Sunday Deer Hunting

SUNSET FROM MY DEERSTAND

Today I watched sunrise and sunset from my deerstand. If you've never done it, believe me it's something pretty special. I wasn't outside all day, but most of it. This morning I heard a pheasant cackling in the nearby corn field and a turkey gobbling from his roost in a tree directly behind me. It's pretty cool to be out in the woods and hear the bald eagles and pileated woodpeckers waking up and beginning another day. The only thing missing from this whole day was deer -- again!! I did not see a single deer from either of the stands I sat in this morning or afternoon. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that once the farmers start getting the corn picked my odds of arrowing a deer will increase dramatically.

Today also marked the final day of the first firearms deer season in Minnesota. Remember last week when I said I was going to stay out of the woods until firearms season was over? Well, I should have stuck to that promise. As we were packing up and walking out of the woods this afternoon, we heard some gunshots nearby. (Now keep in mind that it's legal to shoot 1/2 hour before sunrise and after sunset and our sunset tonight was around 4:45.) I heard the first couple shots just up the road right around 5 PM. Then around 5:10 as we were walking toward the road, we heard a shot from the road almost right in front of us. I stopped and then heard the slug breaking branches in the woods just off to our left. Stupid A-holes!! This is precisely why I hate gun season -- there was no way the guy shooting out by the road could even see what he was shooting at because of the thick woods there. It's also posted private property. When we got up to the road and almost back to the truck, we could see them parked in a field drive almost directly across from us. They decided it was time to leave as we got closer, but not before Mr. Johnson stopped them and told those 2 stupid jerks that he didn't appreciate listening to their lead flying through the woods we were walking out of. "Wasn't me man, we weren't even over there!" was the response. If there's one thing I can absolutely not tolerate, it's idiots walking around with loaded firearms!

The View from My Deer Stand - Part 2

Spent another deerless afternoon in the woods today, but I'm not complaining because the outside temp was almost 60 degrees! Pretty unusual for early November and it got me to thinking about some previous deer hunting seasons where there was about a foot of snow on the ground and temps in the teens.

Here's the hill I walk down from the cornfield to get to today's deer stand. Pretty, isn't it? There are always lots of birds in this area because it's much more wooded than the stand I was sitting on yesterday.

This stand is a permanent stand (meaning we don't take it down every year). I built this stand myself 2 years ago. Are you impressed? I was. Mr. Johnson had chosen the tree and I was in charge of the design. I did my drawing of how I thought the stand should be built, took the measurements, and then cut all the wood at home. We carried all the pieces out to the woods and then I built the stand. Amazingly enough, all the pieces fit correctly and the stand turned out exactly as I had envisioned it. I love this stand! It's big enough to set up this little stool and today I was even able to curl up on the floor and take a little nap! (Nope, I'm definitely not a hardcore deer hunter, am I?)

The warm weather has brought out a new hatch of insects. I watched this little stink bug walking up one of the tree trunks.

Of course, there are always several of these pesty little bushy tails wreaking havoc in the woods. I'm always amazed at how much noise such a small animal can make. But on a slow deer hunting day, their antics are always amusing.

Have a good weekend everyone!

The View from My Deer Stand

Well, after a gentle nudge from my dear old Mom (who's experiencing some blog deprivation symptoms) I will be making an effort to become a little more proactive in my blog posts again.

Amazingly enough, I don't think I've even taken any photos in the last 2 weeks. I think that's the longest I've gone without taking a picture since I started this blog! Between work, deer hunting and knitting, it doesn't seem like I've had time to pay much attention to other stuff going on around here. Oh, there are plenty of birds -- flocks of cedar waxwings in the backyard -- but I've been negligent about carrying the camera along with me when I'm outside.

So this afternoon, while sitting on the deer stand, I realized here was a perfect photo opportunity right in front of me! So, here's a view from the deer stand I was sitting in this afternoon. Do you see any deer? Nope, I didn't either! That's because all you can see in almost any direction is corn, corn, and more corn, and that's where the deer are hiding out.
Minnesota's firearms deer opener is this Saturday (Nov. 7th). For as many years as we've been bowhunting, we always have at least one deer in the freezer by this time. This year has been a tough one as October brought us nearly record setting moisture in the forms of rain and snow. Needless to say, the farmers are the ones most negatively affected by this weather and the harvest has barely begun -- especially for corn.

Mr. Johnson is getting seriously frustrated by the lack of deer we've been seeing. Fortunately he has plenty of vacation time and he subscribes to the philosophy that "a bad day of hunting is better than a good day at work!" I, on the other hand, have no paid time off, so my hunting times are limited to afternoons and weekends (as long as the weather's nice).

I'll be staying out of the woods the next couple weekends because those gun hunters scare me and I'm looking forward to teaching a couple knitting classes -- mittens! Watch for a future blog post on that!

Enjoying Some Time Off

I'm taking a few days off work so Mr. Johnson and I can spend some quality time out in the woods with bow & arrow trying to bag a deer or two before the shotgun hunters take over in a week. Unfortunately, the deer seem to have other plans and are conspicuously absent from these woods where we've had good luck in the past. However, the weather is quite lovely and today was sunny and calm with a gorgeous blue sky. (We even took what was probably our last motorcycle ride for 2008 this afternoon.)

To make up for the absence of deer, there is the usual overabundance of squirrels--gray, fox, and red. They spend all of their time chasing and scuffling in the leaves, sounding for all the world like a herd of deer. They certainly are fun to watch though.

Last weekend when we got out to one of our deerstands early in the morning, we found this blind had been set up about 12 feet right in front of the stand. We are hunting (with permission) on private land--comprised of approximately 160 acres. We are hunting in a 20-acre section of wooded area. The landowner also has some relatives who come down from The Cities for gun hunting season. Since those guys never have time to come down and scout for deer, apparently they thought it would be easiest this year to set up their blind close to Mr. Johnson's stand--probably because he would know where the deer are, right?

Needless to say, we were a little "upset" when we came upon this blind. I don't know about you, but we considered this rather unsportsmanlike. So I decided to return the unsportsmanlike favor and used this blind as an outhouse......but it was only for #1 (so you know I'm only 97% evil!)