Hunting

Who says it’s not a hunting rifle?

/ hsoi

See? An M1 Garand works just fine as a hunting rifle.

It shoots .30-06, which is certainly adequate as a hunting round, so why not the rifle itself? I used my M1A on my first hunting trip. Works just fine. But I opted to change to a different rifle for hunting, mostly due to two things: weight and noise. The M1A is a big heavy rifle. If I was sitting in a blind, who cares. But stalking hunting, that weight gets to you after a while. Plus the gun is noisy on two counts. First, the muzzle brake directed a lot of noise back at you and unless you’re wearing hearing protection (which I stupidly wasn’t on that hunt… finally got a set of Pro Ears Stalker Gold’s coming my way) it’s going to hurt. Second, the gun itself was just noisy… the safety is hard and heavy to click off and makes quite a noise when it does.

Still, it’s a fine rifle and I’m sure I’ll hunt with it again at some point.

Genetics in antler development

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From Texas Park and Wildlife, the role of genetics in antler development (of white-tailed deer).

There are 3 equally important factors that control antler development in white-tailed deer: nutrition, genetics, and age. Antler development is genetically based, environmentally influenced, and reaches its peak at maturity. The key to quality deer management is to remove those bucks which have the least desirable antler characteristics at an early age. Kerr WMA studies show that yearling antlers predict a buck’s antler quality at maturity. Kerr genetic studies indicate bucks with the best antlers will produce more progeny with exceptional antlers than will poorer bucks. The does influence antler production as well. Harvest of older does is important to insure younger does are products of better bucks. Habitat should be managed so that deer can achieve their greatest antler potential. There are no methods to “jump-start” a quality deer program.

Updated: Related article on nutrition (bottom line: want big antlers? feed ’em good, high protein). And on age.

Range time

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Slipped out to the local indoor gun range this morning.

First thing I noticed was all the new benchrests they had! All the old worn out crappy rests were gone and replaced by new ones. I figure they know hunting season is coming and they’ll have a lot of business from people zeroing rifles and needing rests. This was welcome, especially because that’s why I went today.

My goal was to get my Savage 11 set with a “zero” to be 1″ high at 100 yards. Looking at all the data, that should allow me to be within “minute of dead deer” from 0 to 200 yards without any problem. Zero at 100 yards would risk me being too low at 200 yards, and zero at 200 yards I think would have put me a little too high at 100 yards or less. So at least on paper, this should work for me. Thing is, I really wanted to go to a range with longer rifle ranges today but it just didn’t happen for various reasons. My hope then was if I got it 1″ high at 100 yards I could refine and ensure 200 yards at a later date.

I started using my Prvi Partizan .308 168 grain BTHP match ammo. I have tons of it and it’s far less expensive per round than my hunting load (the Federal Vital-Shok .308 165 grain Barnes TSX stuff, P308H). Use that to get me in the ballpark, then finalize it with the Prvi. I believed the rifle was set to 0 at 100 yards, so I knew I’d need to adjust a bit. Shot a few rounds, got things adjusted, and thought it was good enough to switch over to the Federal.

Loaded one round of Federal, shooting at the lower-left little target thing on the sighting-in target. Look through the spotting scope and I don’t see anything on the paper. Huh?!?!  I look around at the center of the target and counted 6 holes. But I only shot 5 Prvi on that target at the center. Is that saying my Federal was off that much? Loaded another round and shot at the center of the target. Sure enough, that one went way high and right. Wow. I know that loads can be different, but I did not expect that drastic of a difference. I only had 8 rounds of my hunting load left so I had to get things dialed in quickly. I managed to do so and think she’s there, but I’m not totally sure. It could have been the gun, it could have been the cheap scope, it could be the rounds, maybe the barrel was warm enough that it was throwing things off. I don’t know for sure.

So, I packed up and opted to head home. I’ll try again in the near future and only use the hunting load. See where that first cold-barrel shot lands and go from there.

Ultimately I really need to get going with reloading. One box (20 rounds) of the P308H is $45. Now that I’ve got a lot of good .308 brass and I’ve got a box of 50 .30 caliber Barnes TSX, man, it’ll be far cheaper to load it all myself (probably half the cost).

Anyway, it’ll be nice to get the rifle sighted in before the rush of everyone in the area cramming up the ranges trying to get sighted in. Plus we saw a bunch of hogs on the game cameras at the deer lease. Mmm… pork.

Workin’ on the lease

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I spent all of yesterday out at the deer lease working on getting it ready for deer hunting season. Went out with my buddy C and his brother M (we’re the 3 on the lease), and we got a bunch of things done.

Went out and scouted the property again. We’ve got a good feel for the lay of things. The property owner had put up some flags to better clarify where the back-end of the property was, so that was useful to see and adjust to. One thing we also noticed was, as we were driving in we noticed how green everything was. Obviously they’ve been getting rain and for a while, whereas Austin’s been bone-dry. But as we got onto the actual property, it wasn’t as green as everything else had been; greener than Austin, but not as lush as places within a 50 mile radius. Ah well, it’s still getting rain and things should green up as the temperatures are going down too. And we do need more rain as the tank/pond still has water but certainly the level has gone down significantly; refilling it is needed.

We found a lot of good places to hunt, from stands (either formal or make-shift), stalking, good stuff. C managed to snag a great deal on a box blind via craigslist. He then built a 4′ platform riser and much of our morning was spent assembling and preparing that stand. You can see in the picture that it’s mostly complete. We still need to work on the windows, finish up the painting, and we’re thinking about doing other things with the roof (currently just a sheet of hardiplank). Still, it’s a pretty nice setup and overlooks the pasture.

Set up two other stands. A free-standing tripod in a back corner of the property, single person. Then we also set up a tree ladder stand near the pond. The ladder stand was cumbersome to put up. I had assembled most of it at home, but just trying to hoist that sort of weight at that height well… leverage and gravity are not your friend here. Plus trying to find the right tree that is 1. in a good hunting spot, 2. provides the structural support the stand needs… that’s tough to come by. But we found a good setup. We also opted to drop one set of ladder rungs so instead of being about 14′ from ground to the platform it’s now about 10′, so when seated the gun will probably be 12′ to 14′ in the air (didn’t measure exactly). But that’s good enough. It also put the bottom of the platform just atop a sturdy branch, which added nicely to the stability.

Put out another feeder, near the tank. Moved one of the game cameras to watch that feeder. We’ll see what shows up. Speaking of which, we did clear the photos off the 3 cameras we have on the property, but we haven’t gone through them all yet. M took all the pictures and is started to go through them. An initial email from him said he saw a coyote along the back fence. There’s also been much evidence of hogs on the property, which is great for C and me since we love to hunt hogs (M will take a hog but doesn’t really care to seek them out). Lots of deer on the cameras too, but no word yet on quality and “takeable” bucks.

It was a long day, much work, but overall productive. We’ll probably have a long work weekend in early October to finish up what needs to be done. Season starts in November. 🙂

Some random comments:

  • The iPhone is quite handy. All the pictures were taken with it, and while it may lack things like flash and zoom, you can still get pretty decent pictures out of it. Certainly better than a lot of other mobile phone cameras.
  • As well, I’m glad I bought the iPhone 3GS. The GPS functionality is quite the boon. I took coordinate readings of various things on the property, which then when I got home I could feed into Google Earth and map out. I could easily figure out things like distances (e.g. from this stand, how far to this fence or that tree so I can know exactly how far the shot would be). I want to go back out and get coordinates for many more landmarks on the property…. could make for a nice motorcycle ride.
  • Mobile phone reception at the property is fine. No 3G network, but there is AT&T’s Edge network… slow, but something.
  • We found a dying cow back by the tank. The property owner had been out earlier in the morning and was aware of it (we called him to report it). Kinda sad to see. By afternoon it was dead and the buzzards had arrived. A bit of a humbling experience.
  • We saw deer throughout the day. Antlerless, but they certainly roam about. Hopefully that will mean good things for us.
  • I went through almost 2 gallons of water, and still barely peed. Never felt dehydrated, but it’s amazing how much water was gone through and it was pretty much just keeping up.
  • Under Armour is awesome. I felt so comfortable all day, even in a long sleeve shirt.
  • Sunscreen is your friend. Yes, I used it all day long. And my boonie hat.
  • Given we may be shooting ranges from 100-200 yards for many shots, I want to get my hunting rifle to the range to see where it lands at 200 yards. I’d like to do it soon, before the onslaught of people wanting to get zeroed in 2 weeks before hunting season.

I’m an educated hunter

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To hunt in Texas, you must pass the Texas Park and Wildlife’s Hunter Education course. It tends to be only offered prior to Fall hunting seasons, so to hunt like I did I had to get my license with the course deferment then ensure I took the course within a year. So, that’s all now out of the way. All done, don’t have to take it again.

I wanted to give a review of things, both of the course and my experiences.

The Course

I took the course as offered by the Austin Rifle Club. It consisted of two days: Friday evening and all day Saturday. Most of the material is classroom, and there is a live-fire event.

I took the class with Daughter. I asked Oldest if he wanted to take it, but let’s just say that he’s learning about priorities. It so happened that foo.c was also in the class too. A good number of students were minors; probably a slight majority.

The course itself is overall a good one. It discusses a wide range of topics related to hunting. From firearm basics (e.g. types of rifles), to safety (gun safety, hunting safety, rudimentary first aid), hunting ethics, game identification, and even things like how to field dress a deer. I think the material covered is useful because they can’t know what level of experience people will have coming into this, so they have to start at the beginning. The problem of that however is it then requires a lot of material to be covered. There’s only so much time in the course, thus to be so broad it cannot go very deep. If any topic was explored in-depth, it was hunter ethics, and I think that was a worthwhile thing. Another problem with such a wide amount of topic coverage is if you already know the stuff, it makes the class boring. While I understand some aspects here, it’d be nice if there was a way to place out of this. For instance, me being an NRA Certified Rifle Instructor, it’d be nice if I would have been able to bypass a fair portion of the course material. But again, I understand the course construction and it’s generally fine how they do things.

After a lot of classroom instruction, there is a 50 question multiple choice knowledge test (closed book). Then there’s a short round on the gun range, which appears to be more about evaluating safe gun handling than it does marksmanship or anything else. There is no instruction on the shooting portion… you need to know how to shoot. The only instruction given was if you borrowed one of their rifles, they of course showed you how it operated (e.g. safety here, magazine release here, etc.).

All in all, I thought it was a good course and, while it was long, I was glad that I took it. A lot of the information was stuff I already knew, but I know Daughter didn’t know a lot of the material so it was certainly good learning for her. For me, seeing the video on how to field dress the deer was probably the most informative. I wish that was on YouTube (went looking for it via my iPhone during a class break, couldn’t find it).

I will say, there is apparently a home-study option for this course. If you are a long-time hunter and shooter and know your stuff, you may be better off doing the knowledge portion via home study. For instance, to hunt via the lotteries of some states you must have an education certificate so some folks that normally don’t need to take the course may need to take the course so they can do such things. So if you’ve the long-term experience, that may be less painful for you to do; then just find a way to do the field course. If you have less hunting knowledge/experience, especially for all young people even if they have gone hunting, they certainly should take the classroom course. There’s a lot they will get from it.

Personal Experience

The hardest part for me in the course was just that it was long. The gentlemen teaching the course were very knowledgeable and friendly, but they weren’t the best teachers. They just weren’t that engaging, mostly reading from their notes or the handbook. Every so often they’d break off and talk about things, tell some stories, or some such, and that would be good. But they just didn’t feel like the most engaging of teachers, especially for all the young folk in the class. This isn’t to say they were terrible; they did just fine and obviously the kids got the needed information as I think most everyone passed the test. So, the job was done.

For Daughter, it was tougher. The first night went until 10:00 PM and that’s way past her bedtime. Then having to get up very early the next morning to head back was tough as well. I also wish they could have done the shooting portion first thing Saturday morning instead of at 2:00 PM, when it was 100Âş+ outside. But they did it how they did it, and thankfully the outdoor portion didn’t last too long in this oppressive heat.

What also made it tougher for Daughter was the test. I recall looking over at her and seeing her holding back tears. At the time I wasn’t 100% sure why she was breaking down, but I just put my arm around her and kept encouraging her to do her best, to go to the next question if that one was stumping her, and just trying to continue to encourage her and support her through the test. I spoke with her afterwards, and the main issue was just testing overload. She just wasn’t sure about some questions and that number of “I don’t know” seemed to stack up against her. She didn’t want to fail the test, so she built herself up a lot of pressure. I will say that was one tough thing about the course (especially for the kids). There was a great deal of information presented in a limited amount of time. Often times the answer to one question might have been covered in the span of 5 seconds and if you missed it you missed it and there’s just no way you could reason your way to the right answer. Furthermore, some questions would be things that were of questionable merit. Does she really need to know what a percussion cap looks like (not is, looks like)? It’s arguable, but I’d say questions about hunter safety and ethics were more important. I watched her mark her answers, and I noticed that the questions that really mattered she did just fine on; maybe not knowing the answer right off the bat, but was obviously able to reason it down and mark the correct answer. She had the most trouble on more esoteric knowledge. But, since you don’t need a perfect score to pass, such questions are able to be missed and still produce a passing score. Daughter did pass, so no real troubles. Once she found out she passed, all her stress over the test was gone. 🙂  In fact, the gentlemen running the course complemented her on her tests (hey, she shot a better group than I did…. she used our scoped Ruger 10/22, I used one of the club’s Winchester bolt action .22’s with open leaf sights).

As an aside, looking back on things, I realize that during our lunch break (written test was after lunch) I should have gone back over the course handbook with Daugther. Problem was simple: with the new iPhone we were both wanting to play around with it and so we did. I’m sure if we spent time reviewing prior to the test, she would have fared much better.

Anyway, long days, but good days. I learned something. Daughter learned something. We’re both certified. And Daddy and Daughter had a lot of good time together.

Unexpected support

/ hsoi

Got a call from my Mom this evening. Told her how I had just finished eating dinner. What was for dinner? Why pork ribs. But not just any pork ribs, but pork ribs I obtained myself! BTW, they were damn good… dry rub of my own creation, mopped in apple cider vinegar, let it sit for about a hour, then into the smoker at about 300-325Âş for 90 minutes or so, oak wood for smoke. Damn fine. But I digress.

I just said that I had ribs from the pig I shot on my hunt, and Mom didn’t flinch. You see, Mom isn’t exactly thrilled with my love of firearms… safety factor, guns in the home leads to kids being hurt, and all those other things that is understandable to think but data demonstrates otherwise. But Mom actually thought it was pretty cool. I was surprised, but welcomed her support.

After hanging up with Mom, I opted to call Dad just to say hello. Told him the same. Dad’s a little more on the gun-friendly side of things. Told him about the night hunt and the deer lease. He thought that was all pretty cool, and inquired if I was going to take the kids hunting. I said Oldest and Daughter, yes, but Youngest hasn’t shown much interest in guns period (no need to push it). Dad had to get going to dinner with some friends, but it was still a good chat.

It was welcoming to hear such support from my folks. Not that they’re unsupportive of me, but like in Mom’s case she wasn’t too hot on the guns so this was a surprise. And then for Dad to ensure I take the kids out was cool. See, Dad never took me hunting. I did have my first actual firearms experience with him (took me to shoot skeet once), but not a whole lot. So, all of these things were just welcome things to my ears. 🙂

Of course, what it means to me now is I need to have a lot of game in the freezer for when they come to visit. Gotta feed the folks well. 🙂

Night hunt

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This past Friday night, my buddy Charles and I went on a night hunt for feral hogs. Charles booked it probably a month ago with a group called “Night Hogs” out of Seguin, Texas run by 2 guys, Randy and Gerald.

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Mmm… sausage

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Just got back from Johnny G’s Butcher Block, where they processed my pigs from my last hunt.

Got about 30 lbs. of sausage made. Got their “regular” sausage, smoked. As soon as I got home I put one link in a frying pan to heat it up and finish cooking it (it’s about 75% cooked).

My my my.

That was tasty. I like that they season things well, flavorful but not so strong that it’s overpowering. It’s very well balanced. Then the smoke… it was just a perfect smoky flavor. Not too much, not too little. As soon as I opened the pouch I smelled the smoke. It was heavenly.

So far, I’m liking the service and end-product coming out of Johnny G’s. Satisfied customer, willing to keep going back.

Another hog hunt

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Man, it’s been hot the past some days… 100+ degree temperatures. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to go hunting and put some more piggy parts in the freezer.

Earlier this week I called DB Hunting Ranch again, just on a whim, to see if I could do another walk/stalk hunt. They called me back and I was able to go almost immediately, so I booked something and was ready to go. A few hours later I got a callback saying that a friend of mine, Charles, called and wanted to book a walk/stalk hunt too. In the call my name was mentioned, and so they called me back mentioning this and asking if I wanted to change my date so we could hunt together. Sure! This was a complete coincidence because while Charles and I had been exchanging some emails talking about hunting, neither of us knew the other was calling DB. We both just got an itch and decided to individually scratch it, and it came together like it did. Glad it did too, because it was most fun.

So we headed back out and once again Jake was our guide. He’s got an eye and did a great job at spotting. On this hunt I saw a lot more variety than I did on the prior hunt to DB. Saw a lot of whitetail, a couple axis does, black buck, aoudad, rams. Jake kept trying to offer us some of the rams at a reasonable price, but while it would have been a quick and simple kill I didn’t see the point. I’m not going to eat the rams. I’m here for meat, not trophies. Still, it did sow a seed for the future. In fact, during the hunt we were talking about future plans for DB, things that were coming in, and it sure gets me itching for future hunts. Jake knows how to keep business rolling, which is good for him. 🙂

We did see a couple trophy hogs on the hunt. One was sleeping under a pile of brush and Charles was able to get maybe 10 feet from him before the hog took off. At that time we weren’t going to shoot the trophy hogs because of the cost. But later on as I was looking for my second pig, I was riding in the bed of Jake’s pickup leaning on the roof and Charles riding in the passenger seat (he had gotten 2 already). Jake stopped the truck and down a road were 3 pigs: 2 small ones and 1 trophy. I shouldered my new hunting rifle and tried to get a bead on the pigs but because I was so high up in the air a tree branch was obscuring any sort of shot. Damn it. Charles had leaned out the truck window and said he had a perfect bead on them but was giving me the shot. Unfortunately the pigs moved and that was that. Thing was by that point, we had decided that we’d go ahead and take a trophy pig if the opportunity gave itself again (it didn’t) and just split the cost and the meat.

In the end, we each got 2 pigs. The new Savage hunting rifle performed great and I’m pleased with it. The Federal Premium Vital-Shok .308 Winchester 165 grain Barnes Triple-Shock X-Bullet (load P308H) bullet is simply devastating. Charles was shooting a similar Federal load but in .223 55 grain Barnes bullet and had similar results. I put the crosshairs on the shoulders, hit ’em where I was aiming. So the hardware portion of the hunt was better than last time. Since I have more confidence in both my hunting skills and the hardware, I’ll go for the “behind the ear” shots in the future to help preserve the shoulder meat better.

One thing I learned from this hunt is that I need to spend more time on my rifle skills. I spend most of my time focused on handguns, and when I do spend time on rifle it tends to be more slow paced stuff often because that’s all the gun ranges will allow (e.g. shooting rifles from the bench). With these hogs, you do have to be able to move quickly. They are always on the move and you may only have a window of a couple seconds to take the shot. I need to work on that, being able to shoulder the rifle and peel off a “bullseye shot” within 2-3 seconds. I obviously shot fine, but finding ways to practice with a little more speed would be good.

Only real question this morning is what to do with all the meat. Smoke it as is, take it to Johnny G’s to make sausage. Throw a ham in the crock pot. So many choices. 🙂

Good time had. Got another hog hunt booked for next month. This one will be a night hunt.

Updated: Charles posted a write-up and a picture.