Faldo Goes to Deer Camp

Sorry for the lack of posting. Faldo went with his son, Bronco76 and Tigercub8189 to my other brother’s hunting cottage, for a little deer hunting. Leaving the oval felt jungle for the Michigan woods for a while.

Yes time to live off the land. Time to get back to survival mode. Time to man up and check your skills against nature. This was wilderness living at its supreme and most intense. After all, no internet and no TV!!!!! Cell phones worked, but I had turned mine off and left it in the car.

Friday was a rainy night. Visiting with the other eight hunters inside the main lodge, it was venison stew, sardines, beef jerky, baked beans, green beans and beer for dinner. Back at my other brother’s (Lion.357) house trailer on 12 acres. The kerosene heater got plenty of fuel added to the air as the night rolled on after that dinner. It was more beer and stories – then lights out.

Lion failed to see anything hunting Saturday morning. Got back to the lodge and checked in. No hits, but a big deer was spotted by several guys, but no shot available with their bows.

Back to our camp, we worked dropping carrots, beets and other bait for the animals and gather/cut/split wood for the Saturday fire. Beer was iced and readied – and sampled.

Evening hunt was also unsuccessful, so we did what all survival men do in that situation. We drove to town to the only bar and had burgers and watched football for a while. That big buck was confirmed being seen by half the hunters in our group, but no one had a shot. Then it was back to camp for the bonfire, beer, cigars and story-telling in the light on and off drizzle.

Sunday was a beautiful morning, and the radio crackled at 9am at our camp. Someone said they shot and hit that big buck! It was time to go tracking. This is what I really call roughing it. I was going to have to hike thru the woods, with only two cups of coffee and one package of instant oatmeal in my stomach. The inhumanity of it all!

The track was the easiest I had ever been on. First off the hunter with the hit said he got the deer near perfect. That coming from some hunters, that could be a story or a mistake, but not with this guy. If he said he got it, he got it. Even though the broad blade arrow had passed right thru, you could tell it was a lung shot. We waited until we all gathered at 10:30am and started out on the blood trail.

What started out as small drops every ten yards for the first 100 yards, turned into big drops every five yards and then pretty much a straight line of blood. Plus, the size of the deer had left a pretty big tunnel thru the underbrush in the woods and rubbed blood on the trees.

Less than 300 yards from the shot, there he was. He was only a 4 point rack, but weighed in at 220 pounds on the scale! As the successful hunter processed his deer, a few celebratory beers were had – with jokes/insults thrown in. That deer will be in the stew next camp.

The hunt was over for the weekend. Back to our camp, we all pulled out our rifles, shotguns and handguns for a little target practice. The big obsolete desktop computer I brought up just for this occasion, held up surprisingly well under the onslaught. The wood targets and water jugs didn’t last as long as that computer did.

That was surprisingly therapeutic to let loose on one of those machines. Anyway, time to clean up, pack up and head back to the unreal world.