But I’m way behind on my Excalibur Forum reading > Looks like most are having a fun season so far!
Congrat’s to all the successful harvests! ( Deer / Bear / Turkey / Moose etc. ) ..
I did a quick read thru and saw many impressive hunting stories and field pictures! … One that caught my eye as exceptionally cool was the three pictures “ Catcher “ submitted with the Buck walking in on trail camera / Gerry walking past the camera to collect the illuminated arrow / then Gerry with the buck … just a real cool series of photo’s .
Sandman also has a good eye for field shots … with an awesome photo journal of his moose hunt !
I love checking in to see the cool field reports with pictures > In my mind it is better than ordering a magazine !
Well I pulled a bunch of pictures off the camera from the end of September up till today .
Since I’m in the queue for knee surgery , I haven’t been too far from home … still manage to walk some making sure to keep mobile .. I slip over to the neighbours lake across the road to have fun with my micro light gear on the beauty bass he has there ( catch and release ) … this is the biggest one so far ( that is a large mouth compared to my fist ! ) but we average many around the 14 inch mark .
I supervise a weekend maintenance team this year and one of my Mtce crew from work stopped by with his son .. the kid was a natural and had a ball hooking into the feisty bass ! ( great to see the kids enjoying the outdoors ! )
End of Sept , we continue to touch up trails and stands on the farms we hunt . With a bum knee , I don’t get far from the tractor … I drive as Randy and Chris walk ahead chain sawing debris and downfalls that are too big to cycle thru the bush hog .
After getting the limbs replaced on my Matrix 405 , I was eager to fill my fall turkey tag … but never got one close enough to whistle an arrow thru .
My turkeys are never far away from me while I’m doing chores and offer me lots of comic relief daily with their antics ! My tom's ( “Charlie” ) tail has filled out all the way now ( Sept picture ) ( Oct picture )
It has also been a slow season for whitetails on the properties we hunt … Passing many small does yearlings and fawns with no solid opportunities on a mature buck yet … but as we all know it’s just a matter of time for the next encounter . To stay on top of things , I buck up on my scent control routes ..
Wylie sent me a trail camera picture of a local buck , late October , still only making appearances in the early hours of the morning … I don’t believe he will show himself during legal shooting time unless he gets bumped during a drive or rut drunk cruising during the day in the peak of the rut .
In the areas we have been hunting , we seem to be in the seeking phase of the rut .
We hunted three days this week ( 1st week of November ) of our controlled shotgun hunt … we took four doe off different farms and Chris H. connected with a beauty buck as we wrapped up yesterday > That was the only mature buck we had in front of the gun in those three days .
Hunting from a corn ground blind position , overlooking corn rows cut between the field > This buck presented an 80 yard shot that Chris capitalized on ! I took some field pictures , with a couple different views showing the character of that bucks rack ( cool tall brow tines ) .. he was an older buck with his teeth nearly worn down to nothing .
Congrat’s again Chris … I’m thinking the rut will heat up in the next week and we can have some more time at them with our Excalibur Crossbows !
Good Luck to all that are out chasing game this time of year ! Hunt Safe , Have fun , take lots of pictures and share your stories !
