The Blog
The most diverse assortment of man-topics imaginable!
Hunting, fitness, man-skills, and even the occasional profound life discussion.
I watched the sun dip below the horizon, and admired the does and fawns some 3-400 yards away from me leisurely feeding out in the field without a care in the world. I looked at the pins on my sight and decided I had five minutes left before the glow would be gone and it would be too dark to shoot. Mere moments after that thought, I heard breathing directly behind the brush I was sitting in front of. I sat up straight, hooked-in my release, and watched…
All pre-season I have poured all my scouting efforts into roughly a couple square miles of National Forest. And then it happened…lightning struck…literally! A fire broke out in that area, and the powers-that-be decided to let it do its thing as a controlled burn. Now, that’s a great call for the long-term health of the area, and I’m sure in a year or two I will be right by the edges of those burns as they should attract deer and elk like moths to…well…to a flame. However, it left me panicking (not just because my game cams are still in there, hopefully not getting burnt to crisps), but I realized that if the whole area goes up in flames or isn’t re-opened in a month, I have absolutely ZERO other spots scouted for deer season.
It was the 3rd morning of a rifle mule deer hunt in the desert southwest of Phoenix. I had been drawn for big game in AZ at least six times over ten years, and still had yet to bag my first animal. Due to scope issues with my rifle, by this point in the hunt I had missed two large bucks, and burned through a whole box of ammo trying to sight in again. We arrived before dawn on that third morning and I was determined that this was the day my slump would end. As I gathered my gear and loaded up my rifle, I found myself with four rounds in the gun, three in a spare magazine, and one lonely .30-06 round sitting in the box. “I’ll just leave this in the Jeep,” I thought to myself. “After all, who could possibly need more than seven rounds to put down a deer? Plus, who walks around with a loose bullet in their pocket? I’m not Barney Fife”...
