I saw a lot of deer but no trophies. I suppose I hunted around 15 days total in MN and Ontario with my gun. I tracked some deer and had great daily snow (a little fresh snow daily) and wind conditions (enough to keep things moving in the woods, to cover movement, and cover up sound) in Canada for that. But I had to head home early on the hunt because my wife went into labor early. I didn't see any other hunters up there over 4-5 days in the areas I hunted. However for the most part, it was nothing but wolf tracks, everywhere. It was a little after rut so bucks weren't making many tracks. It was frustrating. And, like I said, my hunt got cut short. But it turned out they were able to delay the labor a few more weeks and we had a healthy baby boy on Dec 20, still, 3 weeks early.
I named him Winston after Winston Churchill and his role in WWII. And I thought it was a cool name. His brother Greyson is 16 months now and not quite sure yet what's up with the new baby in the house. I think he's figured out the little guy is staying with us.
This is the biggest buck we shot.
Killed a few pheasants
This is the gun I use when I'm hunting on the ground for deer
Rem 7600 .270. Scope: 1.25x-6x Leupold VXIII
Finally figured out the issue with my .300 Win Mag Browning BAR throwing "flingers." It wasn't the scope. I had Leupold tear it apart again. It was a broken front scope mount windage screw. But after I got that figured out, the gun itself broke. It's a single-shot right now. Need to take it in.
As usual, the terrain I hunt in Canada is very beautiful -- but it's been tough for hunting the last few years. The guys that bait near the towns did well, I'm told.
Because it was tough to find buck tracks, I tracked some deer just to have them take me into areas with other deer. One deer I tracked injured itself (image below). I have a lot of photos of average/decent tracks and other photos 'on-the-track.' Below is a photo of where a deer stood and watched its back track. They stand facing away making for a pretty small target, and make dozens of prints before they bound off (image below). I could have shot that deer at about 30 yards. Again it would have been up the rear. Also, one of the days I had wolves hunting around me. The wolf tracks don't look fresh but it was in a heavy snow. One of the tracks was a giant compared to all the others (image below). As I tracked this one deer around, I could see where the wolves were standing up on rocks, watching me (and probably that deer). I probably got that deer killed by kicking it out of its bed right into a pack of wolves.
One cool thing that happened this fall is I went on a goose hunt and the rookie all-star centerfielder for the Dodgers hunted with us. He took 2nd in the homerun contest too. A few birds and a photo would have made for a better story though.
Another thing I did recently is "max out" my NRA membership. I like the NRA and NRA-ILA. And Ted Cruz.
[glow=red]One thing I'm going to do in 2016 is plant a couple food plots with the help of DEERSLAYER.[/glow] I've never really hunted over a plot before but I own some land that would be pretty fun to have plots on. Maybe I'll get my bow out in 2016. Winter league is starting up for archery soon. Maybe I'll kill a buck with my bow in 2016. Not much else on the home front. My shotgunning team won a few first place trophies for skeet and sporting clays in 2015. We shoot year round... we took this winter off though.
If there's one thing I know, I don't get to hunt in the snow enough. Need to change that.
I need to get back in here and look at all the big bucks that were killed. My trips are planned for 2016!
