Warm and cozy camp for one!

Just got back from a couple weeks of chasing whitetails on a new property down in SE Ohio. I was invited to join a 450 acre lease chock full of steep hardwood ridges with a group of Michigan Traditional Bowhunter members.

Seems I was always 50 yards off, so I have no big buck to show off. I really didn’t have time to take many pictures; there was a lot of country to figure out!

I sat all day on quite a few of the days just to get the big picture of different areas. My Kelvin Vest is my new favorite piece of Sitka Gear. You just can’t get cold wearing that baby! One day featured off and on rain. I don’t think there was an hour during the day when it didn’t rain for at least 15 minutes. My 90% Jacket and Celsius Bibs allowed me not to pack in raingear. Just shake them out back in camp and let it dry in the tent for a couple hours for the next day.

The bow I was using on this hunt, “Miss Faith”, is a bow that has been traveling a crossed the country along with her right handed sister “Miss Hope”. The idea for these 2 bows was conceived by the owner of Tradgang.com, Terry Green. The bows go to different hunters each month, hopefully they get a chance to kill something with them, then they get sent to the next hunter on the list. After a year of travel, the two sisters get auctioned off at the Tradgang.com St. Jude auction,where all the proceeds go the the St. Jude children hospital.

My turn with the lefty, Miss Faith came early. I wasn’t supposed to have her till December. But the hunter before me had gotten sick and his season was coming to an end shortly. So he sent her to me early.

I had arrows that were perfect for her, and within a couple days I was getting familiar with the” feel” of the bow and felt confident it was time to take her hunting for the first time.

Last Saturday, the 21st, was our gun season opener. I donned my orange vest over my Sitka 90% , and various underlayers and hit one of my favorite treestands hoping to get a chance at one of the good bucks I’ve been trying to catch up with since October.

Sunrise over the scenic Hudson River….

About a half hour after sunrise, a squirrel came running by and I heard something running behind it. I glanced back, figuring it was just another squirrel and was very surprised to see a coyote closing fast!

It got almost to where I could shoot it, and hit the brakes. I had the wind, but it seemed to sense something wasn’t right. Then it tried to get downwind, but ran into a thick wall of brush and decided to turn back and get back on it’s original course. It stopped where it had stopped the first time, held up for a second and then seemed to “just go for it”(very unusual for a coyote), and started to run past at about 14yards.

I whistled to stop it and it was instantly on even higher alert! At the release of the arrow, it was instantly taking “evasive action” as it wheeled toward me in an attempt to head back the way it had come from. But not quick enough!

10x zoom from the stand…..

Lowering Miss Faith…..

‘Yote, Miss Faith, and 250grain Terminator broadhead….

I’ll be out this weekend, still hoping to catch up to a good buck…

This past weekend proved to be fairly eventful here in Oklahoma.  I was able to harvest this great buck, although, he turned out to be a different buck than what I thought.  Not that it matters, though.  I’ll take mistakes like this anytime they come my way!  This old buck and another equally impressive eight-point were flanking the same doe and I did what I felt was right, shot the one with more points!  This fills my last buck tag here in OK so I guess my Dad and brothers will have to try and put one of  their tags on the bigger ten-point that is still runnin’ around out there.  My brother-in-law also had success shooting a good-looking mature eight-point.  It looks like now I can focus on some of those pigs that seem to be everywhere!

You'd think I'd look happier than that. Having no more tags will do that to you.

What a magnificent creature (the buck, not me) haha!

My brother-in-law's buck. Another great buck from the Eaves farm.

The 2009 rifle season started out slow with high temperatures and a full moon hindering deer movement. By the second week of season everything did a 180 and the bucks were cruising checking does and establishing a pecking order. I was able to sneak on the whitetail as he cruised the river bottom, freshening scrapes and rubs and scent checking does. The mule deer was shot the next morning as he tried hard to keep another buck away from his 8 does. Both bucks where feeling the effects the ladies have on them as well as a .270’s punch!

As always, the Sitka Gear performed great!

Jared “J-Rod” Bloomgren

Husbend and wife hunters, Brad and Lauren both harvested nice bucks with me mid November at Heartland Lodge.

Well, it had been a year in the making and i finally got on a plane to Kansas to hunt whitetail for the first time ever. Had a great time, learned a ton about treestand hunting and even got lucky on a decent buck on the seventh day of the hunt. Looking forward to getting after the blacktails here starting this weekend. Good luck to all.

My buddy Steve Gerlach was out this weekend to try to arrow a mule deer.  He and I both ended up eating tag soup on our Valle Vidal archery elk hunt in New Mexico and it was a huge disappointment for us both. 

While he has multiple, exceptional whitetails under his belt he has never killed a mule deer and has been talking about trying to kill one for over a year now.  His dreams came true Saturday afternoon as he was able to arrow this great buck after a 3 hour stalk through milo stubble.

Steve's Mule Buck

I had some luck as well earlier in the week when I was able to arrow a tremendous non-typical I had been hunting for several weeks.  I was able to redeem myself after missing this buck two days before killing him. 

Killing a couple great mule deer is just what the doctor ordered to help ail the sting of our failure from September:)

“What do you do with those goats?”  It’s a common question that I get from my friends.  I have about five different ways that I like to prepare goat, but my favorite has to be jerky.  A good friend of mine makes tons of jerky for us from the goats that we shoot.  It’s rather simple too.  All he uses is the pre made jerky cures from Cabelas, and he dehydrates the meat in one of those Cabelas dehydrators.  Simple as cut, mix and dry.

Shot this big ol’ gal the evening of the 1st. She was in the lead of about 7-8 that were coming(didn’t take the time to count). She stopped quartering away at 12-15yds.

It was fading light and I wasn’t shooting real bright fletch, so I lost the flight of the arrow as soon as it left the bow. But I heard it hit, and her reaction also told me that the arrow had connected.

It was dark by the time I packed up and climbed down. With my light I found this stuck in the ground…..

The big Snuffer 160 had put her and a lot of blood down real fast……

I shined my light in the direction that I saw her go, and heard her stop. The light picked up the tell tail shine of an eye……

She’d only gone about 50yds…..

56″ Kwyk Styk recurve, CX arrows with razor sharp Snuffer 160’s on the important end.

Now it’s time for a good buck or two!