Adventures in Learning to Hunt

Today was an historic day. My son fired his first shots from a proper firearm. I taught him the way the Marines taught me. He spent a LOT of time dry firing Opa, the Remington model 23 that was my grandfather's rifle.   Practicing sighting in, proper sight alignment, breathing, squeezing the trigger, etc. He got bored fast, much as I did at boot camp. But still he practiced. I had him memorize the steps for firing. Unlock and open bolt. insert round. close and lock bolt. Pull back firing pin. Sight in. Breathe. Aim small, miss small. Squeeze. Until he knew it by heart. We talked at great length about firearm safety. How to carry, don't aim at anything you don't want to kill, treat every firearm as loaded at all times. He knows to check the chamber when he is handed the weapon, even if he saw someone check it before they handed it to him. The kid knows the basics.  Lest you think I'm forgetting about the Sweet Pea, rest assured that she has also been trained the same...

Yesterday was the opening of small game season, but due to busy schedules I wasn't able to go out looking for squirrels or rabbits. My little family has started planning out our meals a week or so in advance to avoid the last minute "what should we eat for supper?" plans where we end up getting fast food. So today, I'm making one of my childhood favorite meals, Pizza Casserole. My mom used to make this for me on special occasions, and she taught me to make it. Why is it here on my learning to hunt blog? Because today I'm making it with ELK! No, I didn't hunt the elk, unless you count a sharp eye spotting it from across the local Farmers Market. We spent the summer finding new and different meats there and at a local store called Fresh Thyme, which has led to eating such game as elk, venison, wild boar, antelope and even yak. (And yes, the yak is surprisingly and amazingly good!) Those are stories for another day. I want to get the bulk of this written before...

I think I figured out why I missed the other day. I went to the local range and decided to just zero Peach at 25 yards for now. I can't see taking much more than a 50 yard shot in the woods I've been hiking, and my missed "perfect shot" made me question my outdoor "close enough to 50 yard, don't take too many shots" zeroing day. I set the scope to 5x and set up for my first three shots. Here's my second and third shot. (I jerked the trigger on the first shot and hit waaaaay outside the circle.) pew pew As you can see, my shots were about an inch or so down and left from my aim point 9the center of the 1 inch orange circle). Which explains why the squirrel leapt so high and far when my round hit an inch lower and left from his head. I must have scared the nuts out of him. So I clicked in some correction and tried a second group on target 2. I felt like I was wandering a bit, and the shot grouping reflected that. Some improvement, but n...

This was the day. I could feel it when I woke up. It was going to be a warm, drizzly day. Upper 30's, maybe into the 40's. And I could feel in my bones that today would be the day I shot at a squirrel. I dropped the kids off at school and reflected on the night before. I had been catching up on transcribing my journal onto the computer. On January 4th, I had been part way up a steep hill and heard chittering that I thought might be a chipmunk. Last night, on the 6th, I had done some more research and found that it was actually a squirrel. So that day, all of those critters I had heard were squirrels. Lots of 'em. And I knew where they were. So today HAD to be the day. HAD to be. I drove up to that same spot and decided to climb all the way to the top of that big, steep hill and glass the trees for the squirrels. Imma gonna climb that hill. It doesn't look that steep from here! My pack seemed particularly heavy on this day. I got a two liter water po...

January 4th would be my first foray into the outdoors for the new year. I had a new scope on Peach, which is actually designed for a .22 rimfire, and is adjustable between 4x and 9x. I needed to get it zeroed so I headed back up to the Whitewater GMA to get it accomplished. It was a beautiful, warm day at 38 degrees. As I approached my normal GMA parking spot, I noticed that someone else was already there. So I went looking for a different spot that would be suitable.  I found the right spot not too far down the road, but again I found the Rules Sign that forbade target shooting. Well, it seemed irresponsible to hunt with an un-zeroed scope. I wasn't looking to wound an animal after all. So I went ahead and hiked into a good spot. paced off about 50 yards, and took a few shots.  I got it zeroed in nine shots, and I figured it would be better to apologize to the WMA people for that than to apologize for crippling a squirrel. After a quick zero, I drove north a bit to a ni...

In my initial visit to Whitewater back in October, the nice lady at the visitor center had told me that the nearby WMA was just over 3,000 acres. As I was perusing WMA information I discovered that she had been talking about the Whitewater North Unit . The Main Unit is around 21,000 acres! On the 18th of December I decided to explore some of the 3,000 acre North Unit. This is a repost of my experiences that I wrote about on www.mydogshoba.com. Adventures in Learning to Hunt On December 18th, I skinned my first squirrel. Also on December 18th, I did not fire my rifle. Also, I've never shot a squirrel. How can all this be possible? It was an odd day. So, to start out, I headed off to the woods after dropping my daughter at school. The day started off well, as I walked the border of the woods and the cornfield, I flushed a grouse that flew off over a small rise. I noted where it set down and excitedly clicked the selector on the hammer of my Savage 24D over to the shotgun ...

It was a foggy morning that greeted me on December 13th. There were delicate crystals on everything. I headed back to Rock Dell to explore the part I hadn't been able to a couple days before. It was beautiful. The sun peeked out from time to time lighting up the landscape like sparkles off a lake. I was hiking to the woods across the prairie area, reflecting on my wish to see some mammals today, when suddenly I spotted a little mouse down in a deer hoof print. It was frozen.I set it on top of the snow. perhaps some fox or hawk would appreciate a frozen treat. Well. I had seen a mammal. I guess I'd need to be even more specific. I climbed into an oakey area with lots of squirrel sign and settled in again. And more deer beds. Fortunately, it was a beautiful - if chilly - day to spend time outside. I left the woods empty handed again, and would get even more specific with my prayers. How about a squirrel mammal, or a rabbit mammal. I mean, c'mon.  Tw...