Trad Gang

Ain't this the time of year Killie is in the woods, takein pictures???  :biglaugh:  It isn't like her to be anti-social  

yes killie whats happening dont be mean come on share  .lol!!!!   :campfire:

Yeppers...

but she usually has a great time and comes back with interesting stories and wonderful pictures.

The-patiently waiting and drinking a cup of hot tea   :coffee:  -Ferret

Was thinking about her just today.  Figure she's out in the boonies miles from civilization.  Heck she might just decide to stay out there.  Wouldn't blame her  :wavey: ...Van

I hope she's deep in the woods soaking up some good ole outdoor revitalization... it's a good thing to have happy postal workers.  :D  

I'm puttin out some good vibes for her hunt.  :thumbsup:

Since I hadn't seen or heard any mention of it from her or Clark, I had about decided her job had her pegged down this year - so I didn't want to bring up the subject. I hope y'all are right and she is out there enjoying.

I hope she is out being one with the wild too.

i hope she is having fun but if i were to guess, her job is just like mine, this time of year ya don't have time for nothing, unless she is on vacation!

I hope she stabs something sharp in something really big. Maybe that would get her chatting a bit more!  :D   Aw heck, I just hope she's having a great time in the woods! CK

I hope she is out in the woods having fun.

She posted somewhere that it was time for her to go into the wilds of VA.  Can't remember which thread.  Hmmm, I wonder if she's hunting near me?  Anyone know what section she hunts?  If it's around here she's due for some serious rain tonight and tomorrow.   :(

I'm pretty sure she goes very close to the WV state line, in the mountains, every year, and stays for a couple weeks. Clark usually trys to join her at least on the weekends, and sometimes for the second week.

Bernie, north or south?  I'm not too far from WV.  I drive there often for work.  Some rough country but big deer.

Still wonderin


 :confused:    :bigsmyl:

you got us worried killie  where are you come out come out where ever you are its not funny any more. lol!!!  :confused:    :confused:    :campfire:    :archer:

I'm not sure, but seems like she indicated it was close to the area where ATAR is held (Beckly, WV)but in VA. She never communicates while she is out there except through Clark - he usually comes on and posts during her vacation. Don't know why it is different this year, unless Clark is all tied up with work.

Nope. Not funny anymore...now that I am back. I woulda stayed out, 'cept I gotta make money to support the new truck. Sometimes I think we are just support systems for our vehicles!

I hunted Botetourt one afternoon on the 24th, when I visited Motormouth at his grandparents' farm. What a beautiful expanse of country, a warm day, wonderful people and a hunt, to boot!

I hunt Highland County, in the GW Nat'l Forest for three weeks in November. This was my twenty-first season doing so. I went up and erected camp on the 5th, and returned yesterday. The first week is dedicated to bowhunting, the second week muzzleloader season starts. The third week is the start of rifle season.

This year, for various reasons, I killed no earthly thing but Time, and I think I hit a small owl on the way home, a screech or a saw whet owl who thought too long in the middle of my lane in the dark. Bummer. I hate killing things I don't mean to.

My camera was acting dead for much of the time that I was up there, I was disorganized from the outset, and I got sick halfway through the trip. In short, I wish I were still out there, as it sure as heck beats working!    :knothead:    

Oh, and I saw HIM. OK, I admit it, antlers are exciting.

It was during the first week, I will have to get my journal out...no I won't, it was Thursday the ninth of November when I saw the Golden Boy of the ridge I like to hunt. The ridge is a horseshoe, with a steepish bowl in the center. It is primarily hardwoods, with a bedding area on one side consisting of red pines and red spruce that stop at the bowl, and another of laurel on the other side, inside the bowl. The edge of the laurel, where it meets the hardwoods in the bowl and about 80 yards from the topline is where three cherry trees fell in a clump. I call the rootball's pit the Pawnshop. It is fortuitously located at the end of a laurel-shrouded 'chute' that makes an escape trail through the hardwoods from the topline of the ridge into the laurel bedding area. deer come at any pace but a walk down this, pause to check the wind, and then enter the bedding area. The scene is set.    :campfire:    

Killdeer~where is my journal? What is on my camera's memory card that I can offer up? Gad! Look at the mess in this house!

Dang Killy!  I look foreward to seeing your pictures.  Hope you got a few before your camera died.  Waiting for a good story too.

Dennis

Glad you're back safe and sound, Killie.  Now where's the rest of the story????    :wavey:    ;)

ALRIGHT KILLY'S BACK   :thumbsup:    :campfire:

yippppeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Welcome home KILLY hope you had the good old tree bark on.

I wish you were still in the woods too  :rolleyes:   Deer Killie  :bigsmyl:  Now I wanna see some pictures and hear how yer side of the story.

I also am glad you are back, my friend. Somehow it just didn't seem right, with no updates from Clark - Kinda scary, for some of us who will admitt it. We mostly played Ostrich though, and "assurred" each other all was probably OK. Now we can relax and just pick on you again - that's more fun! Hope you at least "renewed" yourself again this year, Lady.

As usual my older brother has all the right words. What Bernie said!! Now where are the pictures???  :bigsmyl:

Dano...you're such a guy. I will tell you, though, that I carried a certain snakeskin-trimmed cane arrow with trade point on all my bow hunts.

Bernie, I was waiting for a new truck to display this on.
First sticker on the vehicle:
  (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v249/Killdeer/Hunting%20and%20Camp/2006%20November%20Hunt/Berniessticker.jpg)

We all know what sticker comes next! (TG, of course!!)

Part of the disorganizational trend of this hunt was due to the fact that I took possession of the truck on the second of November, got the cap put on it on the third, and left on the fourth. There was a lot of wild scurrying about that Saturday morning, throwing stuff in the truck and hoping I had left it reasonably packed and complete last year, notwithstanding the minor camping that I did during the summer.

Oh..hunting! So there I was on Thursday, November the ninth, having gotten to the Pawnshop around 3:30. Late, but that was because of the turkeys. Oh, hadn't I mentioned them yet? Sorry. Well, there were these turkeys, like they usually do during the week of bow season, feeding at the top of the logging skid behind camp. I go up this skid to get to the ridge that leads to the Pawnshop and a couple other favorite spots. Anyway, the turkeys were there, surruptitiously making their way across the ridgeline to feed in the top of the bowl under the little knob at the top of the skid. I caught the movement of the two glossy backs and stayed ducked, using my binoculars to look for the rest of them. It was a gang of hens and youngsters, and bronzed hope spread wide its wings in my beating hunter's heart.

Ooops. It is nine o'clock, and I have to go to bed. Gotta work in the morning, and the alarm goes off at 4:45.

Oh, here is a picture of Motormouth, as he shows me the ol' swimming hole at his grandparents' farm. I didn't bring my swimming trunks, so we went hunting instead.

  (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v249/Killdeer/Hunting%20and%20Camp/2006%20November%20Hunt/Matt.jpg)

Killdeer~Oh for crying out loud! Where is my snoozing gremlin? I am about to go beddy-bye, and the gremlin I use the most is GONE!! Will y'all just cut it OUT??    :knothead:

You have fun

A fine first chapter, I carry gifted arras too, way better than buyin them  :D  And yes I'm being a guy.

Dano..forgiven.
Just.
I had the hardest time figuring out what that noise was this morning.
Oh. Alarm.
Gotta go work.  :help:  

Killdeer

Sure glad you are back Killie. I was getting mighty noyvous (nervous)  :pray:

welcome back Killy!!! we missed ya!

Killy,

I see you are still being a silly filly, and doing a great job of teasing Dano.  Sounds like a good time or course never had a real bad time away from work.

I can vouch for the fact that Linc was getting nervouse too. Glad you got to use the decal on the new truck, Killie and neat to see Motor Mouth smiling again. Of course I am aware it may just be at seeing you again - I know how he looks up to you (pun not intended). Speaking of that - would y'all believe good ol' Bunny Hunter (Micah Adams) stopped in at my website and left his "tracks" on my guest book - bless his heart. I hear from him about once a year - LOL. He also left a link there for his "My Space" as an update. He is in Madison WI now, still with WalMart (pics and other good stuff there too).  When you get time, Killie, stop in to my "new' TBD section and see all the new Full Draw additions that came in while you were gone.

I sure hope the ol'girl    :rolleyes:   has not forgotten us, one little installment of pictures and story tellin just ain't gonna get it. Bein patient ain't one of my better traits   :bigsmyl:

BTW Bernie, where the heck has Bunny Hunter been?? he take up needle point?

Dano,

Not sure but calling her an ol'girl may not speed things along, other than her temper might flare!!!  Oh well you can take a little heat, right.

So, the innocent, defenseless foraging birdies were scratching and purring just out of sight, and being the savvy hunter that I am, I crept directly into the sun. I have hunted that ridge since the beginning, and on that bright glaring day I groped my way surely and blindly toward an intercept point. The familiar crackle of dry white oak and cherry leaves reassured me of the correctness of every step.

I paused in a dip just shy of the knob. They would pass within sight soon. I craned my neck like my hunting mentor, the great blue heron, and waited. I was soon rewarded by the sight of fifteen or so feathered periscopes, all miraculously looking the other way. The bowl was full of their contented purrs as acorns, crawlies and stray earthworms filled their crops. They had rounded the knob, and were sauntering back down into the bowl at about thirty yards, and getting further away by the second. Flopping square on my butt, I waited as they fed away, and then preened and fussed at each other. A button buck followed them out. When at last they faded from view, I snuck down out of sight below ridgeline and scuttled toward the Pawnshop. The wind carried my scent down the bowl, I heard a snort,and the button buck appeared as he fled up and over the side of the bowl into the red spruces a hundred-fifty yards down the side of the bowl. This was indeed an auspicious beginning!  :bigsmyl:  

Killdeer  :archer:

Impatient, impertinent imp! Some of us have to REALLY work for a living! I went in, and they had cut a full stacker plus six tubs of mail yesterday! I am gonna get screwed out of the time it will take to absorb THAT into the delivery, had to put in five bid requests and an employee survey, and I got a migraine, so I couldn't see what I was casing up. I got back home at dark, which meant I couldn't take the dog to the doggy park and sit, I hadda walk her for an hour, feed her, play with her, feed myself...I sit down and the phone starts ringing.

Can I go back out to the woods? Will somebody foot my truck payments for a few years?    :banghead:    

You will get what I dole out and be happy, you inflammatory ingrates!    :mad:    (JK)(I love you guys!)(BIG HUG NOW!!) (I feel  so  much better.)

Killdeer    :)

My how I've missed this verbal abuse !!!!

Love you too, sorry you had such a bad day.  :bigsmyl:

So I round the top of the horseshoe, and arrive at the dropoff to the Pawnshop. The wind here is coming out of the bowl, directly to me. To my right, along the topline, I have passed the laurel-lined escape route to the bedding area to my left. I creep down to the fallen cherry pit, and get comfy, facing the chute. I dig a couple of offending rocks out of the face of the rootball, which makes my back a bit less kinky. I must sit perfectly still here, as cover is mostly the pit that I sit, and my head and shoulders are above that level. The rootball is taller than I, even when standing. I am fortunate in my ability to sit and do nothing. I watch the shadows lengthen and deepen.

Then I hear them.

Killdeer~bedtime.

Oh sure, sure - go to bed - like sleep and jobs are more important then spinning hunting tales for friends. (Come to think of it - if I had a job, I'd have money - and could afford to buy the DVD - there is a DVD isn't there, Killie?

(Hey, Chuck, Glad you are back up for abuse - like the rest of us now - LOL)

Killy,

Don't go postal on us, we can live with just a piece of the story every so often.  

" Work the curse of the poor!!!!!!"

Hope tomorrow brings you a sunny day and disposition, too!!

:bigsmyl:  

JOB....J-Just, O-Over, B-Broke..... Ain't a dang thing more for me either. I want more hunt story. Oh yea, give ol' Dano hell too! CK

You just take your time young lady!  ;)    :thumbsup:

"I am fortunate in my ability to sit and do nothing" spoken like a true Government employee  :bigsmyl:

:biglaugh:   Good 'un, Dano, ya rowdy rascal, you.

(It's such a hoot to finally have a younger brother that gets in more trouble than me -   :p  )

Hey now, you two need to behave, the rest of us want to hear the stories....

Glad to hear you had a good hunt Killdeer, even if it wasn't the smoothest it was out and about where you like to be.

:biglaugh:   Your welcome Bernie, I have always been good at gettin in trouble.

AND NOW THE REST OF THE STORY:   :rolleyes:   (man I like the way Paul Harvey says that).

:bigsmyl:

LOL   :thumbsup:   Killdeer

Glad you made it out, safe. We had the wettest November since 1948 in NC.   :archer:

Dano,Dano,Dano...... Can I have your grizzly bandsaw? (and some lemonade) after Killy gets done wich ya?  :scared:    :bigsmyl:

Er, um, hiya folks.

I have to apologize for the neglect of my duties this year. Bernie, you 'bout got it right. It was work, the new dog (Spirit, a slightly smaller, near spittin' image of Sheba), my Mom, who's now in a nursing home, and my own disorganized mad scramble to try and go hunt with Killy that kept me from posting.

Killdeer, who has always hunted harder than I ever have, will have all the huntin' stories this year. Onliest time I went out to hunt was on Motormouth's Grampa's farm. I was so hoping that that would pull me out of my hunting tailspin this year, and it came sorta close; but in the end, you really have to "make a way", and I didn't do that this year, partly of choice, partly of circumstnace and partly of necessity. But huntin' or no, a week in the woods beats a week at work all around.

I've actually got more to say, but after writing it all, I realized that I might be cutting into Killy's yarn-spinnin' activities, so I'll wait, and post my perspective on the season later. I've saved it on a Word document, so I can go get it when I want.

Best to you all,   C.

Good grief!
There ain't much yarn to spin here, the sheep was a tad mangy...and I haven't had the time to spin, frankly. Matter o' fack, I gotta take the dog out and get to work. Doin' my best to stay in touch here, but things are hectic.

The wind was blowing just enough to rub the trees together, causing them to make the little grunting noises and groans that carry drily through the woods. Then it died down, and then started again. Hmm. The trees weren't moving...but I heard a grunt.

Killdeer

Following along, but at a distance Killy.

Bowls are hard to hunt, the air swirling around in them like a recently flushed commode and the sounds echoing and amplified like a natural cathedral.

Hey! I get tied up for a few days and when I come back, the search for Killie is over and your halfway through the story. OK, I heard ya, shut up and sit down. Glad to see you back safe Killie.  :D  

Graham

The bowl is indeed a confounder of hunters. The winds vary, of prime importance is the direction of the prevailing wind, and its speed. The ridge will raise the leading edge of the wind up and over, then curl it like a breaking wave on the other side. The height of the "curl" and where it descends to before folding up depends on the wind speed and to some degree, temperature.

This day, the "usual" conditions were in place, and the wind was strong enough to keep it fairly steady but gentle enough to not be annoying. Some days, I just get SO tired, and the wind seems to suck the energy right out of me. The constant buffeting, the loss of body heat, hair in my eyes and the confusion of sound saps my resolve and I crave nothing more than shelter.

On the other hand, those "dead" days when there isn't a wisp of movement in the air...just eery. Usually it is right after a hard freeze, when the air is so cold that the hairs in your nose freeze together when you inhale. The air seems taut, everything is brittle, even you, and the sound of a step seems profane. In the back of my mind I hear one low single pluck of the top string of a guitar, the sound of the heart of a tree breaking, or perhaps my spine. The tension slowly increased within the core causes it to snap from the stress, muffled, internal.

I never see deer move on those mornings, they seem to sense their audible vulnerability, and lay low in the spruce thickets, where the needles will muffle the their steps should they deem them necessary. Only the birds seem to venture about, and they seem a bit muted and apprehensive.

Today, though, was a mild day, when the wind merely stimulates the "conversation" that is the gentle discourse of woods. The clacking of the branches above told me of the wind's speed, the limbs gently swayed just enough to brush the fingertips of their neighbors, and the congenial clicks came and went. Yeah. They were there when the wind wasn't blowing, too. I strained my eyes trying to see up through the laurel. A raven played along the ridgetop, calling with that weird water-dripping sound with a double click at the end. How I wished I could be a raven, and see what I could only speculate about! The sparring was short, the antlers separated and the grunts ceased, save those made by rubbing treetrunks. The raven circled once, and then flew down the bowl.

I suppose the ravens don't think of me as a very reliable source of income.

The sound of deer trotting is very distinctive. When you hear the leaves crunching in that two-beat gait, you wait. Mere leafy hangers-on in the red oak treetops can do that.Then if they get nearer, you hear the thud beneath the leaves as hooves strike earth. In the thin soil of the Allegheny Mountains, like as not a rock or three will rattle from its nest as the feet beat their businesslike way down the escape path to safety. I sat at the gateway wide-eyed and tensed.

Killdeer

Now, this is what I was waitin for   :notworthy:  a fine huntin story Killie Dear.   ;)

I'm on the edge of my seat - even if it only garners a fleeting glimpse of brown or white    :thumbsup:   .

Glad to hear from you, Clark. Wasn't sure but what maybe Killie had caught you folding your hankerchief wrong again and packed you off to "Boot Camp" (private joke, sort of)   :eek:   .

Finally I saw a flicker of red, shadowy red, like an Irish setter in the shade, on a steady course down the chute. A bigger red followed. You know the businesslike trot your dog has when he hears the can opener? Blend that with the high stepping, exaggerated hock, knee and fetlock flexion, and lengthened period of suspension that you see in Pepe LePew's gait as he chases the hapless kittycat, and that is how the two deer moved. Nearer they came, and nearer, and then into the gap between the laurel of the chute and the laurel of the bedding area. I was ready, and she came through just as I had seen them do before. She slowed, and quartering-to, jogged into the opening before the thicket. Behind her, he paused before the gap, showing his now gray and sleek side. I had glanced at his rack...then resolutely focused on his heart. But there was no shot at that angle, and at the limits of my range.

He trotted through the opening, and into the atrium of the laurel bed. Then he stopped, quartering away as she had, and turned his nose away from me to test the wind coming up the slope. My string was back, the fletch in the corner of my mouth along with my heart. He was too far. As he turned his head away from me I was torn. Two saplings, twenty five yards, a sleek grey side and I found myself gasping at the two and a half to three inches that lay between the tips of each ear and the inside bends of his antlers.

I let the string down, and he trotted after his life's desire. Once out of sight, I heard a long, satisfied exhalation as though they knew that they had passed through the gates of Hell and were in Paradise now.

Why did they look red to me as they flitted through the laurel toward me? They were as red as skinned deer. Did my eyes see them through bloodlust? Was it because of their heat? (Red is the Aztec color of sex.) Was it the aura of their life force? Oh, they were grey, but I saw the fire that burns and runs through their veins and mine. They are gone and will go on forever, and I am not in the least bit sorry.

When at last the darkness fell, I sang my way back to camp, and thought, "AH! THAT was a HUNT!" My merriment made the path short and my footsteps light.

Oh the glory that could have been mine! I had seen my name in lights below the TradGang Banner, and my testimony added to the glorious rolls of the Morrison Site. Bob would have been so PROUD of his beautiful little Arapaho. But it was not to be, and I was left with the cheesy remnants of burnt and broken neon squiggles.

Every now and then, though, I think on it and get a deep, soul-stirring glow, and I smile for apparently no reason.

Killdeer  :)

Geeze!!, You had my heart a thumpin. Been there done that, Thank God I'm color blind  :bigsmyl:  

It was a truely great hunt.

Sightings like that are so 'citein' - and soooo satisfying in retrospect. We are blessed by our memories of that sort.

Bravo,Bravo.   :thumbsup:

Dang that was cool Killy! Sometimes anticipation is just the best feeling. Happy for ya   :thumbsup: