Hunting With Spike

Records and Species List

2007-07-08T12:31:00.000-05:00

Records

Eastern Turkey - Gobbler
Spurs: ¾”
Weight: 18lbs.
Beard: 8 ¾”
Location: Pennsylvania

Whitetail Deer – Buck
Points: 8
Spread: 12.5”
Score: 85”
Location: Pennsylvania

Species Harvested

American Crow

Black Duck

Canada Geese

Common Carp

Cottontail Rabbit

Eastern Turkey – Gobbler

Gray Squirrel

Ground Hog

Hooded Merganser - Drake

Mourning Dove

Red Squirrel

Ringneck Pheasant – Rooster and Hen

Ruffed Grouse

Whitetail – Buck and Doe

Wood Duck – Drake and Hen

First Carping Adventure

2007-07-08T12:15:00.000-05:00

Some of you may already understand that any adventure with Mike and Frank is going to be interesting. Well they just introduced me to carping. This is fishing for carp, or hunting for carp with archery equipment.

We headed out yesterday in the canoes. I had to be in the canoe with Frank. This is interesting, trying to stand up and shoot a bow, all the time with frank guiding the canoe. We all had our fair share of misses, but Mike ended up getting two, me one and Frank zero.

This was a short trip, so I'm keeping the story short, but we are already planning some all day carping trips. I will have many more carping stories and hopefully some pictures too.

Remington

2007-05-07T13:41:00.000-05:00

After we lost Nalla, my brother decided to get my mom a dog for mother’s day. He went with a couple of his friends to pick up a Chocolate Labrador. When he brought the dog home, it was so small. It was only eight weeks old. This was the beginning of his reign of terror.

We couldn’t decide on a name. We called him many things, but Ruger is what stuck for a little while. Eventually we settled on Remington. His registered name is Remington Hunter XVIII. He was so cute when we first got him, but that cuteness changed to holy terror after Remington got accustom to his surroundings.

Remington chews everything. He chewed an antique basket my mom had. He is always grabbing things off the tables. A few of the things I’ve had to stop leaving on the table are, my cigarettes, hats and the best, my cell phone. Yes, Remington chewed my cell phone up. For the most part now though, he is pretty good. He just gets pretty wound up when people come over to visit. This wouldn’t be so bad, except our once little puppy is now a little over a year old. Remington is now a one hundred pound giant.

Remington is supposed to be my new hunting dog, but I’m not so sure how well that’s going to work. First we have to get him under complete control. Then we can worry about training him to hunt. Remington points at things in the yard. He retrieves pretty well too. He doesn’t like to give up what he has retrieved though, and he is still afraid of the shotgun. Hopefully he can get over his fear, and we can get him trained to hunt. I’ll keep everyone posted on his progress.

The Story of Nalla

2007-05-07T12:18:00.000-05:00

My brother and I came home from a party one night with a few friends. When we got out of the truck, there was what seemed like a wolf running right at us. When it got closer, we realized it was a dog, and it jumped right into my brother’s arms.

We sat down on my front porch and played with the dog for a little while. Someone decided we should name it Nalla. Our dog had died a few months before this, and when my mom saw her, we knew she was going to let us keep Nalla.

We took her to get her shots, and everything she needed. The vet thought she was cross between a Golden Labrador and a Siberian Husky. After having Nalla for a little while, we realized that she was the dog that had been running around the area for nearly a year. The vet said she was only about a year old, so that meant she had spent the majority of her life running the streets.

Nalla was, for the most part, a housedog. She was a fairly well behaved dog. She had some issues with things she thought were her property. One of those things was my dad. She didn’t like anyone touching my dad, and that was tough. My dad is paralyzed and people had to be around him. She soon got over that, but you didn’t want to take a bone from her.

You might be asking me why I’m posting this story on a hunting site. Well, It’s because Nalla became my first hunting dog. In the fall, I shot a whitetail doe with my archery equipment. I couldn’t find the deer, so I took Nalla with me. One sniff of my bloody arrow, and she was off. Although my brother found the deer before Nalla, Nalla still tracked the deer around a loop and right to the backside of it. I had great hopes that Nalla would be able to track wounded deer for not only us, but my friends in town as well.

We didn’t get a chance to track any more deer that fall. In the spring, Nalla attracted some male dogs. We had a Black Labrador show up, and a Siberian Husky as well. Shortly after the males showed up, we realized that Nalla was pregnant.

At first dad wasn’t too happy about the thought of a bunch of little puppies running around. I was also a little worried that Nalla would be over-protective of them. Sadly, about two weeks before Nalla was due to give birth, she was hit on the road in front of our house. Nalla was killed, and never got to deliver her puppies. We never got a chance to see what kind of a mother or hunting dog she could have become.

2005 Archery Doe

2007-05-07T11:11:00.000-05:00

The opening day of archery season, in 2005, found me behind my house. This was the first year I had put a stand in this area. It had been a few years since I had shot a deer, and I wasn’t too particular about what I shot.

Before the sun started to come up, I had deer walking around me. I couldn’t tell what they were though. As the sun started to come up, I had a few does wander past my stand. They were in range, but my stand only offered a few twenty-yard shots right in front of me, and maybe a few ten-yard shots to the sides.

It was getting close to midday, and I was debating on getting down from my stand. About that time, I heard something coming from behind me. I could tell there was quite a few deer. They walked around my left side. There was too much brush to tell what any of them were, so when the first few stepped out, I didn’t take a shot. I was hoping there would be a buck in the group. The last deer made it out, and she was a doe. I drew my bow, but one of the fawns spotted me. I never got to take a shot, so I got down out of my stand and went home for lunch.

I returned to my stand that afternoon, and was only in the tree for about an hour. The group of does came back. They were walking straight towards me. When the first doe stepped out, she was only ten yards away. I drew my bow, put my pin right in front of here shoulders and just to the left of her spine, and released the arrow. I thought it was a perfect hit.

I climbed out of my stand, and went to get the arrow. The arrow was covered in blood. When I got on the blood trail, I ran into some problems. The trail only lasted about ten feet and quit. I couldn’t find any blood. I was having trouble finding any sign, so I went home.

Back at home, I called a couple friends and got my brother to help. While I was there, I also leashed up our new dog. Nalla was a stray that came to our house. She had been out wandering for the better part of her life, and we figured she was able to feed her self by finding road-kill. I figured she could help.

I got to my arrow before the other guys got there, and as soon as Nalla smelled the arrow, she was ready to run. We spread out across the woods, with Nalla and I on the trail. After going only about one hundred yards, my brother found the deer. I decided to keep going with Nalla to see if she was just on the trail of live deer, or if she was following my deer. Sure enough, the deer had done a loop in the woods, and Nalla followed the loop right around to the back end of my deer.

I had great hopes for using Nalla to track wounded deer, but sadly that spring, she was hit on the road in front of our house.

Records and Species List

2007-05-04T18:43:00.000-05:00

Records

Eastern Turkey - Gobbler
Spurs: ¾”
Weight: 18lbs.
Beard: 8 ¾”
Location: Pennsylvania

Whitetail Deer – Buck
Points: 8
Spread: 12.5”
Score: 85”
Location: Pennsylvania

Species Harvested

American Crow

Black Duck

Canada Geese

Cottontail Rabbit

Eastern Turkey – Gobbler

Gray Squirrel

Ground Hog

Hooded Merganser - Drake

Mourning Dove

Red Squirrel

Ringneck Pheasant – Rooster and Hen

Ruffed Grouse

Whitetail – Buck and Doe

Wood Duck – Drake and Hen

My First Whitetail Deer

2007-05-04T18:17:00.000-05:00

Let’s start with a little background. I had been hunting deer since the age of twelve. I had shot at many, but could never seem to get the bullet in the right spot. Patience was my worst enemy. I had none. Up until I was 15 I only hunted with my rifle. A guy my dad worked with was selling his archery equipment and my dad told me about it. I decided that maybe archery would be my thing.

My dad took me to get the bow, and his friend showed me a little about it, and how to shoot it. The bow was an old compound Golden Eagle with wooden limbs. I immediately fell in love with archery. I had better groups of arrows than I had of bullet holes.

I set out that fall, archery equipment in hand. No one had ever taught me much about archery, other than you had to have patience. I soon found out what everyone was talking about. I would see deer that normally I would be shooting at, but they were too far away. Shortly into the season, I had one close enough.

Two deer came in. At the time, I didn’t realize that they were both fawns, but I really didn’t care, anything was going to be a trophy to me. I waited for the deer to come within shooting distance, and before long one gave me a shot opportunity. At about fifteen yards, the first deer stepped broadside. I drew my bow, and released an arrow. Thud! I’m thinking in my head, “What the hell went wrong.” I could see my arrow sticking in the base of a tree.

Neither deer ran, so I knocked another arrow. By this time, the deer I shot at was already in the brush. When I drew on the second deer, the first one stepped back out. I saw that I had hit the deer, but too far back. I refocused on the original deer, and let another arrow fly. The same sound again. Needless to say, this worried me a bit.

The deer took off, and fifty yards away, it fell over. I was so excited I nearly fell out of my tree stand. I had been told to wait before retrieving a deer, but I was more afraid that I was going to fall out of the tree. I climbed down, and then gathered my things up and waited for a little while to make sure the deer was actually dead before walking down the hill.

When I got down there, the deer had expired, but excitement was replaced by anger. I was glad I had finally gotten a deer, but both my shots were horrible. I never want to wound a deer, and thankfully my shots had killed it, but I was lucky.

The deer was so small, that after field dressing it, I was able to throw it over my shoulder and carry it about a mile home. Even though it was small, and I was pretty much ashamed of my shot placement, I was still proud, and I will never forget that afternoon in the woods. Plus, that was the best venison I had ever eaten.

Spring Gobbler Opener

2007-05-04T13:43:00.000-05:00

The Spring Gobbler season opened on Saturday. Unfortunately I had a meeting that morning, so I didn’t get to go out. I doubt I missed much though. The gobblers are with their hens, and rarely gobbling more than a couple times once they’re off the roost.

Monday I got up, grabbed my archery gear and headed for a spot I knew there was some gobblers. Sure enough, they were there, but so were the hens. The gobblers gobbled a couple times on the roost before they hit the ground. I was too far away to see the birds fly down, but shortly after they did, I had three hens on the other side of the field. The gobblers gobbled a couple more times after they were down, but that was it.

The hens seemed to be coming my way so I didn’t do much calling. I still hadn’t seen the gobblers when I saw a flash of gray moving through the woods. I didn’t think much of it. That was until I realized that the hens started moving faster down over the hill, and the gobblers weren’t with them.

Now that I think of it, I’m pretty sure it was a coyote or maybe even a bobcat that I saw. The area that I hunt has recently been getting more and more coyote action, and I have seen bobcats in that area.

I left that area and started home. On the way out I heard a hen in the swamp by my house. I figured I’d give her a few calls. She was talking back to me, and the gobbler she was with gobbled once, but they had no interest in me. By this time it was about 9:00, so I packed it up for the day.

I haven’t given up completely though, and have more hope for the end of the season. Hopefully the gobblers will start loosing some of those hens, and it will be easier to call them in.

Previous Accomplishments

2007-05-04T13:36:00.000-05:00

Upland Birds
Ruffed Grouse - 1
Ringneck Pheasant - 2 Roosters and 9 Hens

Turkey
Eastern Spring Gobbler - 1 8 3/4" Beard, 18 Pounds and 3/4" Spurs
Fall Turkey - 2 Jakes

Whitetail
Bucks - 2 Roughly 85" 8 Point and a Small 6 Point
Does - ? 3 With Archery Equipment

Waterfowl
Canada Geese - 10
Wood Ducks - 3 2 Drakes
Hooded Mergansers - 1 Drake
Black Ducks - 1