with fine priming powder and snap a frizzen over it before cocking the hammer. The hammer strikes the frizzen when released by the trigger. The resulting sparks ignite the powder which ignites the powder in the barrel discharging the bullet out of the barrel.

With the percussion cap, the cap takes the place of the priming powder and frizzen. The hammer strikes the cap causing an explosion that in turn ignites the powder in the barrel. Caplocks also come in several systems that make use of primers from shotgun and rifle cartridges.

Most muzzle loader hunters use a propellant called Pyrodex, a black powder substitute that is easier to store and use as well as being more reliable under differing weather conditions.

For the public land hunter, using a muzzleloader can be an advantage due to the season being later in the year than traditional shotgun or rifle seasons. The deer tend to bunch up due to the bad weather.

Some hunters see muzzle loader seasons as extensions of the archery seasons. It is a matter of being a primitive hunter. Deer are bunched up and it is difficult to outwit multiple sets of eyes in search of danger. Some hunters move to the treestand instead of stalking.

Biologists tell us that the white-tailed deer is a creature of the edge habitat. In the late muzzle loading seasons, deer are pretty much through with the rut. They form the small family groups are very wary having just gone through most of the hunting season.

Deer will usually be found on field edges early in the morning and early evening. Most of the does will have been bred and the bucks are not frantically looking for them. This makes both more alert to a hunter=s presence. By working habitat that is near water and grain fields, one improves his odds of finding a good deer trail.

It is important to find where deer travel. Find routes that they take between bedding and eating or drinking areas. One can place a treestand along that route for optimum results.

Large public land tracts have dozens of locations that fit this description. Large tracts create tremendous edge cover as timber borders agricultural land. The terrain can range from timbered slopes to rolling, grassland fields.

Many deer hunters do not like to hunt public areas. They do yield some fine bucks. Regulations on public hunting areas are often more restrictive and many site specific rules apply. It is a good idea to check with the game officials in charge well in advance of a planned hunt. Most sites have fact sheets that list site specific regulations.

One does not have to be a gun or history buff to enjoy the challenge of muzzle loader hunting. It can provide an interesting step back in time to the basics of hunting. Pursuing a deer is a challenge under the best of conditions. With a muzzle loader it is even more rewarding.

                                                          DonGasaway - The Ground Pounder
                                                          http://www.dongasaway.wordpress.com/

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Rudolph’s Girlfriend

The sun was low, the river lay in shadows as the day grew long and tired and still. We were slowly, silently, drifting along with the current, me with my sassafras paddle in my hands and Sondra sitting in the bow with her rifle. She had been thoroughly enthralled with the late afternoon ambience, filled with kingfishers and squirrels, and an occasional painted turtle sunning on a log.

Earlier about ten or twelve big old ground-raker gobblers had flown across the river, back-lighted by the late afternoon sun. Sondra was really enjoying it all, you could tell. And then, all of a sudden, there was the deer, on the right bank about 35 yards away, standing and staring at us, wondering what we were. I figure it was a two-year-old doe, with big ears tilted forward attentively and huge brown eyes following us as we drifted even closer. “O.K.” I whispered, “There’s your deer… shoot!”

This was a cinch… we were about to have venison on the table. The doe stood stock still, the peaceful valley about to echo with the roar of Sondra’s rifle.

Last year after 21 years as a small-town newspaper editor who seldom had any free time at all, Sondra Gray took a job I offered as the editor of the Lightnin’ Ridge Outdoor Journal, an old fashioned magazine not much like anything else being published today. She had grown up a country girl and fished with her dad when she was small, but she had never hunted. In fact, the outdoors seemed unimportant while she was a mother raising a family and holding down a job.

But things are different now, she has some time to enjoy life, and the outdoors has suddenly become part of her life too. It’s important now, now that her kids are grown and she hears about all the adventures her husband and three older brothers have had in the outdoors. And it is important because as someone who edits and puts together an outdoor magazine, you need to know something about fish and game other than how to cook them.

This week will mark the one-year anniversary of her new job. Last spring she caught her first largemouth bass, a limit of big crappie, then a limit of hefty white bass. In the summer she caught more big fish, and camped overnight on an Ozark river for the first time in her life. Then she caught some nice walleye and a whole boatload of smallmouth bass in Canada, some of them well over four pounds. In most of her fishing endeavors, Sondra was lucky, and she took to it.She quickly became adept at using both spinning and casting reels and in little time could put a 1/8th ounce jig, or a 5/8th ounce spinner bait right where she wanted. It was no job at all to learn to work a top-water lure, or give the proper action to a crank-bait. And Sondra figured any lady who could master fishing could surely be a hunter in short order.

But she is only about two inches better than five feet tall, and she has very short arms, and shooting a shotgun or high-powered rifle proved to be a sizeable challenge. When she decided that an editor of an outdoor magazine had to know something about deer hunting, my daughter Christy loaned her a little .30-30 Winchester built along the order of a BB gun, and not much heavier. Unlike other deer rifles she could barely lift, she could shoot that little lever-action rifle, and even hit a target placed about 40 yards away.

So Sondra bought her very first deer tag and sat a whole afternoon in Christy’s deer stand and never saw a deer. She was disappointed. She figured since she caught a limit of crappie on her first fishing trip, she’d bag a deer her first hour or so in the woods.

And since she wanted one so badly, I told her I would paddle her down the river that last afternoon of the season and we’d see if we could get one that way.

So that’s how we got to the beginning of this story, with Sondra and the doe staring at each other, and me waiting for that rifle’s explosion. It never came.

I guess the doe finally got nervous because of all my shrill whispering along the order of “Shoot, dang it, shoot!” It hopped away, flashing that big white tail, and I looked at Sondra like Archie Bunker use to look at Edith, clutching that little rifle with big wet eyes and a quivering lower lip. “She was looking right at me!!! I couldn’t do it, she said quietly. “We bonded!”

I just paddled on down the river and didn’t say anything. It wasn’t a big deal, and I have field dressed enough deer this year. The quiet was finally broken, when Sondra, still holding the rifle as if she was afraid it might go off and hurt something along the bank, said…

“She looked so much like Clarice…”

“Who the heck is Clarice?” I asked, still in my Archie Bunker frame of mind.

“That’s Rudolph’s girlfriend,” she said. “Didn’t you see the movie?”

Gloria Jean met us downstream at the take-out point as it became dark, and Sondra went on and on about how pretty the doe was, and Gloria was soooo understanding. It sounded like the two of them ought to be knitting a blanket and eating coffee-cake with some of the church ladies. I like a little syrup on my pancakes, but that was enough to make a grizzled old veteran outdoorsman like me about half nauseous!

Sondra thinks she still can shoot a deer, if it doesn’t look at her. She’d like a burly old buck, with little squinty eyes and not looking at her… walking along as if he just stomped on a chipmunk somewhere. She wants to go along during the muzzle-loader season, but I’m doubting that happens. I intend to be out there with the intention of bringing in a deer, whether it is looking at me or not, Clarice included.

There is a reason why early pioneer women stayed home and cooked and the men hunted. There’s a plan behind the idea of Indian braves hunting buffalo while the squaws made moccasins. You don’t become a hunter… you are born one. And if you can bake bread and make homemade jelly, you don’t need to be one.

Having said all that, I am kind of proud of her for not shooting. There is a little bit of a soft spot inside of me that grows bigger and softer as I grow older. I love to hunt, but bagging a deer doesn’t seem as important as it once did for some reason or another. Maybe I’ll take her deer hunting just one more time, and if that happens again… “Den dat’s it.” As Archie would say.

Well, if you live close to Salem, Mo., join Sondra and me on Tuesday, December 14 as we meet to help form a local chapter of “Common Sense Conservationists”. Sondra will be there to give away free copies of our Christmas issue of the Lightnin’ Ridge Outdoor Journal, and sell my books for those who might want a signed copy, perhaps as a Christmas gift. The meeting begins at 7:00 p.m. at the Salem City Hall Auditorium. If you are concerned about what is happening with the Missouri Department of Conservation, you need to be there. We can change things, and we should.

My address is Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613 or e-mail me at lightninridge@windstream.net. The website is www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com.

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ICE FISHING THE CHAIN

It is ice fishing time on the Chain-O-Lakes as well as elsewhere in northern Illinois. With due care as to safety, ice fishing is an inexpensive and basic way of enjoying winter ground pounding. Granted some ground pounders do pursue winter fishing in a more sophisticate manner with special ice houses, electronic equipment, etc. But, these are the basics and all that is really needed.

The Chain-O-Lakes is composed of a series of interconnected lakes north of Chicago.

With a minimal investment, ice anglers find the technique is easy to master and the fellowship with other anglers a great deal of fun. The basic tackle includes standard ice fishing jigging rods with ice jigs, (green, pink, red, white and purple are good colors) a very small float, and selection of baits. The baits are usually minnows, mousies, spikes and wax worms that are available at local bait shops.

The ice should be about 4 inches thick for safety. The novice is best advised to go where the crowds are to be found. They have already tested the ice and found it suitable. There are a number of springs in the Chain and the ice over them is generally much thinner. One should dress warmly as the wind over open areas can really be rough. Layering clothing allows the ground pounder to add or remove clothing to control his comfort level.

Many people have a portable ice shanty or tent to get in out of the elements. Barring that, one should have a sled, piece of carpet or something that allows the angler to get his feet off the ice.

On Channel and Catherine lakes look for the fish to be a little deeper. Look for structure in the form of weed flats, holes and snow patches on the ice. Fish will form up under a snow patch. In most of the lakes, fish will be found in about 7 to 10 feet of water that contains weed beds or flats. The best and probably the most popular lake is Petite Lake. It is best fished on weed days as the weekends can be over crowded. Grass Lake is too shallow for very good ice fishing.

Spring Lake and Nippersink Lake have fast currents and as a result the ice conditions can be dangerous. They are probably best avoided early in the season.

Ice fishing for such species as Bluegill, crappie, perch and white bass (called stripers locally) can be a lot of fun on the Chain. Occasionally, anglers tie into a walleye or catfish and that is a ball on these small ice fishing rigs.

For more information about the conditions and to locate some bait, call some of the resorts and bait shops listed in magazines and newspapers, online or in the local phone book. They are all anxious to help.

                                                   Don Gasaway - The Ground Pounder
                                                   http://www.dongasaway.wordpress.com/

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A River Trip

Dennis Whiteside with the buck we found dead in the river. 
It happens often that deer are found in the river, 
as they seek water when they are wounded. 
We found an even larger buck last year upriver from this one.

We slid the canoe into the river just at first light, and pulled through a shallow shoal, listening to a group of turkeys on a roost just downriver. They make a great racket at dawn when they are a little nervous about something, putting, chirping, and cackling just before they fly down from the roost.

We drifted past them in deeper water, without a sound. But they knew we were there. You could see a half-dozen different turkeys on sycamore limbs, silhouetted against the sky. Surprisingly, there was a pair of eagles perched in the limbs of another sycamore, close by.

One or two gobblers began to gobble back up on a ridge above them, and they gobbled a dozen times or so, just like it was spring. They all made a heck of a racket coming down through the limbs, and then they were quiet.

But as they became still, three or four coyotes began yodeling along the hillside just downstream. It wasn’t exactly a howling, more like a shrill, high-pitched wailing. We floated downstream, right up on one, which was foraging along beside a log at the stream’s edge. The coyote figured out that something wasn’t right, and he hot-footed it up over the hillside in a hurry. A woodrat could be found elsewhere, I suppose.

The sun was nearly up when we drifted upon a young otter, and when we got close, he lifted himself up out of the water all the way above his front feet, so that his neck looked something like that of a serpent. He was uncertain as to what we were, and began a short snorting, coughing sound, as if he were disgusted to see us there. I could hear him thinking, “that’s why fish are so hard to find anymore, too many of those darned humans on the river!”

He was comical looking, with that long neck sticking up so high out of water, but there is no more deadly river killer than he and his cousin, the mink. They devastate our fish populations in small ponds and in rivers which men have altered so greatly, reducing the cover and deep water fish need to survive. An otter will catch and eat almost anything he can, including very young fawns, turkeys, muskrats, even a young beaver on occasion.

There were a number of eagles along the river, some with white heads and tails, others in the drab plumage marking birds less than two years of age. They too are efficient predators, but they do not mind eating carrion. In winter especially, all birds of prey will eat carrion when it is easy to find. About midday we came upon a dead doe on a gravel point jutting out into the river and five eagles were feeding on the deer.

A day or so before, Dennis Whiteside, my hunting companion that day, had floated the river by himself and seen two different spike bucks, one crossing on a shoal, another bedded down on a wooded high bank. He had filled his doe tag that afternoon with a young doe. So on that day toward the end of the season, he was paddling for me, and we drifted slowly down the stream hunting deer, like we so often hunt ducks in the winter, and even turkeys in the fall.

As we did, I thought back to a time many years ago when I had come home from college and my dad paddled me down an Ozark river in November, hunting ducks and deer from a wooden johnboat. We had hunted ducks that way since I was very small, but never deer. I didn’t even have a deer rifle, so I had borrowed one from a young teacher I worked with in M.U.’s archeology department. It was a 30-30 lever action Marlin, and he hadn’t fired it in years, he said.

I didn’t fire it either. I got home late on Friday night and we were on the river at daylight the next morning. Floating along that morning, with an oak and sycamore blind on the bow of the boat, we drifted into a flock of mallards and I killed a couple with my old pump shotgun. Just a few minutes later, a doe jumped into the river followed by a nice buck, maybe an eight pointer or so. I excitedly put down the shotgun, picked up the rifle and waited as Dad paddled me closer, and the deer waded slowly across the stream. They climbed out onto the bank as we drifted to distance of only 40 or 50 yards, and I put the sights on the buck’s heart as he stood broadside. I squeezed the trigger expecting to hear the roar of the rifle, only to hear the dull metallic ‘thunk” the hammer hitting a broken firing pin. Carbines will not fire with a broken firing pin! The rifle’s owner recalled that a friend had “dry-fired” it a time or two, but didn’t know that would break the firing pin. I figure that buck had to have grown old and grey-muzzled with that kind of luck.

Dennis and I didn’t see a deer that day last week. That happens on occasion. But we did find a dead buck floating in the river, one with a heavy set of antlers and eleven points, if you count three small ones only a couple of inches long. Last year we found a dead 9-pointer on the bank only a mile or so from this one. Wounded deer always go to water, and you find them on the river, a testament to inefficient, or inexperienced hunters who lack the ability to trail a deer which doesn’t drop right away.

Our favorite deer season is to come, however, and we will float the river again in December with muzzle-loaders, maybe hunting some ducks at the same time.

If there was enough space here, I would tell you about Sondra Gray’s first deer hunt. Sondra is the editor of my magazine, The Lightnin’ Ridge Outdoor Journal. She proved herself to be a very good fisherman last spring and summer, and wanted to try deer hunting. You can read about that in this column next week, and trust me, it is a story you have to hear.

In the meantime, we just received the Christmas issue of our magazine, and if you would like to get a copy, just send five dollars to LROJ, Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613. They are also sold in magazine racks at many Wal-Mart stores, or you can call our office to find out where our magazines are found closest to you. That number is 417-777-5227. Our Christmas issue is 80 pages long, instead of the usual 72, and it has some great stories in it, with lots of nostalgia, and humor. It is our 29th issue and if you haven’t seen the magazine, you have missed some very good reading by excellent Ozark writers like Jim Spencer, Keith Sutton, Monte Burch and others.

On December 6th I will be helping to organize a Common Sense Conservation chapter at Lamar Missouri. The meeting will be at 7:00 pm at the Memorial hall beside the fire department. If you live near Lamar, please try to attend. Then on December 14th I will be in Salem, MO. helping to organize a chapter there. You can get all the information about these meetings and see the cover of the Christmas magazine on my website, www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com. E-mail me at lightninridge@windstream.net or write to me at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613.

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WATERFOWL HUNTING CAN BE A KILLER

The birds cup their wings and drop down out of the overcast sky. They are coming right into the decoys. The excited call of a female mallard that Charlie is making encourages the birds to drop closer.

Charlie shouts “Take em” and we rise to shoot. That is where all goes wrong. The boat tips and Charlie is toppled into the cold water. Suddenly the ducks are forgotten as the mad scramble to pull Charlie out of the water takes over. It must be done before he gets hypothermia.

Many waterfowl hunters do not consider themselves to be boaters and therefore do not pay attention to on-the-water safety programs and recommendations.

Some studies show that more hunters are victims of boating accidents than are to gun shot wounds.

Cold weather means fewer people on the water. If the hunter ends up in the water, his chance of someone being close enough to rescue him decline with the onset of cold weather and cold water.

The most important aspect of water safety for the hunter is to wear a Personal Flotation Device (PFD.) National statistics show that eighty percent of boating deaths come from drowning. If the hunter can keep from drowning, his chance of surviving a boating accident increases dramatically.

The same PFD that one wears in summer will not necessary fit in winter with all the extra clothing that a waterfowler might be wearing. The extra expense of buying one that is much larger to fit over hunting clothes is worth the money.

Waterfowlers are usually wearing a lot of clothing, unlike summer anglers. If they fall out the boat while picking up decoys, then the clothing becomes a hindrance to movement in the water. Recent developments of clothing that floats will help a great deal. Another way to avoid such accidents is to use a grappling hook to retrieve decoys so that the hunter does not lean over the side of the boat.

Another way to avoid toppling out of a boat while waterfowl hunting is to not stand up when shooting. By being able to shoot from a kneeling or sitting position, ones center of gravity is lower and he is less likely to fall or tip over the boat.

During pre-season one could practice by shooting off a bucket or bench from a sitting position. It would then come naturally while on the water. Additionally practice with life jacket on also makes it easier to shoot when out hunting. Others might laugh but it could save lives. No duck or goose is worth your life.

Be aware of the weight of ALL the people and things in your boat. If only two hunters are going hunting, they often do not think of the extra weight they are carrying in terms of guns, cooker, heaters, decoys, camo netting, etc. The extra thing can quickly over weigh the capacity of the boat and get one in trouble.

Changes in weather can be sudden and threatening during the hunting season. It is important that you not only have a boat that is not overloaded but also an engine that is adequate for the boat. The motor might have to be able to get you through heavy waves if the wind should suddenly come up or a storm blow in on you.

Whitecaps can capsize a boat and it is possible to become entangled in camo netting and expend a great deal of energy that is needed for warmth. It is vital to get to dry land and get dried out immediately.

If you capsize, it is recommended that you not try to get back to the dock. Get to the nearest dry land and build a fire to dry out. The fire will also help those looking for you to find your position. You might have to spend an uncomfortable night around the fire swapping hunting stories. But, that is better than trying to get back home and dying from exposure or hypothermia.

If you have left a message with someone as to where you will be hunting and when you plan to return, they will send help when you do not arrive home at a reasonable time. Your chances of being rescued in a timely fashion are immensely increased.

Other information you might leave with someone is your vehicle description, license number, where you plan to put the boat in the water, etc. All these things give rescuers a better chance of narrowing the search to the area you plan to hunt.

Cell phones are a boom to the waterfowler. If you are going to change your plans then call the person with whom you left the information. Maybe you decide to hunt the other side of the lake from your original plan or perhaps you decide to stop for eats on the way home instead of going directly home. All this helps anyone looking for you from wasting efforts that might be needed to save your, or someone else’s life.

It is important to have the boat motor in good working condition. Pre-season checking of waterfowl hunting equipment must include the boat and motor. Out on the water in freezing temperatures is a lousy time to be doing boat or motor repairs.

If you are getting ready to call it a day and then discover that the main lake water has whitecaps three feet high, it is time to stay put. It is better to spend the night around a campfire in a cove and a little hungry than to be wet or worse on the main lake. A little gas from your motor and some driftwood on the shore will keep you alive in cold wet conditions. It is important to use some common sense and stay alive.

Common sense and preparation can keep waterfowl hunters out of trouble on the water.

                                                         Don Gasaway - The Upland Hunter
                                                         http://www.dongasaway.wordpress.com/

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The Turkey Shoot

Happy Thanksgiving from Lightnin' Ridge!

It was cool but sunny and calm, another perfect Sunday afternoon. It seemed to always be that way for the big shooting match the weekend before Thanksgiving. There were pickups parked all around and a crowd was gathering after church in the field behind Venable’s store where the 1954 Thanksgiving turkey shoot would be held.

The Smithson boy was there with his grandpa Lute, whom everyone seemed to know. One fellow came by and slapped him on the back and asked him if he was going to let the boy shoot at one of the splatterboards. “Not this year,” he laughed, “but maybe next year he’ll be ready.”

Splatterboard shooting would come later in the afternoon, and it was just a matter of luck and long barrels. Twelve or fifteen shooters paid their dollar and signed up to fire once at a “splatterboard” set up 45 yards distant. A white paper target with an X at the center was tacked on for each shooter, and whoever placed one shot from a shotgun shell in the center of the X won a ham or a turkey. A tie required another round of shooting until there was a clear winner. It took no skill whatsoever, just a tight shot pattern.

But the first part of the afternoon was for the real shotgunners. Bales of hay were set up, and behind them was Mr. Venable's trap-thrower, which sailed clay disc targets out across the field like a flying quail. Shooters had to pay a dollar each, and then buy Winchester or Remington shells from Mr. Venable’s shell table when they signed up. You could buy any number you wanted, at 6 cents apiece, and choose your shot size. By using the same shotshell loads everyone had an equal chance with no ammunition advantage.

When any shotgunner would miss, he would drop out and as the number of shooters dwindled they had to step back five yards farther on their next round. The last successful shooter won the ham or turkey prize.

Lute Smithson knew them all, the men who showed up each year for those first contests were the best wingshots in the county. There was Clem Sutterfield, a local farmer who owned a lot of land and cattle, and had some fine bird dogs. He hunted quail, and was a better close range shot than he was at a distance.

And Shorty Evans was there, wearing his cowboy hat, smiling around that big cigar he always smoked and telling stories about some big bass he had caught during the fall. Shorty was a businessman, one of the wealthiest guys in town, but also one of the most admired and well-liked. His long barreled trap gun probably cost more than any shotgun there. The young guy, Farrell Dablemont was there with his dad, the Big Piney johnboat builder and fisherman.

Tall and slender and quick, he had that pipe in the corner of his mouth and that old long barreled ’97 Winchester in the crook of his arm. He and his father floated the river and hunted ducks. He was good with that pump-gun, and had dropped many a woodduck or mallard at fifty yards.

But then again, Lute Smithson was fairly well known as a long-range shooter himself, one who always shot in the first contests. You could only win two hams or turkeys, so that lots of people could be successful before the afternoon was over. The men who weren’t such good shooters waited until the good shots finished to compete, later in the afternoon.

The new guy didn’t know that. The boy and his grandfather watched him pay his dollar in small change, and then buy only eight shells for fifty cents. He wasn’t smiling, he looked thin and haggard. His old pickup had rusted fenders, and the paint was faded. One side was banged up pretty badly. His wife sat in the front seat with a small child in her arms, and a boy tagged at his father’s heels, his eyes big with the wonderment of this well-attended turkey shoot.

“That’s the new boy in school Grandpa, he don’t ever say much.” The Smithson boy said.
Claude Miller said he knew the man a little… “They moved in from Oklahoma last summer,” he said. “Got him a job at the factory, three or four kids… they’re rentin’ the old Beason place down on Brushy Creek. Nice fellow I think, but poor. They keep to themselves, don’t go to church, so they ain’t well known around just yet.”

The shooting began just after one p.m. and a dozen men started it off. By the time they had stepped back to thirty yards, there were only five shooters remaining, and the stranger was one of them. He shouldered an old single-shot long-tom 12 gauge, old as the hills, the blueing worn on that long barrel, the stock taped and the forearm cracked. But he shot it well. He stepped up to the mark and quietly said, “pull”. The trap thrower thumped behind the bails of hay and a clay pigeon sailed out over the broam sedge. The stranger’s shotgun roared and the clay target shattered before it had gained twenty yards.

Lute Smithson followed suit, and his grandson was proud of him. “You’re the best shot out here Grandpa,” he said his face beaming. His grandfather didn’t pay much attention, he was watching the new man, noting he didn’t seem to be enjoying this much. He also knew he only had half his shells left.

In little time, there were only four men left, shooting from thirty yards back. And he knew just by watching that this stranger was there because that turkey was more important to him perhaps, than anyone else. No one noticed when he stood up to shoot his 6th shell, that Lute Smithson had called the other two remaining shooters to his side. Shorty Evans and Farrell Dablemont were listening intently to what he said. The younger of the two didn’t seem too happy with what he was hearing, but he nodded his head reluctantly in agreement. When it came his turn, he laid his pipe on the shooters table, shouldered the old ‘97 and missed the target clean. The crowd reacted, and when Shorty Evans followed with a miss himself, some oohs and ahs went up around them.
Everyone figured the match would last awhile.

The stranger blasted his target out of the air, and Lute Smithson came up, hoping his clay target would at least sail away low and at an angle. He got his wish. No one knew he missed it intentionally. The winner was the stranger, who smiled just a little, and his worried face relaxed. He had won a turkey for his family's Thanksgiving dinner.

The boy wasn’t happy, but he had it figured out. “Grandpa,” he said as he tugged at his grandfather’s sleeve to get his attention… “You missed a’purpose!”

The grandfather smiled down at him and nodded.

“Yes boy, I missed a’purpose! But the afternoon ain’t over, and I won’t miss a’purpose any more.”

Then he kneeled down and looked his grandson in the eye. “Sometimes losing is winning. But I know that’s hard to understand at your age. You’ll figure it out in years to come.”

He looked toward the old pickup where the young stranger was reaching through the window to hug his wife. “Now boy, I want you to go in the store there and find your mother and tell her I want to see her in a hurry. We have got some people to get to know, and I’m thinking we may have to plan a bigger thanksgiving dinner than we figured on. And you take this dollar and buy some candy bars and bring them back to me without eating them.

Someone hollered, “Hey Smithson, you gonna shoot this next round? It’s for a ham, and we need one more man!”

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YOURS MAY BE BIG ENOUGH

You shot that big monster that has managed to avoid all the hunters for so many years in your favorite woods or grain field. He may be record book material. But, for most record books there is a 90 day waiting period before it can be scored. The time has come to score it.

Among some hunters the hunting for a trophy rack is offensive. To each his own. In defense of record keeping, it does provide a data base for hunters to judge what a mature animal is and what is too young to take.

Specialty record books are becoming a part of the hunting scene.

You scouted the patterns of that big buck throughout the summer, and spend endless hours finding the perfect location of a stand. Many hours were spent in practice with your weapon of choice and the related equipment necessary to take him. Not to mention the hours spent in the rain or cold waiting for a chance to get a shot. Finally, you were successful and you now have a freezer full of tasty venison and a big rack.

It is the big rack that has the attention of many hunters this time of year. The compulsory drying time has usually passed and it is time for the official scoring to take place.

Regardless of whether the scoring is for the archery, firearm or blackpowder record book, it is essentially done in the same manner. Each organization keeping records maintains a list of certified official measurers. These are trained volunteers. Official measurers from the Boone and Crockett Club are allowed to score for the other two books. Those books are the Pope and Young Club for archery and the Longhunter Muzzleloading Big Game Record Book for blackpowder hunters.

Minimum scores for inclusion in the record books vary from one organization to another.

A scoring from is completed by the official measurer; the appropriate forms should be completed and forwarded to the organization that maintains the records.

Scorers can be located by contacting the organization that maintains the records. These can be The Boone & Crockett Club (firearms), Pope & Young Club (archery), The Longhunter Society (muzzleloaders) and Safari Club International (all weapons). Except for Safari Club International one does not have to be a member for a trophy to be entered in the records.

Each of these organizations has a web presence and lists of scorers. Most wildlife agencies also have a list of scorers in their areas.

                                                       Don Gasaway - The Upland Hunter
                                                       http://www.dongasaway.wordpress.com/

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The Wind in the Oaks…

Stepping lightly amongst newly fallen oak leaves, the hat-rack buck only
comes by when I am napping.

The opening of deer season was only a few hours away. It was pitch black outside and the wind was roaring through the oaks up here on Lightnin’ Ridge. “Shucks” I thought to myself as I lay there in bed listening to that wind. “There won’t be a leaf left on my oak trees!”

I am sensitive about such things. I had watched those oak leaves bud out on the big white oak beside my back porch, only a few months ago it seems. First there were the tassels hanging down, shedding a yellow-green pollen all over my porch, a thick dusting of it that got in the house somehow and caused me to sneeze. How wonderful spring was, if I can remember right. But finally those squirrel-ear sized leaves began to pop out and it was easy to see summer was on its way. In no time, they were fully formed and bright green and it was great to sleep at night with the windows open and hear the rain dripping through that thick canopy. What wonderful shade it gave in July, when I would sit out there and coax the sun into setting over the distant river, late in the day.

In September, I abruptly awakened to the sound of acorns bouncing off my roof. I smiled to myself knowing that those first acorns meant the bass would be smashing buzz-baits and topwater lures on the river not far from Lightnin’ Ridge. In no time, you could hardly sleep at night for the sound of bouncing acorns. It was one of those Octobers where you had to sweep the porch every couple of hours.

October grew old and the sun began to set earlier and earlier, those beautiful green leaves began to turn color, a little brown, and yellow, and gold and red. In the last days of that wonderful short month, I began to sweep leaves off the porch with the acorns.

And finally it was mid-November. My daughter had come to spend the night, looking forward to hunting with me. But for some reason my dear, deer-hunting daughter, determined to outdo dad come dawn in the deer-woods, dozed deeply in the dark in my den, and didn’t hear the darned wind. But I did, and so I turned off the alarm clock and went back to sleep as best I could, waking after it began to get light, and it was still very windy. While we were eating breakfast the wind began to die down a little, and so we quickly filled our pockets with ammo and our packs with snacks and water, and headed for the woods. I walked Christy to the tree stand I put up for her a couple of years ago, saw to it she had her harness on and her rifle loaded, and declined to join her. I left her for another spot where I could lean up against a tree and nap.

There are thousands of oak trees all over Missouri and Arkansas that I have ‘leaned up against’, waiting for a deer or a turkey. Most oak trees have very uncomfortable rocks cropping up where I sit to keep me about half miserable. They were smaller when I was younger.

A good oak without rocks at its base is hard to find. It took me several years to come up with the idea of bringing along a cushion. I hate to do that. I have worried, in past years that one of my readers might see me with that cushion and question my grizzled old outdoorsmanship.

I tried several oak trees last Saturday. A doe and a yearling came by and woke me up at my first spot, but I didn’t see any hat-rack bucks, so I went to another place and two more does came by at a trot, a little more intent on being harder targets. I may shoot a doe later, but not on the day I am hunting with my daughter. I am just there on such a day to help her take care of her deer when she gets one.

In the past four years, Christy has killed four, two-year-old fork-horned bucks, each with one broken antler. I was still leaning up against an oak tree at eleven that morning, wondering if she would ever shoot. Before I left her, I laughingly reminded her to take a two-year-old buck with one broken antler. I didn’t know it, but she had seen seven does and yearlings before a buck came by. And she just couldn’t shoot a doe with its half-grown kid, or two half-grown kids, tagging along behind it!

Shortly after eleven, an antlered deer walked up through the woods, and she cocked her 30-30 Winchester carbine and dropped him in his tracks.

When I got there, (and I know this is going to be hard to believe)… he was laying there dead. And I swear folks, this is the truth…as I am holding my right hand up and my left hand over my heart while I type this… it was a young fork-horned buck with about two inches broken off of the end of one antler. That makes five broken antlered deer in five years.

That evening, as Christy and her mother were fixing some loin steaks back at the little house beneath the oak trees up on Lightnin’ Ridge, I headed back out to the woods and found myself another nice oak tree, thinking maybe that hat-rack buck would stumble across me and wake me up. I saw seven or eight more does, and thought of a half dozen good reasons not to shoot one. I watched the setting sun shine through a black oak still full of beautiful gold and crimson leaves, and wondered how in the world so many of them remained after the wind we had experienced in the night.

Ten or fifteen years ago I would have likely shot one of those does and perhaps would have noticed those sunlit crimson leaves a great deal less. For some reason, it is different now that rocks are harder to sit on. I gaze through the woodlands before me, at squirrels busily gathering the acorns they so willingly ignored when hickory nuts were plentiful, and I can see, in my minds eye, the first skiff of snow, and hear some distant church bells ringing out a Christmas carol, as deer season is forgotten.

I can feel the cold mornings of January, and see falling snow that gets deep enough to make for good rabbit hunting. Even beyond that, I gaze into the future and imagine the coming of longer, warmer days and those first oak stamens which will make me sneeze in April, just when some long-bearded, gobbling tom is easing through the woods, scratching at old dead leaves which were bright green a month or so ago.

It just feels so good to be in these quiet woods, no matter the season and no matter the reason, waiting and listening and thinking. There will be many more oak trees to sit against, I hope. I think I’ll keep bringing that old camouflaged boat cushion with me to soften the rocks. Make no mistake about it, it will not soften me any! And make no mistake about it, I’ll get that hat-rack buck yet, sometime before all of today’s oak leaves become tomorrow’s forest carpet. I’ll get him or one of his sons. Maybe.

Write to me at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613 or e-mail lightninridge@windstream.net. The website is larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com

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CONQUERING CACKLERS WITH BALCK POWDER GUNS

An explosion of vividly colored feathers rises from the grass. A cackle is emitted as if to say, “You can’t get me!” A report from my gun and the air is fills with smoke. I peer through the smoke to see if I have taken one of our favorite game birds.

There is something about the cackle of a pheasant that gets the juices flowing in the most jaded of upland game hunters. Combine that with a weapon from the past. It is a way to maintain contact with the old way of hunting in our modern high tech world.

Smoke pole pheasant hunters usually prefer to hunt over dogs that work close. At the approach of danger, pheasants can drop their head and tail to the ground and sneak off. They disappear even in the thinnest of cover. Pressured by a dog that works far out, pheasants can be seen zipping down a fence row like road runners.

In addition to hunting close to the dogs, it is advisable to work slowly and stop often. Pheasants are nervous birds and if you stop, they seem to think they have been spotted. These kings of the prairie just can’t stand to sit tight if they think they have been spotted.

An advantage of hunting pheasants with a muzzle loader is the lack of recoil. Due to the relatively slow burning of the black powder or Pyrodex, the recoil is significantly reduced.

Problems can appear when hunting with other partners. There is the rib about the amount of time it takes to reload, even though it is just a matter in minutes. Using speed loaders, one can reload rather quickly, but still not as fast as with shotgun shells.

Another problem is with the amount of smoke emitted by the muzzle loader. Like most hunters I like to see if I hit the bird and where he lands. On a windy day the smoke disperses more quickly. But on quiet days it can be a nuisance. On windy days I find that shooting into the wind requires keeping my mouth shut. The smoke tastes terrible.

Modern muzzle loaders add a new dimension to pheasant hunting. Hunting pheasants with my Cabela’s 10 gauge, double-barrel muzzle loader is great fun. The factory installed choke tubes work well on all kinds of small game hunting. Finding the right shot pattern and load for a black powder weapon is not difficult. It just takes a little time.

The three chokes that come with the gun are: Extra-full, Modified, and Improved Cylinder. Other chokes are available on order from the company. Having various chokes can present a problem in that one sometimes has to develop a different load for each choke. Each choke presents a different pattern with the same load.

Patterning a shotgun goes a long way toward hunting success. It allows me to know where the shot is going to hit. Patterning is a simple and inexpensive way to make sure that the gun is shooting where I aim.

What I use in addition to the gun, powder and shot, is a sheet of plywood, some large target faces, safety glasses, and hearing protection. A bench rest, or sandbags, is helpful in being consistent from one shot to another. Target faces should be about 3 foot square so as to help see where all the shot is going.

The mix of pellets from different sizes and different chokes quickly become apparent. If I aim at the center of the target and the bulk of the shot is consistently hitting off to the side, then perhaps the fit of the gun is off. A gunsmith can quickly fix that problem.

If the bulk of the shot is just a little off from center, then I can adjust my point of aim to compensate. Although a few pellets can kill a pheasant, the goal is to deliver the bulk of the shot in a pattern that will humanely down the bird.

By experimenting with the various chokes, I can see quickly which choke delivers a pattern I desire. For example, an Extra-full choke works very well when hunting turkeys. But, it is not as effective on pheasants. Extra-full chokes have a .040 constriction of the barrel and is good for 55 yard shots. Improved-modified has a .015 constriction and is most effective at 30 yards. The Improved cylinder has a .010 constriction and is for shots at fewer than 25 yards, which are frequently encountered in hunting upland birds.

A good combination for the double-barrel shotgun shooting could be the Improved cylinder in the first barrel and Extra-full choke in the second. In that way, the close shot can be taken at the rising pheasant and more time can be taken in aiming for the second shot at a greater distance.

In patterning, I pattern the barrel with my chosen choke at the distance mentioned above. Each choke/barrel combination can be shot with varying loads of powder and shot. Every gun comes with charts of recommended loads of shot and powder in a range. There are differences between black powder and Pyrodex data. For instance the 10 gauge with Pyrodex might be recommended with 1 ½ ounces of lead or steel shot and 88 grains of powder. The same gun using black powder and the same amount of shot might require 110 grains of powder.

My muzzle loaders are percussion guns. The ignition of the powder is achieved by the hammer coming down on a percussion cap mounted on a nipple. The resulting fire passes through the nipple into the barrel of the gun causing the powder to ignite. The resulting explosion forces the shot up the barrel and out the muzzle. With my double-barrel guns there is a slight problem with the cap on the second barrel often falling off the nipple by the recoil of the first shot. I solve by slightly squeezing the caps before mounting them on the nipples. The slightly tighter fit helps keep the cap in place.

Modern muzzle loading shotguns allow me to take birds for the table and still enjoy the romance of using a weapon from the past.

                                                               Don Gasaway - The Upland Hunter
                                                               http://www.dongasaway.wordpress.com/

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A Very Tragic Outdoor Story

It is hard to decide what to do sometimes, when you are an outdoorsman who likes to hunt and fish and a fall day is pretty close to perfect. Rich Abdoler and I were faced with that problem in late October… should we fish for bass or hunt turkeys. We decided to do both.

Along one stretch of river there are wild turkeys that roost in the big sycamores just after sundown, and in the river itself, there are big bass. In a situation like that you take your shotgun and some shells and a turkey call, dress in camouflage clothing, and then add a tackle box and your rod and reel.

There are always problems to deal with while fishing the river in October. Fall leaves lie along the surface, and gather in the quiet spots where deep water promises awaiting bass; hard-hitting, hungry fish fattening up to get through the winter. It isn’t exactly the same as hibernation, I don’t reckon, but something similar. Those fish will move to deep water in the dead of winter and snooze a lot, waking up on occasion, yawning, looking around for something to eat, just to get them by until spring. And so you can catch them in the winter, we all know that. You just have to fish for them when they decide to eat something, and it is hard to know when that is.   You have to fish for them when they are awake, just after they have yawned and stretched and said to each other.. “Boy wouldn’t a nice crawdad taste good!”

You can do that on occasion if you aren’t too miserable, sitting there in your boat, bobbing around in a cold wind, thinking about how good the duck hunting might be, or wondering if you wouldn’t be happier deer hunting. So the time to catch the big bass is in the fall, when they aren’t as interested in sleeping, and more likely to be eating most of the day. I know it is that way, because when I am home in late October, I have an urge to eat everything in the refrigerator and then go to McDonalds and get a couple of cheeseburgers and some French fries. It is my body telling me that I need to fatten up for the winter.

I know my theory may not pass any scientific analysis, but I figure fish are like we are. They have to sleep on occasion, or they wouldn’t have eyelids! It seems to me that under a warm rock in deep water is a good place to sleep when it is January, and the river is froze over. Anyway, when it’s cold I am always hunting, so what would I know about it.

When it is October, there are all those leaves on the water to contend with, and it is so exasperating to make a good cast and hook two or three sycamore leaves with the spinner bait. That’s what kept happening to me, as I looked up at the timber-line, wondering how many turkeys might be in the woods. About that time Rich caught a big Kentucky bass, also known as a spotted bass. This one fought all around the boat, and when Rich finally landed him, he was fat as a groundhog, probably the crawdad population in that area’s biggest problem for most of October.

Kentuckies do not often get much bigger than two or three pounds, but that one would have made four pounds I believe. Rich decided to take him home and eat him, making life easier on the crawdads, and creating less competition for smallmouth bass in the river. It is a good thing to do, releasing the smallmouths, and eating the Kentucky bass, which are every bit as good to eat as a big crappie.

Eventually, as the afternoon wore on and I kept catching leaves, the woods around the river began to look too inviting, and I figured I might do better hunting turkeys. So we tied the boat up to a maple tree root and made a little foray out into the forest to look for turkey sign. That sounds poetic doesn’t it.. a forest foray?

What I found on that forest foray to find feathers was, a little oxbow slough a little ways from the river that looked like it might have been a scene from an old time postcard. Huge oaks and sycamores and maples surrounded it, the water was green and filled with logs which appeared to be the home of all sizes of bass and crappie and bluegill and catfish. The sinking sun backlighted the yellow and red and orange leaves in the still branches, and there were very few leaves on the surface of that still green slough. I forgot my shotgun and went back to the boat to get my rod and reel and spinner bait.

Rich and I fished that slough for about 30 or 40 minutes, pulling those spinner baits up over logs and stumps, just knowing that any minute some monstrous bass with a mouth the size of an Alabama cantaloupe would engulf one of them and break our line. But it never happened. There must be something big and ominous living there in that deep green slough, like an alligator or the creature from the black lagoon, which has wiped out all the fish.

So we explored a little more, and found a couple of buck scrapes under some low hanging maple limbs, where a nice buck had chewed the twigs and pawed out a washtub-sized bare spot in the dirt beneath it. In a little pocket of water just off the slough, several woodducks flushed, with one old hen crying pitifully the way they do when they take to flight. You’ve heard them yourself I am sure, if you are a grizzled old veteran outdoorsman like Rich and me.

It was a place I hated to leave, as I love to explore wild and unaltered woodlands.  There were some wild turkey dusting spots and feathers here and there. I thought it might be smart to go back and get my turkey call and shotgun, and Rich agreed. So we headed back to my boat as the sun sank to just a few feet above the horizon, sitting low in the western woods, peeking through the big trees.

And I know there are some of you folks out there who aren’t going to believe this, as some outdoor writers are prone to make up stuff so they have something to write about.  But I am not one of them. Most of you who have been reading this column for many years will vouch for my almost complete honesty, and I am telling you this with my hand up and crossing my heart, hoping to never to eat wild turkey again if I am lying… Two wild turkeys flushed from the underbrush before us not 25 feet from the boat, one in front of Rich and one in front of me. They flew across the river as I aimed my fishing rod at them and wondered why in the world my shotgun was in the boat!

Sometimes it just don’t pay to get up in the morning!Rich ate bass that night and I had a boloney and cheese sandwich.

Write to me with any sympathies you might want to express, Box 22, Bolivar, Mo 65613 or e-mail lightninridge@windstream.net. The website is www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com.

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