Deer Season 2011

Posted on by Jordan

It is that time of year again.

As with every year, I started preparing by confirming that my rifle was still shooting accurately:

That was at 100 yards, and the squares are an inch across… so I don’t have any excuse to miss this year I suppose.

Although my last post contained pictures of snow, Nebraska wasn’t having that kind of weather over the weekend.

We arrived at the farm with opening morning forecast to be in the mid 60s!

I should go back just a little I suppose, ‘we’ constitutes myself, one f my cousins, and his two boys. The plan was to include another cousin or two, but that didn’t work out this year. As has become the tradition we hunt with a few friends from the area, meaning the total number of hunters is at least six if not ten.

Ok, so not only was the weather too warm, we got to the farm after dark on Friday night. Not ideal when we wanted to have a few portable stands up, and do a tiny amount of scouting before opening morning.  As is often the case, work got in the way of our initial plan. At least it wasn’t my work this time… still unfortunate that it cut into the hunt.

I will skip large portions of not seeing any deer to keep this narrative somewhat interesting. After finding that our initial plan was not great, and knowing that the weather meant the deer were not going to be particularly active until evening, we setup a tree stand and scouted a few good lookout places to position people for the twilight hours in the hopes we would cross paths with something heading out into the fields for a snack.

I should mention that the great spot I used last year wasn’t an option because our only foot bridge across the creek washed out. We talked about improvising a replacement, but were concerned that we would disrupt the deer too much if we were running equipment to erect a new bridge.

When the sun started to set Saturday night, I was positioned in a tree stand overlooking what appeared to be a crossroads of deer trails. About an hour later, that theory was proven correct when about five doe wandered past me and started grazing around the edges of the field to the north of me.

It was awesome to see deer after the disappointing morning, but having them not only walk around but stay around turned out to be kind of a pain because I felt like I couldn’t move at all. I wound up waiting until well after dark to leave, because the deer didn’t wander away until then. From what I could tell, there weren’t any bucks around, but at least I got to see something!

I setup in the same stand that morning and saw…. nothing, … again.

A few of us spent a couple of hours walking through pockets of cover we thought might be a good place to catch a deer sleeping but didn’t discover anything.

At this point nobody in the family group had gotten anything, and with one exception hadn’t even seen anything to be excited about. It was a little distressing, but we were all still hopeful that something would turn up.

I went back to my stand, hoping that it was a better dusk location than dawn. Shortly after I got setup, there was noise clearly indicating that something was slowly working it’s way towards me. The noise was coming from my only blind spot, but it was unmistakeable that something was moving around, and slowly getting closer. Twenty minutes of sitting motionless later and I finally got a look at a squirrel who apparently really liked jumping back and fourth on the ground.

At that point I got kind of frustrated, and got out my phone to send a few texts and see if anyone else was fairing better than I was. The news wasn’t any better from them so I wasn’t feeling like I needed to stay particularly stealthy and stood up to get a better look at the deerless area around me.

Except that just after I did that I heard rustling in the leaves again, and looked over to see a small buck standing directly across from me! I really don’t know how he was able to sneak in so close without my hearing something, but he did. On the other hand he didn’t see me, so I was able to get my rifle up and on him without spooking him. Then I was able to fire once without spooking him. The second shot came quickly after the first, but… there was a delay.

Remember that bridge that washed out? had it been in place I wouldn’t have need to remove my boots and roll up my pant-legs to get this picture:

As you can see, I am basically out of light, and I only had my phone with me. It turns out to be rather difficult to take a you+deer self portrait using my phone, so you will have to live with the picture I got 🙂

The next thing I discovered is that deer float! That was a nice thing to discover because everyone else was still hunting.

The other hunters didn’t find any bucks, and passed on does again. It was nice to have something, even if it wasn’t a real impressive buck.

-Jordan

Western Nebraska Week Recap

Posted on by Jordan

I always find that when I try to cover something as big as a week away from work it’s an overwhelming thing to try and post about.

So I will just hit a few highlights:

First it was great to just spend time with my family. The fact that we had plenty of work to do was nice too, it made the start of the week feel really productive.

The other highlight was getting to share so many things from my life with Heather that she hadn’t ever seen or done before.

Heather was a really good sport with everything, despite the fact that she was able to attract every bug within five miles of wherever we happened to be.

Things Heather did with me:

  • Rode in the tractor while I was moving dirt
  • Paddled around in a canoe on a lake that I camped at lots as a scout
  • Went geocaching (not a childhood activity for me, but got us out on a hike and we found plenty of bugs)
  • Hiked around the farm taking pictures of things
  • Floated down the Medicine Creek with me in a canoe

I should expand on that last point. As you can see from the picture it was cool enough to be comfortable wearing a sweatshirt. Still ok weather to be on the water as long as you stay dry.

The trip marked only the second time Heather had been in a canoe, and the first time on moving water. I really should have been giving more instruction during the lazy areas as we started out. I had somewhat naively hoped that there wouldn’t be any downed trees blocking our path.

On the other hand, I did make sure Heather packed an extra change of dry clothes before we headed out that morning.

As you can probably guess, we didn’t make through our little trip dry. After a few close calls with tree branches we finally met one that was going to be really unpleasant to get past. There are a number of things I should have done at this point. One, I could have aggressively back-paddled to get some space between us and the tree, then landed at shore letting Heather out. Two I could have  jumped into the water and guided the boat to shore by walking in the water. Three I could have told Heather to lay down the the bow of the boat so the trees wouldn’t hit her.

Instead I only sort of explained that she should get down, and tried to get us lined up on the spot I figured we could plow through.

What happened next wasn’t so surprising: Heather didn’t realize I was planning to ram into the tree and got caught off balance, falling into the middle of the boat(on the upstream side). I wasn’t going fast enough to actually plow through the tree, and we were instantly swept crosswise of the current, and the canoe rolled.

Did I mention Heather was a really good sport about everything I wanted her to try this week? Because she got dumped into some very cold, very brown muddy water and managed to laugh about it!

We completed the res of the trip without much excitement, but I think I ruined my chance of instilling a love of canoes and or the Medicine into my wife. 🙂

-Jordan

Back In Town

Posted on by Jordan

You probably never even knew we left… but Heather and I just got back from a week in western Nebraska!

We have a camera full of pictures, I just haven’t gotten to them yet.

The downside of being gone for a week: Heather had over 1000 e-mails waiting in her work inbox Monday.

On the other hand, we had a really nice break!

More details to come
-Jordan

Topic-O-Rama

Posted on by Jordan

And now, a handful of news I have been meaning to post.

First up, the week before thanksgiving, Heather and I went to Kansas City. The event was a birthday party for her grandma’s 85th birthday. The majority of Heather’s extended family was there, and we had a really good time. We also witnessed one of the best “we are going to have a baby” announcements ever. Heather’s cousin played a video, featuring his son singing happy birthday to Gigi, and then ended it with “and what are you going to be?” …. “a DINOSAUR!” “no, what are you going to be?” “A big brother!” and at that point the room went wild. I suppose it didn’t hurt that there were so many friends and family members packed into the room, but it really seemed like a great way to break that news.

Heather and I may have to wait a year or two, just so we can come up with a creative way to announce something like that… I mean the bar is pretty high at this point 🙂

Then of course there was Thanksgiving. Strangely, Heather and I did not even pack our camera… so I don’t have any pictures to post. The traditional meal and family time was spent with Heather’s family in Blair. We really enjoyed it! After dinner though, is when things got more interesting, somehow the women came up with a few copies of the sale fliers from all the stores doing Black Friday deals. The living room was total chaos as they passed around adds and debated plans for the big day. Next thing I know, it’s 2:30AM and I am sleepily saying goodbye and goodluck to my wife as she slips out of bed to trek to the mall. They got eight hours of shopping in before even stopping for breakfast!

While they were shopping, I went with Heather’s dad to the Nebraska game in Lincoln. We left at a much more reasonable hour than the shopping crew had, but still got to Lincoln with plenty of time to do a little tailgating before needing to find our seats. Being at the game was really enjoyable. It wasn’t a nail-biting game like the Nebraska vs. Iowa State game that Jim and I had gone to earlier in the year, but I can live with a less-exciting win!

I forget exactly where this falls in the chronology, but at some point Heather and I attended a “lighting of the Christmas tree” event at the mall next door. (For those of you who haven’t been to our hose… we really are next-door to a mall). I was a little skeptical of the event, but they had a live band and free cookies, so we decided to check it out anyway. Maybe you wouldn’t have been surprised at the number of people there, I know I was… At any rate they easily had a few thousand people all standing outside around the little courtyard lake area listening to the band and waiting for the lights. It was cold, but not unbearable, all the same I was happy when Santa finally arrived with his wand to light the tree. You didn’t know Santa had a wand did you? Apparently when Santa lights a tree with his wand, there are fireworks involved! I am a little sad to say the mall Christmas  tree lighting fireworks are going to go down as the best firework show I got to see in 2010. I am happy to say I really enjoyed them!

Speaking of Christmas events, Heather and I attended the Waukee Iowa Christmas festival. Waukee is just outside of Des Moines, and actually closer to us than downtown. We again got a free cookie, and got to watch ice sculpting. Probably the most enjoyable part of that little trip was meeting up whit a few friends from Church. It was wonderful to feel like we actually know people here in town. Some days it doesn’t feel like we have made much progress in that department.

The last, and most recent event I should record before bringing this to a close is photography related. Heather and I just returned from taking family pictures for another of Heather’s coworkers. We learned quite a lot on that trip. A good thing for sure, as Heather books these things to give us chances to practice. One thing we learned is that, although we got a beautiful sunny afternoon, 25 degrees with a 15mph wind is too cold to do outdoor pictures! We also learned that although our camera has a tiny integrated flash, it really can’t do indoor photography. Despite the challenges we encountered, Heather has some rather impressive results! As I write this she is behind me wrapping up the sorting and editing process. It appears we will need to buy an external flash if we want to do more pictures indoors.

And finally, a bonus future event! We are going to a Court of Honor for my Scout Troop! It will be the first event Heather has attended related to scouts in Des Moines, and the first Court of Honor I have been to. I don’t think it is going to be significant enough to justify its’ own blog post, but we will get to see the boys get recognition for merit badges and rank advancement.

I am still hoping that December is less exciting going forward 🙂

-Jordan

Name This Photograpy Style

Posted on by Jordan

I have said a number of times that Heather and I don’t necessarily like the same kind of photography.

For Heather, it’s easy to explain, she likes to take pictures of people.

I have struggled to define what it is that I enjoy with photography though. Over the weekend hunting in Nebraska however, I took a picture I am really happy with.

Not to say that I only want to take pictures of old or rustic things, but hopefully you get the idea? I just feel like I could look at that picture for a long time. It might be that it is a picture of ‘my home’ so I feel more affinity to it than most people would… all the same, I hope to learn to pick more of these kinds of thing out.

And to tie in the title of this post, anybody know the proper term for this? ‘landscape’ doesn’t sound right to me, but maybe it is…

at any rate, I am rather happy with the picture, and uploaded a full-quality version if you click through to gallery 🙂

(full-quality from our little pocked sized camera, the SLR didn’t get to come on my hunting trip)

-Jordan

The Big Hunt

Posted on by Jordan

As I mentioned, the weekend spent hunting was a lot of fun. The majority of the time I was sitting right here:

I kind of jammed the camera into some grass to try and give you prospective into the area I was hunting. It didn’t work all that well, and the pictures when I was actually looking at the camera came out blurry for some reason. Anyway, what you can kind of see is that I am setting above a canyon. What isn’t real clear is that I am sitting in a little niche under a tree and that just a few feet from where I am sitting the wall drops 40 feet straight down, and all the trees in the background are a lot bigger than maybe they appear.

Having set the scene, I will just skip to the part I got to retell over and over again…

I found the spot Saturday afternoon, after having decided my initial hide wasn’t giving me the visibility I needed, nor was the deer traffic as good as we had hoped. I was trying to be quiet, but alerted a deer to something being in the area when I slipped into the spot. I never got a good look at it, but I don’t think the deer really knew I was there ether… just casually moved away from that sound that didn’t seem quite right.

Then things were quiet for probably close to an hour. I thought I had a great idea of exactly where deer would enter and exit the canyon, and at what points I would be able to see them. Somehow a patch of deer colored fur was moving across the other rim of the canyon… and I was going to have a hard time getting turned to really look at it without making some noise. After I lost track of it, I got probably a little too free with craning my head around to try and find an angle to see down through the brush into this unexpected approach.

I must have shifted my entire body, although I don’t remember when, but I was squared up with the last known position of the soon to be discovered buck. He stepped into a spot where I had a clear line of sight, and I started bringing the rifle up without even thinking about it. All I remember is getting the scope view lined up and feeling like the horns took up the entire view! My reaction wasn’t what I expected, on the one hand I flipped the safety off and stabilized myself without having to think about it, but on the other hand my heart-rate went up by about 200 percent and I couldn’t control my breathing in that moment.

It didn’t end up mattering, because he didn’t stop walking and the window through the trees only gave a few seconds to soak all that in. Nothing indicated to me that he was spooked, but at the same time he didn’t come out on the trail farther up the canyon like it appeared he should have.

I was disappointed and relieved at that point. Obviously, I wanted to get a better look at the buck and a shot, but relieved that I wouldn’t have to try and take a shot with my heart pounding like that. I sat very still for the next 20 minutes doing little except trying to prepare myself to be relaxed if this happened again.

Three doe started working their way down the path towards the spot my elusive buck vanished. I took the opportunity to observe where the trail intersected good shooting lines. I felt pretty prepared, and just hoped maybe another buck would wander through.

The doe worked their way past the big blind spot the buck had vanished into and came out on the trail I had initially expected traffic to use. I decided it would be a good idea to practice holding the scope over a deer and doing the “deep breath, release slowly” thing to make sure I was being stable. The only problem was that doing that required me to drastically shift my body position.

The process of getting shifted around, made a little bit too much noise. Not enough to scare the doe off, but enough that they looked all around and started sniffing the air. I froze. They were cautious, but apparently figured things were ok, and stared to move again.

Then I saw movement back at the other end of the canyon, and it was moving out of the blind spot!

I managed to revert to my initial position real quickly, and without making much noise. Then the buck held up sniffing the ground perfectly centered in my last realistic shooting lane on the trail!

I heard the safety click off, and thought something like “GAAAAAAAH!!! this is too perfect, calm down….”

brought the cross-hairs into the center of his shoulder and back a little, let out a big breath in what was meant to be a slow fashion, but wound up being like trying to blow out candles 10 feet away and….

**boom**

I switched back to binoculars and scoured the area, finding…. nothing. It was kind of a long walk around to get to the spot he was standing… no blood, nothing.

In hindsight I am sure my trigger-pull was every bit as gentile as my breathing had been, but it was a really frustrating thing to have happen!

So, in conclusion, I learned that ‘Buck Fever’ is a very real thing.

/sigh

-Jordan

ps. The story of the buck in the picture I posted before isn’t interesting at all, but at least I was able to relax and put a round into the vitals of a buck.

State Fair Reflections

Posted on by Jordan

Heather and I have been to the Nebraska and Iowa State fairs.

Iowa has what people consider to be a successful fair, and Nebraska recently closed their fairgrounds.

(Granted Nebraska build a new venue, but the impression is that their fair wasn’t so hot)

Having been to both, I can’t really tell the difference. Maybe I am just not a fair person.

My suspicion is that Iowa having slightly more than double the population density of Nebraska helps a lot more than people want to admit.

Omaha being the largest city, not the capital, and not centrally located, all count against the Nebraska fair.

From what I can see in Iowa Des Moines is basically it. The state appears to have more large towns (large from my prospective having grown up in a town of 1000), without having a real competition for “big events.” A concert tour isn’t going to stop in Ames, or Cedar Rapids, or anywhere else in the state… it is going to be in Des Monies. I am imagining that most people are more willing to travel there thanks to it’s status as the big city in the state.

I don’t know how many people come in from out of town… also I am not going to spend the time doing any research… so this is just my musings. It just seems like geography plays into their favor way more than I would have realized a year ago if you had asked me about the relative fairs.

I guess maybe I should re-emphasize my point both fairs are largely ag shows, with food and some live music. I have no idea what would draw someone to spend more than one day wondering around eating a corn-dog looking at sheep. I had always assumed the “successful” fairs had some amazing special things that made them awesome, and Lincoln was lacking. Unless we missed it, they don’t.

-Jordan