Well, I had to go with a new post. Probly because they knew what a pussy Shaun was on our trip up to Murphy Lake, beyond both Bennett Lake and Middle Lake. He was whining how he wasn't sure he could make it all that way with the little load he was carrying. (It's is nearly 100% uphill for about four miles from the time you leave the truck until you're at the camp site we were at but he chose it so I have little sympathy for him.....) I soldiered on like the known GI I've been for the past 30+ years and he tried to find fault with my performance regardless of what I was carrying. Anyone who knows Shaun knows that I'm so full of crap you probably won't believe the rest of my post but the rest will be the truth I promise. Shaun carried a pack that weighted somewhere in the neighborhood of 60-70 lbs plus the canoe, which is either 28 to 32 extra pounds. I'm getting short of breath just writing this. Whilst we were in Murphy Lake camping and fishing Shaun told me I was the Down's Syndrome of camping and the Special Olympics of fishing but I think he changes his tune when he discovered that the piece of crap rod and reel he provivded me was just that.....I'll let him comment on that. The bottom line being that we caught a BUNCH of brook trout at Murphy Lake, ate them for two nights and kept enough for Shaun's buddy (The Kraut) to take some to his mother and still released as many as we caught, easily. I'll attach a couple of pistures from our trip. My favorite is the view from the mountain looking down on Murphy Lake - a hellacious climb in my opinion but well worth the effort when you get to see what you get to see (and you get to see it for free without the effort of paying someone to take you to the top) I liked Scott's view of the Zugspitz (no doubt spelled wrong) but that's the pussy view if ever there was one. I've been to the Zugsiptz, skiied it in fact - great fun - it's all a matter of perspective. Watch and enjoy the pictures I post on this blog.

Spring NY Trip

New post coming very soon. I spent a week and a half up in the great northeast; did some camping with Shaun and a couple of other guys and fished for brook trout and brown trout at Murphy and Middle Lakes and basically had a blast. I don't have time right now to post the pictures and a full description but will soon. I also spent another week in Broadalbin doing a few things to help my mother out and had a wonderful time. The older I get the more I appreciate being able to spend time around my family in NY. It just doesn't get any better than that in my opnion. I'll post soon.

The new deer head is in.....

The first two pictures are of the deer I got this past season and just picked up today. A very nice, totally symmetrical eight pointer. The third picture is of the eight pointer I got in either 1996 or 1997 and while it isn't especially wide, it's a very high rack and it's less than 1" from the front tines touching each other at their ends.

First day of Spring and I had a pretty good day today. Went into work and completed the first stage of a Purchase Card system for DSCR (where I work) which was the first in all of DoD to roll out this system, only worked two hours and then went with my good friend Mike down to South Hill, where he's from, to pick up a vehicle he bought for his daughter Susan, a 2006 Honda CRV. It's loaded and is a VERY nice vehicle, I drove it back and wish I had something as nice. I believe she'll be thrilled with it. She's at the nationl swimming competition in Orlando Florida right now and is returning Sunday. She's 16 and recently got her license and is quite the swimmer - very close to olympic qualifying level, she's extremely dedicated to it and will undoubtedly pursue swimming at least through college, and who knows, maybe beyond. She could someday become the female version of Michael Phelps. That's probably a bit of a stretch but you never, never know, as Scott is wont to say. Mike, Sallee, his wife, and Pearson, their son, plan to pick Susan up at the airport with the new CRV. It will be a great surprise for her and it's just a wonderful vehicle.

I got the deer mount back today that I had mounted from last year's season. It's a very nice buck. It isn't spectacular or anything but it's a very nice buck and the second best rack I've gotten in my many years of hunting. The pictures are attached along with a picture of the other deer I have mounted that I killed in 1996 or 1997. That's how long it took me to get another deer worthy of being mounted. To be honest, I also got my first deer ever taken (in NY in 1974) mounted and it's a four pointer; it too is still hanging on my wall.

Plans are continuing for my trip up to NY to go with Shaun to camp and fish at the Siamese Ponds in the Adirondacks. I'm in the process of getting hiking boots, a pack, sleeping bag, mattress pad, tent, etc. so our trip will be even more enjoyable hopefully. Also hope the fishing will be a little better than last summer when we went. Shaun tells me, and it makes perfect sense, that the fishing willl be better in the early spring rather than summer time. That doesn't really matter all that much though because the Siamese Ponds are 6.3 miles from the closest road and it's part of God's beautiful outdors that many people will never experience. It's a beautiful place to behold, I'm here to tell you. We're going at the very end of April/first part of May.

Enjoy the pictures. I'm very happy with the new deer head mount. The first one was "Half sneak right" and this one is "Half sneak left" so they're sort of looking at each other.

Steve

Winter 2009 in Central Virginia

Congratulations Shaun on the nice perch in the previous post. I wish I had something as exciting to post. Also glad that you got through your surgery and I hope you're feeling much better by now. Mom tells me you went back to work today so I hope you'll be ready for our adventure into the Adirondacks fishing at the end of April/beginning of May. I'm looking forward to that like there's no tomorrow. Catching fish or not, it's the adventurte of hiking through the Adironkacks for 6.3 miles to get to our destination that makes it special; and having the area to yourself for the most part.

We had our first decent snowstorm here in Central Virginia in the past 12 years or so so there have been some exciting times at Ridgemont High here. It has also been pretty cold so the snow has hung around for a day or two. It started snowing Sunday evening and they closed all the local schools and we even got a day off of work for the weather. They closed Defense Supply Center Richmond yesterday due to the snow and icy conditions. We only got about 5" of snow at my house as far as I could tell but some of the areas around here got 6-12 inches and there was freezing rain before the snow started so the roads were treacherous, especially considering that none of the people down here know how to drive in the snow (I include myself in that group, I used to know but have been removed from doing it for thirty years so I admit I'm probably not much better than your average southern driver).

Anyway, it's been real pretty down here as evidenced by the pictures I've attached and we're enjoying our version of a Virginia winter. Snow is rare here so it's a treat. I worked from home today so in effect I had a four day wekeend from going into work. I imagine the schools will be closed yet again tomorrow but there's no telling.

I went without power/electricity from about 9:30 Sunday evening until 10:00 Monday morning but I consider myself pretty lucky there too because this girl I work with who lives north of here has been without power since late Sunday and is still without it - challenging times for the old water pipes when the temperature gets down to 12 degrees last night and is supposed to go down to 13 tonight. Luckily she was able to stay with a friend last night to avoid the cold.

Well, that's about it from here. Gotta get the dog in for the night and try to stay warm. I hope everything is well within my very limited reading audience.

Hey all, it is Shaun and I am recovering from surgery I had last week (Gall Bladder/Lipoma removal) I know TMI. Anyways I am extremely stir crazy after close to two weeks of TV watching, not working and being afraid to bend or twist etc. I really, really, really would rather be ice fishing. I did alot of fishing the weekend prior to my surgery in a two day contest. I won 100$ with third place perch! Saturday I set up on a good spot I found with alot of strructure in the channel. I got eight flags and one jig pole hit. Catching Three walleyes and two perch and missing several other fish. I moved Sunday morning to fish with some friends of mine but the fishing was quite slow in that spot. We had 30 tipups in the water all day (pretty much) and got only two fish, both of which were pickeral one was 27 inches!. The spot we were in is usually an old faithful, good for Pike and Walleye. If I feel up to it, I may tag along with some friends this weekend if I can get them to cut my holes for me. If anyone is in the area in March and wants to go ice fishing please count me in and give me a call. I really like the late March northern lakes for Salmon and Laketrout. Many times you will need your sunscreen and regret not bringing the lounge chair to lay out in the sun!!
Regards Shaun

February in NY

I went ice fishing all weekend in a two day contest this past weekend. I was lucky to get third place perch winning $100! The perch was about 14 inches long. I need to get a new digital camera so I can post some good pictures.
I had surgery on Monday and am laid up right now. I had my Gall Bladder removed and three lumps (lipoma's) from my belly/chest. It feels like someone ripped out my guts. I am bored to death right now and have all week off. Probably a good thing as I do not feel that good.

I Know - TMI but these are the good old days!!!

(Written at 9:30, Monday, January 5, 2009) I've just gotten to sit down for a few minutes after cleaning and packaging deer meat for the past three plus hours. Thank God Mike found some guys at Garland's (auto repair place just up the road from work where we get our oil changed and other minor vehicle maintenance) that will take all the deer meat we can provide them. I went through the meat I still had this afternoon when I got home and discovered I had 10 tenderloins and 10 hind quarters. That's a tremendous amount of meat for one person to clean up, cut up and pack in only a couple of days. I put five hind quarters in a cooler and buried them deep in ice and they'll be going to the guys at Garland's tomorrow. It's good that they want some meat because it would be a shame to waste it. We had eight deer; Shaun took one, Mike took two and that left me five - Brother John!!

I cleaned and cut up all 10 tenderloins and two hind quarters. I still have three hind quarters that I'll cut into jerky tomorrow. I made four packages of thinly sliced tenderloin to use the way Brian and Mike do cooking at Sammy's pond. Sam Jr. has the recipe and I'm looking forward to that - it's just plain delicious - Sammy told me one of the keys is cutting it thin and then mashing it paper thin with a hammer before you bread it and cook it. The secret is also in the spices used with the breading - Sam Jr. knows what those are too so we should be good to go.

I also made three packages of tenderloin steaks or medallions or whatever they might be called. They're very good on the grill, maybe marinate them a little before hand, wrap bacon around them, attach with a toothpick and grill for a couple of minutes on each side - very tasty.

My last hour or so was spent cleaning the last tenderloin and two hind quarters and cutting it all up (by hand) into jerky sized pieces of meat and stuck them in the freezer until I can get some more marinade ingredients.

Pictures - sorry for the blood but there's some blood involved in deer hunting.

Sammy and Shaun with the four pointer Shaun and Mike drove to Sammy on the Wal-Mart Drive.














Below: Sammy & Shaun on an obviously chilly evening.

Below: Sammy explaining to Mike that he's killed three deer and probably renewing the offer for some long range shooting lessons.

Below: Shaun, Mom, and me in my kitchen after three long, hard days of hunting.















Below: Shaun down on the creek/swamp near where my climbing stand is with the big doe he shot Saturday afternoon. This picture doesn't do it justice, but believe me, this is a big doe. Shaun even agreed and he's used to seeing those big NY deer.














Below: Taylor(?), Sammy, Mike, Scott, and the back of Ben's head.

Finishing the season with a BANG!!!

All I can say is wow, did we have a great weekend of hunting (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday), here in Virginia. Shaun was down, as evidenced by his less than honest portrayal of our hunting experience these last few days of the season in his post. We make man drives and I would have to say I was in on making somewhere in the range of 70-75% of them so I definitely wasn't sitting on my ass. My only thing was that I've killed enough deer this year and I had a designated driver in Shaun so I could sit around and drink a few beers with Sammy and/or Mike while some of them still hunted on Friday and Saturday afternoon. Just to be perfectly clear on the drive front, we usually have two people driving and sometimes three. We were able to do that more these last few days because we had more people hunting. A high of 11 hunters at one point on Saturday.

Just to give you a synopsis - on Thursday we hunted in Blackstone making drives most of the day and we jumped a total of 25 deer that we saw. We made the Continental Can drive backwards (from Ft. Pickett back to Ridge Road) and jumped at least five deer we know of. There were only six of us hunting, Scott and I were making the drive and everyone on stand got to shoot (Scott even got to shoot in the cut-over where we jumped the deer). The only problem with that was that Jay got a running away shot at a doe and missed, Sammy got a shot at a doe he's pretty sure he hit with the shotgun but we were never able to find it, and Mike and Shaun both got shots at what they both described as a 'nice' buck (mountable according to Mike and he doesn't mount small ones). They hit that deer because they found blood but, again, we weren't able to find the deer. Another drive of note was the Parham drive where Mike and Jay ran a group of 8 does by me and I got one of them but should have had at least two, maybe three. They jumped two more deer on that drive but no one else shot. All in all, 15 shots were fired and we ended up with what we thought was just the one doe for the day.

Late that afternoon most of us sat in a stand somewhere for the afternoon hunt. Sammy and Jay (the landowner (and good friend - Mike and Jay basically grew up with Sammy and I've been hunting with these guys for about 20 years) and Mike's brother) went to the squeaker stand and watched down the light line into Ft. Pickett. That's a good place and you usually see a deer or two because you can see so far. The thing is that they're usually so far away the shot is nearly impossible. Shaun sat on my climbing stand overlooking the swamp on the house side of the land and I sat in a stand where I could see Sammy's truck where he and Jay were. Shaun got a shot at a doe but missed. Sammy shot twice at a doe across the creek into Ft. Pickett. We estimate the distance at around 600 yards. He shot and neither he nor Jay could tell if he hit the deer but there were still two deer in the light line so he shot again. They didn't see what happened to the deer so they just decided to leave it alone, rather than cross the creek and go looking in the dark for a deer that he might or might not have hit. We probably should have known better since Sammy is often saying he's "One shot Sam," or singing "Sammy Gee was a man, yes a big man….." or recent sayings like "If it's brown, it's going down," and "If it's brown, it's on the ground." Those are all in good fun and just joking but I'd have to say Sammy pulled off a shot something akin to Dan'l Boone killing a bear with just his bare hands and a knife. I took Shaun back to the Squeaker Stand the next afternoon to sit (because you can drive to the stand) and he looked across and saw what he thought was a deer laying in the light line about 600 yards away. A look through his 14X scope confirmed it so Shaun went and crossed the creek and dragged the deer back to the stand. By then Mike and Sammy had arrived and I told them what we had discovered and the legend of the 1/3 of a mile shot started to emerge. It's a story that will no doubt be passed down for generations and will probably be embellished some but I'm here to tell anyone reading this that I was there that day and it really did happen just the way I've described. It was cold Thursday night (20's) and chilly and rainy all day Friday (30's) so the deer meat was fine. A neighbor and friend of Sammy, Chuck Parrish, suggested that Sammy might want to approach some of the ammunition companies and make a proposal to them for the long range shots he's becoming known for. That would be to make the bullets with a certain percentage of salt content so the meat would be preserved until you could make it to the remote location where the animal was when you brought it down. I think that's a pretty good idea myself.

So, it was actually two deer for Thursday. Friday we made drives in Dundas and while I'm sure we must have gotten a few deer up, I know no one shot any deer that day.

That left Saturday and we were back in Blackstone. Just to hit the highlights, Shaun got a doe on the Parham drive that Mike and I were making. The deer got up in front of Mike and ran right to where Shaun was and he got it. Then on the Locust Grove Drive (again, being made backwards), Aaron shot a three pointer but it didn't die right away so he and a couple of the other young guys went back later and found the deer, finished it off and dragged it on out. We also made the Wal-Mart Drive (so named because it starts behind the Wal-Mart in Blackstone). Mike and Shaun made that drive and they drove a nice little four pointer to Sammy which he dispatched with one load of buckshot. Shaun probably drove the deer to Sammy but on a drive like that it's hard to say exactly where the deer came from unless you see or hear it get up and I don't think that was the case with this deer. It's just that Shaun finished up the drive right near where Sammy was. Sammy was saying later on that he didn't like taking those close-in shots but when you're making drives it only seems right to shoot what comes by you when the drivers are putting in the effort. This was, after all, the day after we confirmed his 600 yard kill shot with a 30-06, 150 grain bullet.

Still hunting for the afternoon on Saturday didn't include me or Sammy, we had a few beers at the trucks. We heard Shaun shoot and we had Shaun's radio so we eventually learned that he had shot a great big doe (for down here) - again while hunting from my climbing stand. I carried my safety strap down to him to make the drag a little easier and carried his pack and gun back for him. Then we heard Mike shooting down below the Locust Grove and it turned out he had five does walk out on him and he was able to kill two of them so it was a six deer day for our group.

After cleaning all the deer, Shaun and I went over to Sammy's in Dundas where a bunch of guys were cooking deer meat, shrimp and potatoes. We ate, I had a few beers, and we headed for home. I should mention that Mom came down with Shaun and while we were hunting, she was cleaning my house (thanks very much Mom, I love you!). Shaun, Mom and I got up for breakfast Sunday and went to the Cracker Barrel. After a nice breakfast, they headed for NY and I went home to get some much needed rest. I've got two big coolers pretty full of deer meat that I'm planning on starting on tonight.

I have pictures I'll post soon - as I said though, it was a great weekend of hunting. A total of eight deer for our little group in three days and it could have quite a few more. Lots of action and excitement and that's why we're hunting after all.

PITIFUL

Hey this is Shaun. Steve wimped out real bad on the deer hunting front today! He sat around drinking beer while I had to go get all the deer for him. Right now he is saying how glad he is that hunting season is over as he has a date with the couch...pitiful!! I can see that I need to come down here more often and kick his ass into shape dragging my deer out for me. I can lure him with a bottle of beer on a stick while he drags out my deer and then foremanize him while he cuts it up and makes jerky out of it too.