Monday, November 30, 2009

Deer camp 2009 - the photo review

I'm back in the 21st century after spending 9 glorious days in the 19th, sans electricity, plumbing, and electronic noises of any kind, except for the oldies station during happy hour. I'm tired, my back is killing me, and I'm far too lazy to write. Frankly, the computer and its passwords, reminder windows, and other BS aggravates me after being away from it. I'm sure I'll get over it but for now I'll violate my personal policy of a maximum of three images per post and do a deer camp photo essay of sorts. The top image is from a stand known as Twin Towers as the sun sets. Red sky at night, sailors delight.

Opening night has twelve of us in the 20 x 24 camp. Cozy but perfectly manageable.

This image is of the frozen beaver pond, dead spruce trees and all, near Buckskin's Field. My primary stand, the Virgin Turkey, is about 100 yards away.

On Tuesday night as I sat in The Stand Formerly Known As Mary's, I saw a small buck come in late, just as darkness and the fog were conspiring to end my day of hunting. As I shot the image, I noticed the larger six pointer staring at me from behind the five pointer. Our hunting philosophy is to take the larger bucks, eight or better, and the antlerless deer. This method is called Quality Deer Management and has been proven to produce a more healthy deer herd.

We did have rain for a couple days. I just wore my wool and the outer layer was wet but I was toasty dry inside. Wool still retains it insulating propertieswhen wet but it just does not dry real fast.

I stumbled across this insect art on a deadfall maple tree. No idea what type of bug would provide this level of artistic work.

The moon over the camp.

The moon over the outhouse door.

We always make a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, complete with squash, garlic mashed potatoes, cranberries, bread, and of course, the turkey. We did a free range turkey this year and brined it. It was excellent.

The traditional bonfire, ignited on Friday night rather than the usual second Saturday.

Oh yeah, we did harvest some deer. We heard wolves howling at least a half dozen times but there seems to be plenty of deer to feed everyone, contrary to some peoples beliefs.

And used the plush new cut up shack to turn them into tasty steaks and chops.

And finally the traditional 'cable beer' as we break camp for the 27th year in a row. The stalwarts in this photo have been at camp the whole nine days. I'm looking foward to next year already.

2 comments:

Silbs said...

Seems you have a great tradition going there. I'm glad you had a good time and am glad you are safe.

Nan said...

Break your self-imposed limit on photos any time.