My first hunting season
To start my hunting season I traveled about 180 miles up north to a sporting club for one day availability of my hunting license course, at the end I chose to shoot the 20 gauge single shot they threw up some clays first time I managed to hit one out of three, there is one kid there that was pretty much hitting each one they shot they recommended the mother get him on a trap(clay or skeet) team and the mother didn't even know what they were talking about at first.
On the way back I want up experiencing some interesting food they call it a tomato pie it's pretty much soft bread with tomato smeared all over it pretty much a pizza without the cheese the boy could I've used an antacid back then.
Well in general when I started my 2017-2018 hunting season I started with some high hopes, squirrel season open up I was looking for wma's
The first one I went to was Huckleberry Ridge, as its stated especially squirrels as to which animal species there were an abundance of, I was there before the sun rose and I got one squirrel that day with my Hatfield SAS 20 gauge, my single shot semi-automatic shotgun, I call it that because it is a semi-automatic shotgun that has a tendency to break itself meaning it will only afterwards reliably fire one shot.
Next came regular small game which included rabbits, some bird species and even coyote it also included turkey I was up on the mountain on private property where I permission to hunt on my first day sitting still waiting for squirrel another thing to come along cuz I wanted to get more than one squirrel a day my spot was a little to the left of a pile of dirt dressed in camo sitting on a little fold-up stool there again before daylight the funniest thing is even without a hunting blind turkeys walked up within 20 feet of me just wearing regular camo I had no decoys of any kind and didn't even know turkey season started it's probably a good thing because I didn't know the stipulation about only taking Tom's I also didn't know you couldn't use your 22 or smaller rifle to take them which I never actually saw one to fire a shot at it so this first year I have been learning a lot and have passed up many shots because I was unable to identify what it was it was moving like bird species for example I was out trying to look for a pheasant one may have flown up in front of me but I couldn't identify it in flight so I did not shoot it.
Around this time I have taken some more educational information in and traveled 70 miles one way later on for my trapping license I surprisingly passed that with only one wrong.
Trapping season started October 25th, I got my first raccoon on the 27th trapping on private property a couple of days later I got my first skunk.
The nice thing about the traps is I can set them and go home and go to sleep and they'll do their work if something stumbles a long most of my traps are hand-me-downs I came to capture about for raccoons three skunks and for possums as well as one Little Bird by accident on my long spring-trap which a cat made quick work of that.
I also tried salting and Tanning my own hides I wound up with small sections of quality fur nothing I could possibly try Taxidermy with but I could certainly make little craft items with it.
Now on to deer season being this is a big season were a lot of the guys come in from the city for, I decided to stick with the private property I had permission for, due to the property already being scoped out by other Hunters who had permission the only spot available to me was pretty much at the top of the mountain, the deer did come by when I was using my blind at the base of the cliff they often came behind me I could hear the leaves rustling but of course I wouldn't be able to actually open up my blind to take care of them, that thing was small and crammed enough as it is.
I later wound up utilizing the cliff and looking down seeing the deer was much better the problem is the range at which I would do engage them was different and I did not practice for that.
One Buck was so focused on the female that he was tailing during the peak rut that I missed him five times and he still didn't give a crap until he saw me when I came down to search for blood and there was none, of course he ran off and that was my last chance at a deer that season there still was a couple of weeks left after that and I did sit up on the cliff once more there was a poacher the week before and I wasn't sure if the lights shining through the trees we're poachers again, I had my lights off after I reached my point on the cliff because I intended to deer hunt uncertain and seeing if the lights will change their Direction I gave a grunt call I hear leaves rustling along the base of the cliff, I thought it was a deer so I ignored it and then I hear a coyote hunting call right below me about 30 ft, it startled me I fumbled around for my flashlight and by then the next time I heard a howl it was a hundred feet from me roughly.
I really wish I had my 17 with The Predator light on it but I left that in the cabin, sadly for me I got no deer that season but it's all about learning and I have to dial in my guns at the range I intend to engage the animal and practice quite heavily.
During my efforts in coyote hunting I may have educated more coyotes or they were never around when I was trying to call them in, but I did wind up getting one by chance and by accident.
I usually take a certain small road to work as it's about 5 minutes quicker, but I missed my turn so I had to take the highway and it looks like there was a deer or something in the middle of the road, I pull over to drag it out of the road so nobody would run it over, it turns out it's a coyote, I didn't have time for possession tag for a deer, so I was only going to drag it off the road if it was a deer, but it was a coyote and they were in season so I picked it up off the concrete and then drag it across the grass and threw it in the back of my truck.
It was a recent kill probably by somebody with a large truck as I did not see any broken car parts.
I later after work spent over 6 hours skinning that thing, I intended it for a mount being it was in the back of the truck for about 12 hours or more at that point it wasn't fresh anymore and it was a pain to skin, but I managed to skin it, quite tired by the end of it I decided not to flesh it and I froze it later on I fleshed it and was struggling with it quite heavily as the animal had dried out quite significantly making it very difficult to do I eventually took it and put it in the refrigerator to get to till another day and it basically spoiled so I had probably close to 10 hours involved with it and it really sucks but it was a loss.
After that there was still a little bit more time on squirrel and when I came to do work I would snipe out some squirrels on another piece of private property as they do not like them being they pester their Birds.
P.S. squirrels taste like chicken even if a bit more chewy, raccoons taste somewhere between chicken and beef and skunks taste like pork chops.
It was a very interesting hunting season I learned quite a bit and I do have a YouTube channel wondering how long it'll still stay there as YouTube has become very anti-second Amendment more so than usual but the channel if you're interested is called
Enter the Hunter
it shows my ferret suli as a thumbnail photo.
Here is a picture of the coyote I skinned these pictures and the skull I buried are about all I have left.
