Couple off season projects

I finally got around to taking some pics of Howard Hill Big-5 I got used.

Also have dozen doug fir ready for fletching and some nice bright cedar flu flus.

Snowy squirrel and rabbit hunt 021112

We had planned a trash shooting and roving woods clean –up shoot, under the guise of a small game hunt. We wanted to have some fun, practice some shooting, and get a couple bags of trash and litter from the woods. The hero shot with a pickup truck full of trash bags would go a long way to ensuring future hunting rights on the small farm property we had permission to hunt on. Being a good custodian to the land and treating the place with respect makes giant impacts on those that care about their farms, especially to owners that are non-hunters such as these were. Having had use of a family farm growing up I can relate to the pride, concern for the land, and value legacy owners hold for the dwindling number of small properties that are left. Well, mother nature had a different plan for this particular hunt. When Brent and Mike assembled at my house Saturday morning at about 7am, there were several inches of snow cover on the grass and it was still coming down. We quickly realized trash pickup would be impossible under the blanket of snow. The flakes were falling as we donned our gear and strung up our bows at the parking area. Mike had not even gotten to throw on his orange vest when he saw a squirrel on the ground a couple 50 yards away in the woodline. We quickly surrounded the tree and realized we had 2 squirrels surrounded in this particular tree. Brent was the first one to loose a flu flu from his 50’s era all fiberglass static “Action Bow” recurve, and Mike and I watched as the shaft arched up through the snowflakes and impacted a few inches from the squirrel who scampered over to my side and a few feet higher. I quickly remembered to bend at the waste way over to keep my alignment, and launched a second flu impacting just a few inches under the squirrel which again went higher. My second flu was quickly on its way and missed a few inches to the left of the animal as it sailed over Mike and several 50 yards downrange. (I later easily found the brightly colored modified cedar shaft with .357 brass head). Now one of the squirrels was on Mike’s side and he had no flu flus. Brent threw him a shaft and he soon launched it up at the squirrel barely missing it as well. What a blast!! The action was hot and heavy!

By now the two were very high up in the canopy with nowhere left to go and really out of range of the bow. Brent was lamenting he left the shotgun in his truck as he could easily now finish the job and have a couple squirrels. I also remembered the several spiral flu flus I had back at the house, so we quickly left Mike to watch the trees as Brent and I went back to my house. We arrived back at the farm again and Brent agreed to be our shotgun backup. We lamented the old single barrel Stevens did not have a sling so he could continue to hunt with the bow until the time for “finishing”. I doled out a half dozen Flus for Mike and I each. By this time, the 2 squirrels were gone and we started beating the brush and looking for rabbit activity. The woods were surreal. Beautiful frosting covered all the branches and brambles as the snow kept gently falling around us. A thick fog rolled in as the temps started to warm a bit making spooky, yet peaceful, atmosphere. We cut the tracks of a few coyotes. One in particular was found along the same path of the only set of rabbit tracks we found. We flushed out a group of 3 woodcock but had to let them go as the season had been closed since the end of January for them. Good to see though! As it turned out, that initial encounter with the squirrels was the only “action” we had, but roamed many miles, got our exercise, took in awesome views and the wonderment of a snowfall hunt, and shot scores and scores of dead stumps. What a great hunt!

John Schulz video on Howard Hill's from

Someone was nice enough to post the entire John Schulz video online for free viewing pleasure! Enjoy....I did! http://archeryduns.webs.com/apps/videos/videos/show/14895607-hit-em-like-howard-hill-parts-1-4

1st Annual "Season Closeout" hunt

We celebrated the closing of the 2010-2011 deer season with a full day of hunting. It was a fun way to get together, formally end the season, and hunt as a group on this last chance hunt. I think I may try to make this hunting day an annual tradition! Mike M. and I hunted the morning at the Frederick property. We heard some deer as we entered the woodline in the dark of morning. We both hunted the deep Laurel patch to try to intercept the “big heard”. We set up on stools under the laurel understory browse line and waited. I fickle wind chased me from my sit around 8:30, so I started off a slow stalk up the hill toward Brent’s tree (bedding area) and left Mike in a position free of my wayward scent. I moved slowly and hunted well, but never encountered any deer through the laurel and into the multiflora. Mike had decided to move as well and was hoping if I pushed one off the hill he could intercept. Unfortunately, he did not observe any movement either. We called it quits at 10:30 and headed for a quick lunch and drive to Havre De Grace. Mike and I got to Chris’s as he was shooting a few arrows in the backyard, so we broke out the bows after he got Moses (Cujo dog) put in his kennel. Chris is in the market for a new short longbow and Mike brought both of his two customs bows for Chris to shoot. We all pretty much shot poorly, but had fun shooting different bows and comparing the feel. Chris even brought out his homemade “old Ugly” takedown and Mike did pretty well shooting it at 15 yards! Tom showed up ready to hunt, as he had hunted the morning in the area we were going and saw no game. We thought our luck might change with 4 hunters surrounding this small woodlot. We pulled up and Mike made the comment, “If you look up bedding area in the dictionary, it would have a picture of this place”…. Chris guided us to our trees and we pretty much had the place surrounded. Unknown to me at the time, Chris pushed a few deer past Mike when he left me for his position. Unfortunately, they ran by Mike when he was halfway up his tree, behind him, and at a full run! Tom later reported seeing a few deer moving fast that could have been the same ones. I had a nice sit, and the weather was very mild in the 60s, and a moderate warm breeze had my tree swaying every so often. I watched some songbirds, saw some young eagles flying, heard the sounds of the waterfowl going and coming from the river, and even saw a few insects flying around…..but no deer as darkness fell. No one in the group got off a shot, yet I think we all had a good time. It was nice to hunt new terrain for a change. I’ll have to wait until next year to pursue deer again, and I now have a lot of time to get my act together and shoot better between now and then! We still have opportunity for squirrel into February, and spring Gobbler starts in April to round out the season totally.