Survival and Emergency Preparedness

This weekend is kind of the kickoff of the 2021 season. Small game season officially started sept 15, but this weekend is the special antlerless deer firearms.

Archery season begins October 1. The regular firearms deer season starts November 15.

My brother is hunting with me this year and I'm letting him sit in the field. He missed three doe yesterday before he found his scope was loose. We tightened everything up and re sighted it today.

I've seen lots of bucks, no does. Getting ready to go out for the evening hunt.

Good hunting

My brother killed a doe this evening at dusk. I gave him the shot. Its been a few years since he shot a deer. Heading home tomorrow.

Update...

We dropped the deer off at the butcher shop on the way home.

For anyone who's interested he was using a Winchester Model 100 in 308, A couple hundred thousand 100s were made from 1961 until 1973. It's a detachable mag, semi auto. His was made 1967 and I think the last time he bought ammo for it was in the 70's. He had some fail to feed issues after he missed. When we took it to re sight in, the ammo was pretty crusty. It would fire but not feed reliably. I swapped in some shiny new ammo and it fed fine.

"When was the last time you took this rifle apart and cleaned it" I asked. "Never". He bought it used in the 1970's and never cleaned it. "It always worked fine up to this time" he said.

I think that's pretty typical of the average hunter. My other 2 brothers are carrying 40 or 50 year old rifles and I would bet that other than running a brush down the bore occasionally, they've never cleaned them. I would also bet that if asked, neither of them could tell you when they last sighted them in.

I brought my older brother's 100 home to take it apart and clean it just because I've always been interested in them. I was with my dad when he bought his model 100 new at a hardware store in 1965. One of my younger brothers has it now.

And BTW... when we tested his rifle to re sight it, it was shooting 4" low and 4" to the left at 25 yards. That would be 16" off at 100 yards which was the first distance he missed at. His other two misses were at about 75 and 80 yards. He finally shot his deer at 45 yards.

Update...

I took his Mod 100 apart yesterday and cleaned it. It really wasn't very dirty. It's gas operated so the piston, port and bolt had some carbon fouling but a quick brush down with Breakfree cleaned her right up. It was pretty dry inside, runs a bit smoother now. First time I'd ever taken apart a Mod 100 so I had to use Youtube to get it back together.

Looking back at my Hunting 2020 thread, I realize that I haven't spent half the time at the new house as I expected to this summer and in Sept. And that's about half what I spent there last year. What with my mother and my mother in law both getting older and weaker and moving and my father in law dying this summer. It's kept me at home.

Bow season starts next Friday Oct 1.

Update....

My brother and I went up bow hunting last weekend for opening day on Friday Oct 1. Didn't see any deer the whole weekend. Not one, nothing, zip, nada. Did see turkeys, owls, lot of squirrels, wood ducks, geese, woodchucks, chipmonks, hawks, beavers and other critters, just no deer. I am headed back up today for the rest of the week.

Spent the weekend hunting. Saw on doe on Thursday evening at the far end of the food plot. That is all. Don't know where all the deer went. Is Suspect one or some of the neighbors have started baiting (which is illegal) which is drawing all the deer away from my food plot.

I think the deer are all at our farm, counted 11 of them last Saturday.

Just spent 6 days up at the new house. Didn't see one deer. Got a few on my trail cameras at night but the weather has been so mild the deer aren't moving around during the day. Been in the 40s at night the last few days so maybe that will get them moving around.

In other news all four of my old trail cameras went down, one right after another. All four are the same make, model and age, about 5 years old. I guess they reached the end of life. I still have two new ones up and running and just ordered a couple different cheap ones off of Amazon. Both get pretty good reviews so I thought I would give them a try and pick the best performing one to replace the other cameras. There is a $10 difference in price but one comes with batteries and an SD card, the cheaper one doesn't.

Was up hunting over the weekend, actually Thurs to Sunday and started to see deer again. 2 doe on Thurs, 2 doe and a buck on Fri, 3 doe on Saturday. All out of range. Went back out Sunday evening and had 2 doe come within crossbow range. Picked out the bigger one and took her with a front on shot at about 20 yards. The bolt severed an artery and hit the spine. She dropped like a rock.

She's a big fat one. Got her hanging in the garage until I can get back up later in the week. She should be good eating.



I'd post of photo of the arrow sticking out of her but it's kind of gory. I will if someone wants to see what a broadhead arrow/bolt will do. I had to cut into the spine from inside to remove it

In other news, my two new trail cameras came in. I'll set them up when I go back the end of the week. There are still bucks to be had.