Monday, January 24, 2011

Last Minute Hunt

The other day at 1:30 in the afternoon I got a phone call from my dad asking me if I would take my youngest brother Josh out to a new piece of property to muzzleloader hunt. Having nothing to do that day, I agreed to take him.

Our hunt didn't really start out all that great. By the time we got there it was nearly 4:00, and Josh had trouble unlocking the gate to get us in to the property. We drove in on a dirt/snowy road and parked, then walked up through the woods and set up our groundblind. I was setting up my tripod and camera when I realized my camera batteries would most likely die in the first five minutes of filming. Great.




I decided to quickly run back to the truck and grab my other camera just in case. I tried to be as quiet as possible, but the ice on top of the snow prevented it. If there were any deer nearby, they certainly wouldn't be there any more.

We finally got everything set up and I helped Josh get his muzzleloader and shooting stick set at the right height and adjusted the windows of the blind so that we could see out with the camera, and Josh would also be able to shoot.



I'd just got comfortable when the feeder went off and Josh nearly fell of his chair. It took him a few minutes for him to realize what it was, and after we got done laughing, the woods returned to their silence.

There were tons of squirrels and birds under the feeder, and tons of tracks all around, so I was feeling hopeful that maybe tonight Josh would have a chance to shoot his first deer.

We were only there about 20 minutes when Josh started shivering a little. I decided to play the same trick on him that I had on my sister Sarah earlier that season.

Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out a bottle of Imitation Maple Flavor and offered it to him. "Here, Sarah says this warms you up."

Surprisingly, he believed me. Taking the lid off of the bottle, he tilted his head back and chugged it...for about 2 seconds.

The expression on his face was priceless, and I had videoed the whole thing. He froze and looked at me, like he didn't know what to do. He stayed that way until I told him to spit it out. After we stopped laughing again, we heard something close by.









We froze for a second and suddenly we heard coyotes all around us. Looking out the back window, I caught sight of a big coyote on the ice behind us, about 50 yards away. Josh and I watched it for about five minutes, trying not to make any  noise. Then, it started running along the ice towards us, and I turned away from the window to help Josh get his gun ready.

By the time we looked back out the window, the coyote was gun.

We heard alot more coyotes that night, and though they were close we didn't see any of them. That was the first time Josh had seen a coyote in the wild, so even though we didnt' get a shot, he couldn't stop talking about it.

No deer showed up, most likely because of the coyotes, but we're going to head back out again this week to see if we can get a shot at something.

3 comments:

  1. *note to self: if ever you find yourself hunting with Beka, do NOT drink what she gives you. No matter how cold you are!

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  2. Those feeders have a way of startling you if you aren't expecting it. I admit to jumping a time or two when the corn feeder went off!

    I'm quite sure that's the last time your brother falls for that trick! LOL

    I've passed along an award to your blog if you're interested. It's part of a prompt to discover and follow great blogs.

    http://www.heybjk.com/2011/01/fifteen-blogs-you-should-visit.html

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  3. LOL, after posting about drinking that stuff, most likely everyone is aware to never trust me!!!

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