Illinois 2010 muzzleload report #2

.
Illinois Muzzleload Hunt

Dec. 2nd thru 5th , 2010
.
Friday December 3rd

Temp: Max Temperature 30 °F, Min Temperature 19 °F
Wind: 5 mph (East) gust to 17
Snow: 0
Overcast to partly cloudy
Pressure: 30.17

AM. Hunt:
This morning I decided to divided my efforts between two stands. I would start the hunt at the kill zone stand hoping to catch a buck moving back thru the CPR to lay up on the timbered hill side or draws to the east. After that I would move to the sanctuary stand in the woods where I’d have a better chance of seeing later morning movement.

I ended up seeing six deer from the kill zone stand including the narrow 8 but no shooters. After about an hour I made my move to the “sanctuary”. I jumped three small type deer just inside the woods between the stand along the 8 acre field. I sat the stand for about an hour and a half without seeing a deer so I climbed down and decided to have a look in the 5 acre pine tree patch. I slipped into the mature stand but was not able to see the deer before they saw me and I ended up seeing 7 white flags waving good bye.

While I was slipping around the field edges I found the bleached bones of one of our big buck that had laid down and died right on the edge of the field just 20yds from my nibbin buck stand. Judging by his bases he carried horns with some serious mass. I would guess his age at 4 1/2, judging from his teeth. We don't kill many bucks over 3 1/2 years old so it was a great disappointment to find one dead like this. Apparently, he died sometime after hunting season had ended as he had already cast his horns.

Rick hunted the “well stand” and saw (3) does and one small buck but again, no shooters.

PM Hunt:

I dropped Rick off to hunt the “grassy lane stand” and drove around the west side of the farm on the hard top and spotted a doe standing in the end of Rick’s CRP at 2:30. Then saw another couple deer in a field on the neighbor.

Believing the deer would want to feed out onto the cornfield I wanted a vantage stand where I could see as much ground as possible. That was the “kill zone stand”.

On the way into the stand I jumped three deer in the bottom that drains into the CRP my stand is on. A shooter 8pt buck and a small buck fed off the hill on the neighbor to the north. Next I had four deer come off the hill from the east into the CRP. The tight 8 crossed the corn field from the gap headed to the N.W. to the culvert, followed by a yearling that I expect was a nubbin buck.
Little by little, does started to filter into the corn field from the golden oaks/gap area until there were 7 or 8 lippin' up corn some 400 yds down the field.

A doe slipped into the field in the N.E. corner and fed down towards the other deer. Finally, a respectable 8 that looked like might make a shooter entered the field from somewhere between the pines and the gap. It was close to dark so I decided I would climb down and try to get a closer look. As I made my way thru the timber at the back of the corn field it gave me an overlook into the west end of the CRP. Just about that time I saw three deer come charging into the grass and it was pretty exciting there for a moment until I realized it was just the tight 8 chasing a doe and yearling.

The big 8 was south of the grassy slew in the corn field so I used that as cover for the stalk. I could see a yearling feeding just south of the slew but did not know there was a second deer there. I slipped thru the high grass just as a buck walked into the field from the golden oaks. He proceeded across the field headed my way but the second deer that I had not seen caught me moving and blew the whistle and the game was over. By the time I had made my way down there and all this happened the big 8 had made it into the next corn field. I slipped that way and when I came out of the ditch, to my surprise he was standing only about 150yds from me. It was so dark at this point I still could not decide whether to shoot him or not. I decided to hunch over and duck walk straight at him to close the distance and hopefully get a better look. He let me get to about 100yds before he decided it was time so vacate the area. I could not make my mind up to pull the trigger and that’s a good clue to whether you should.
I think I saw 26 deer in all that evening. That was a pretty exciting hunt.

That's one big buck rub in the photo above, one of the biggest I have seen. He did not break thru the bark
but he had to be a stud to even think about tackling this tree!

Rick saw 13 does from the grassy lane stand but almost everyone of them smelled him and no bucks ever made an appearance.

That was it for day 2! Hopefully tomorrow will put a big deer in my cross hairs.

Here's some more trail camers photo's from the trip:

Larry S.
.

Rocky "Bear Claw" Boot Review Update!

.
Well, we're back! The 2010 season on our lease in Illinois is over its time to make an update to my original post on my Rocky Bear Claw boots. Here's the link to the original post, "Rocky Bear Claw Boot Review"

It was a tough season. We dealt with just about every weather senario you could get, wind, no wind, heat as high as 70 deg which is hot in central illinois in November, Cold as low as 9-10 degrees, snow, ice, rain and miserable mud! We had 6" of snow on the ground and it started raining. Over night it melted all the snow and the temp shot up to 60 deg with 2 1/2" of rain! We could not even get off the pavement with our 4X4. That night the temp went back down to 20 and froze! Unbelievable!

We made three journeys to Illinois for a total of 21 days hunted. My new Rocky's preformed perfect right up until the last hunt. That was a tough set of conditions for any boot but a truely good boot would have pass on all counts. Unfortunately, the report is not good for the new Rocky's. They failed the most important test.....the waterproof test!

The exterior of the boots held up with no issues other than some torn leather where the stitching was a little close to the edge of the leather along the eyelets. Climbing up and down the hardwood trees was a little rough on the inside of the boot. The cordura shell did fine but the bark ripped the leather along the stitching. Other than this, there were no other issues. The soles performed perfectly also.

As I mentioned above, the failure came in the form of two wet feet. Not soaked but a damp sock at the ball of both feet. By the end of the third hunt both boots had developed minor leaks in the same location. This is the location of almost every leaky boot I have ever owned. 

I have not contacted Rocky yet to see what they are willing to do if anything to remedy the situation but hopefully they will stand behind it. If not, given this is the 4th Rocky boot in a row to leak it will be my last.

Good Luck,

Larry S.

illinois 2010 muzzleload report #1

.
Illinois Muzzleload Hunt
Dec. 2nd thru 5th , 2010

Wednesday morning Capt. Rick and I met at the Daytona Beach airport to catch the first flight out headed for Illinois, 6:40am. We always fly Delta but it is quite a journey these days as now it’s a three leg flight and no less than four airports! Delta has eliminated the flight from Atlanta to Peoria and we now have to go thru Detroit or Minneapolis. Most all of our gear was left up their from the Bow hunt so we just needed o get our guns there and that went pretty smooth. The check in persons did not even ask to look inside the case.



We finally made it to Peoria about 4:00pm. And we grabbed our shooters and headed for the truck. The Peoria airport has free parking and we leave the truck there between hunts so its right there when we get back. it’s a 45 minute ride to the farm to pick up our gear trailer and then its to the house to spend the rest of the evening unpacking everything and getting ready for the mornings hunt. After 10 years we’ve pretty much got it down to a science and it only takes a couple of hours.

Thursday December 2nd
Temp: Max Temperature 31 °F, Min Temperature 22 °F
Wind: 3 mph (West) gust to 14
Snow: 0
Overcast to partly cloudy
Pressure: 30.20

Thursday December 2nd was the opener of the 2nd firearms season and after a light breakfast we loaded up and headed for the farm. The temp. was 27 deg. But the wind was light and out of the west at 3-5 so it was not to bad.

I decided I’d spend the first morning at the “Sanctuary” stand. It was a little slow getting started but I managed to see a total of (12) from the stand but only one of those had horns and he was small. The real excitement did not happen until I climbed down. I thought I’d slip out to the corn field and glass the field before I headed to meet Rick at the truck. I crossed the bottom, scaled the barb wire fence and came up to the corner of the little 8 acre corn field. Before I tried to cross the field I thought I had better give everything the once over. At the south end of this field is a tree line with a fence. Beyond this is a steep grass hill that rises up about 75-100’ with a small knob on top that is planted in corn also. As soon as my glasses settled on the hill top the first thing I saw was a big shooter buck looking down into the field I was in! My brain screamed S H O O T ! I dropped down on the ground for the shot but immediately realized he was a good 250yds and there were too many limbs from the tree tops at the fence to even attempt it.

About this time I see the buck wheel around and lope off about 30yds. Wondering what that was all about, I glassed back to the right to see an even larger buck that had just charged him! A big white horned 8pt with 14” G2’s that leaned way in at the top and were just a few inched from touching at the tips. From that reaction I immediately knew there was a hot doe involved with this and they had her hemmed up on this little knob.

The little wheels started spinning and before I knew it I had dumped all my gear and was across the fence and headed up the bottom as fast as possible without making to much racket. This bottom ties in with the toe of the hill where the deer were and as I got closer I slowed down a bit trying to be as stealthy as possible. Just then a coyote goes streaking across the bottom from the back of the 8 acre field and the gun was half way to my shoulder before I realized what it was. The coyote comes back into the story in a little.

The grass was still frozen on the open hill and had a few large oak leaves in it but I did the best I could. As I neared the edge of the corn field on the knob I went into a crouch until I was far enough up slope that I could see over the crest in the field. With hammer cocked I rose up but there were no deer on the field? I quickly scanned everything, nothing. I took a couple slow steps up and immediately, head a deer blow. I went into auto mode and the rifle was shouldered and I was swinging on the running buck. It was the big white horned 8. He had been standing behind some rose bushes along the west fence. It was about 125yds. and he was haulin’ the mail! The buck came into view in the scope and as I got to the front of the deer I touched her off! Unfortunately, a split second before and with my brain already committed to firing, the buck made a 90 and jumped the fence. It felt like I had missed him by a deer’s length when I felt the report of the shot. “damn it! I just missed that deer!” was my first thought. Little did I then know that this would pretty much be the hallmark of the rest of the hunt. I never saw the other buck but the doe came into view as I lowered the rifle and she shot straight ahead down the planted fence line.
The though came to me to try to salvage the situation somehow. The doe was obviously hot to go and there may have been a slight chance after things settled down that one of those bucks may have circled around to try to cut her track but I let it go and headed back to grab my gear and get back to the truck.

It just so happens that to get back to the truck I was headed the same way the coyote had gone and as I passed thru the gate into the nubbin buck corn field I saw him break from the high grass down the edge from me about a hundred yards. I dropped to one knee, swung on him and fired. I looked like I just caught him in the right front shoulder but he was able to make it off the corn field.

Rick hunted the “Well” stand and saw (13) does and no bucks.


PM. Hunt:

This afternoon I made for the stand at the “Green Tree”. Actually, it’s a stand located on the fence in the bottom, behind the green tree that the farmer cut down a few years ago but we still refer to is as the green tree for lack of a better name. Actually, I should say I started for the Kill Zone stand but ended up at the Green Tree.


As I drove in thru the west corn field that fronts the gravel I saw (3) doe type deer running off the big corn field. I parked the truck in the ditch separating the big field from the west field, grabbed my gear and headed for the “Kill Zone” Stand.

When I got to the back end of the corn field I slipped up to the edge of the timber and glassed down to the CRP below. No deer. Just as I turned around something caught my eye some 300yds down the field along the east edge, right about the gap area. It was a deer and as it came into view of my glasses I could see it was pretty nice buck that warranted further scrutiny. I could see his mouth was hanging open and I glassed ahead to see (3) more bucks all ganged around one doe at the golden oaks. All the other bucks were just year and a half old things with not much for horns. I glassed back to the big deer and could see he was an 8 that looked to be in the 120-130 class and not quite what I was looking to shoot.

This did however, change my destination and I decided to go to the green tree which would put me close to the action if they looped back or another buck came along on the deal later.

I ended up seeing a total of (11) deer including the half rack in the CRP at dark and a small buck in the bottom from the stand. The rest of the deer were all does and yearlings.

Rick hunted the “Barn stand” at the top of the pines. He only saw (5) does and no bucks.

That was pretty much it for the first day. I was glad to see there is still a little rutting activity going on.

Here are just a few of the trail camera photo's I collected during the hunt:

I collected hundreds of trail camera photo's between the three trips. I'll post them as time permits.

Good Luck,

Larry S.

(All photo's by Larry Stephens)