Don't it go like that sometimes

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 8:44 pm

I huntd the rodeo stand tonight,I call it that becase it is a 16' ladder stand on a small pine tree and when the wind blows,Rodeo time.
I had a BIG doe at 75 yards,scopped her trying to grow horns but it didn't work.
I come out after dark and there is a message on my cell,it's the club president,it says,Scott,I've got your doe tags here,I meant to call you yesterdaybut got busy,Call me!

DARN,DARN,DARN,DARN (herman munster style)

Just my luck
When my ship came in I was at the bus station

VixChix · Post by **VixChix** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 8:46 pm

Sorry, Sax.... I'm laughing myself silly at your expense. I feel a bit guilty for it, but you've got it admit THAT's FUNNY!

Bad for you, good for the doe. Hope there a next time!

Normous · Post by **Normous** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 8:58 pm

I remember the rodeo stand once. Almost lost my cookies after an hour dancing in the wind.

Grizzly Adam · Post by **Grizzly Adam** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 9:47 pm

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 9:50 pm

enormous wrote:I remember the rodeo stand once. Almost lost my cookies after an hour dancing in the wind.

I can relate
I almost got sick but that was the only place for a stand
I think if I fell out my weight and the harness would bent the little tree to the ground.

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 9:50 pm

VixChix wrote:Sorry, Sax.... I'm laughing myself silly at your expense. I feel a bit guilty for it, but you've got it admit THAT's FUNNY!

Bad for you, good for the doe. Hope there a next time!

wabi · Post by **wabi** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 5:24 am

When my ship came in I was at the bus station

vixenmaster · Post by **vixenmaster** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 6:05 am

yes i know the exact feeling of the Rodeo and tree top shaking. i go up 20' in my gum tree and its about 10" at that pt. the wind coming off the big muddy inthe fall and winter is usally from 10 to 40 mph with stronger gusts. sometimes its so bad i hunt from the ground.

Wishbone · Post by **Wishbone** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 9:51 am

I'm having a good laugh Sax, you're funny

But that just means you get to hunt some more.

Kevin

Mike P · Post by **Mike P** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 9:52 am

Your mention of the rodeo blind sax made me chuckle.

At home on my family's ranch in Texas we have some elevated blinds that my father made years and years ago. They are constructed of metal. They are all around twenty feet off the ground. The blinds (the part you sit in) are old box trailer bodies that dad got at some auction for next to nothing. If it wasn't next to nothing, he never bid.

These trailer bodies were placed on top of welded tubes in the form of a tripod and the tubes had feet so as not to sink into the sandy soil. He would then weld two tubes straight up to the boxes and weld cross tubes at increments of one foot to create a ladder to get up to the blind. Three large cables were attached to the trailer bodies and went out about thirty feet and were attached to large stakes that were driven in the ground. They were very secure and even in high winds, the blinds moved very little.

What dad failed to consider was the cattle. They took to those guy-wires within days as they figured out that they could scratch their backs by walking under the wire and leaning into it.

The very first time we saw this behavior damn near killed me and my second youngest brother. We were up in the blind just looking around (it was way before hunting season) and we were kings of all we could see. I think I was nine at the time. At that age the blind was a castle and we were the rulers. And then the herd started to graze in our direction.

We didn't think a whole lot about it until they were all around and under the blind. That's when the first cow started scratching her back. It almost launched us out of the metal trailer box. We were both hanging on for dear life and both yelling at the tops of our lungs. And then a second cow started scratching on one of the other guy-wires and the blind started going back and forth like a ride at an amusement park.

I don't know how long this went on. It seemed forever but I am sure the entire ordeal only lasted a minute or so. When the swinging stopped we both scrambled down that ladder and into the midst of the herd yelling and screaming at the cows.

Dad built three of those blinds. The thought of not being able to use them never entered his mind. His solution was simple. He made all his sons gather throwing rocks and put them in burlap feed bags. Then a bag was placed in each blind with the idea that when the cows came you blasted them with a rock and off they would run and the blind would be safe. Well, that worked well when you were actually in the blind. But when you were not, the cows scratched away vigorously and at their pleasure.

It didn't take long for the tripod legs to fatigue from all the back and forth motion of the cow scratching and one by one the blinds fell to the ground. This was a defeat that dad just wouldn't accept. For years and years after that he was at war with his very livelihood over elevated blinds. Year after year he would build bigger and better blinds and year after year the cows trashed them.

Even after we were all grown and long gone from the ranch, phone conversation with any of the brothers always ended with the question "what had the old man built for this season" accompanied by the laughter and discussions of designs defeated by the cows over the years.

It has been ten years now since dad died. There is one elevated blind still standing. Every year at Christmas and Thanksgiving the brothers do what ever repairs are required to keep the blind standing.

No one hunts in the blind. It has become a monument to the tenacity of hunter who met defeat year after year but never ceased to reach for that brass ring.

Dad always said he could spend all of eternity sitting in a deer blind and be a happy man. The boys and I think he may have just pulled it off.

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 11:34 am

Great story Mike.
I guess there was some Bovine justice in there.
Good of you boy's to keep the blind up for him.
I know he is proud.