Fish On!!!

On Tuesday I had the opportunity to drive up to Elk Creek in NW Pennsylvania and fish for steelhead. The water level was up from the recent rain and a lot of fresh fish had moved in from the lake. I went with my good buddy Ryan Gebfert and we had a great time. We probably hooked into close to 15 fish and landed 7. The biggest fish weighed 6 pounds. All of the fish were caught on some type of white egg patteren or succer spawn. We are only allowed to keep 3 fish a day but that still gave me 6 nice fillets!

Wild Season!!!!!!!

So. Far this season I have missed three deer Including the deer of a live time a week ago. This though today was the best day that I have ever experianced out at the property. I seen about 16 deer Including 5 bucks of which three would have been shoters. I'm hoping that tomarrow will bring better aim.

Baby Low's new toys!

My parents were in town this last weekend to go to the Pitt game with us and my dad bought us some sweet little hunting and fishing figures for the baby. Let's be honest, they are really for me! Baby Low would probably just swallow them and drop them in a juicy deuce. Now when I can't get out into the woods, I can at least pretend like I am hunting and fishing. That's the next best thing.

My New Toy

A few months ago I entered into a raffle with a local gun club. To my surprise, I received a call last Tuesday night informing me that I won a new gun. It's a Henry lever action 22. I have always wanted a lever action and this is a great gun one to have. It's known for its butter smooth action and accuracy out of the box. I was able to shoot it on my way home from the gun store and it shot great. I only shot it at 25 yards but the groups were all about an inch. This last weekend squirrel season opened and I took old Henry out in the woods with me. I shot this squirrel scurrying across the tops of the trees in gully. Ryan Gebfert and I skinned it up and are going to try and tan the hide. Hopefully it turns out better than the squirrel Kenny and I tried to tan in high school. Kenny and I nailed it to a board, salted it, and left it there. That squirrel is still nailed to the same piece of wood in my parents garage back home and is as hard as a rock. My dad and brother are coming into town this weekend and we are going to head back up to the range to do some more target shooting.

Pittsburgh Buck

I finally got a buck after hunting for all these years. I had killed a small mule deer buck a few years back but never a whitetail buck. This is my first one! Ya Baby! We have a number of stands set up on the property we hunt near my house here in Pittsburgh. Today I decided to sit in a stand that is on the back of the property near train tracks. You have to walk up a draw to get to the stand and it sits on the side of a big hill. The stand is in a perfect location because it is right on a funnel the deer have to travel through. Right behind the stand is a large, dense thicket and 10 yards in front of the stand is a cliff that drops off so the deer only have one trail to walk down if they want to traverse the ridge.
At 7:05 am I started to hear something rustling in the leaves off to my right. It was dark enough still that I couldn't see very far away. Then I saw the big boy walking down the trail right toward me. I got my crossbow up and ready and waited for the buck to come into my shooting lane. When he was about 5 yards from me he froze and looked straight up at me. I don't know if he got wind of me or saw me, but he turned around and took a couple of quick steps back in the direction he came in. Luckily, he stopped and looked back up at me. I released my arrow and it struck right behind and above the right shoulder and exited underneath the left shoulder and stuck in the ground. He sprinted off about 40 yards or so up the hill, stopped, and then I heard him crash and roll about 20 yards down the hill until his rack hung up on small sappling. That's when I knew I had him. I waited about twenty minutes and then went over to check out my buck. He had a bigger body than I thought but his rack was just average size. I had seen two much bigger bucks the year before and my buddy Ryan Gebfert shot at a bigger racked 8 pointer the week before, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity before me. Especially since I am battling with the baby deadline of November 29th.
Well, to say the least, I was ecstatic with the hunt. I was only in my stand for an hour, it was 5 minutes past legal shooting time, and I got the deer back home before Keri had even gotten out of bed. Now the pressure is on Leroy (Kenny) to earn back the right of "the deer slayer". I do believe that this buck is bigger than Kenny's "miniature" baby buck from last year. HA!!!!!
Good luck to the rest of you this deer season!
Get R' Done,
Bryant

So far the deer are winning the battles hopefully I can win the war!!!!!

Well this is the fourth time that the does have come out of the same location and not given me a shot. This time I went a head and took aim and tried a farther shot then i would have normally taken. This was mostly out of fustration this year looks to be a more difficult year then those in the past for me. I have seen no Bucks in all the deer that I have seen. I hope that as october goes on that the deer will get more active. This week I will be at Bob Evan's Farm festival so this was the last day of hunting this week. Good luck to all you weekend warriors.

Second Time out for the 2008 season!!!!!

Well yesterday was the second chance that I had to get some back strap. Only problem this time was getting the deer to come in close enough. Three does and 9am tuesday morning stayed out at about 60 yards. Just a little lond of a shoot for me and my crossbows comfort. I'm just glade some cooler weather is hear and the deer seem to be reacting to it with some movement.