SpinnerMan 2023-2024 Log

[5 stand]

It was just a figure of speech, sorry I replied dude...

[5 stand]

Bow hunted for 18 years before I started duck hunting, every time you pull a bow back it could go terribly wrong, it's the nature of the beast...

[SpinnerMan]

It was just a figure of speech, sorry I replied dude...

Don't be sorry. I get it is very cool in a way. Just when it happened, it shocked me. I couldn't believe how quick he moved and how what looked like an easy shot turned into a deer with an arrow in his head.

[5 stand]

When I read your story, it reminded me of a buck that I shot with a rifle... When rifle hunting I hunt high in a stand like 30 ft sometimes... Had this Buck slip in on me and he was less than 10 yd coming slightly quartering at me... I pulled down on him with a rifle scope, put the crossroads right between the neck and crease in the shoulder and pull the trigger... He hit the ground and started bleating, I thought what the heck is going on, shot him again to put him out of his misery... Ended up shooting him right below the eyes right through his nose and part of the bullet hit his neck and put him down right there... He had to have turned his head and I just didn't realize it in the field of view of that scope...Oddest thing that's ever happened to me while deer hunting...

[Deltaman]

Their reflexes are amazingly fast for sure, and it had to be perfect to penetrate that skull. Good eats Spinner, Congrats!!!!!

[SpinnerMan]

A fryer. Or, as a buddy likes to call 'em, a "sammich deer".

BTW, the deer weighed 75 lbs field dressed. Probably bigger than a doe in LA

Where I got that one, we have to check them out. They have a new person working there who does not know what she is doing.

She said "female" just out loud as she was filling out the form.

I told her it was a male and she seemed confused

Then she said 1.5 years old.

I had to tell he it was a young of the year.

He was a baby, but a big baby which is why I shot him. I've shot them a lot smaller, but I think I'm done shooting the ones that go in your game pouch. I think.

[Rick]

A fryer. Or, as a buddy likes to call 'em, a "sammich deer".

BTW, the deer weighed 75 lbs field dressed. Probably bigger than a doe in LA

Perhaps you're thinking of South Florida.

Just got out of the rain and too lazy to dig through my sorry file system for a bigger one:

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[SpinnerMan]

A fryer. Or, as a buddy likes to call 'em, a "sammich deer".

BTW, the deer weighed 75 lbs field dressed. Probably bigger than a doe in LA

Perhaps you're thinking of South Florida.

Just got out of the rain and too lazy to dig through my sorry file system for a bigger one:

IMG_2388a.jpg

I hunted public land in north Georgia where we had to check deer. My buddy shot a 2.5 year old buck that only weighed 95 lbs field dressed. The biggest buck weighed at these sites were 125 lbs. It depends a lot on the soil and the food quality so there can be a lot of local variation, especially in the south.

[SpinnerMan]

BTW, how far south in Florida are you talking? They are a whole lot smaller way south in Florida.

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I really wanted to see some Key Deer since I had never seen any the few times I had been in the keys. So last time I asked somebody, well duh, I should have known. This picture was taking while driving along Key Deer Blvd. Where else would you go to see Key Deer?

Key Deer Blvd on Big Pine Key. Drive it at sunrise or sunset and you will see them like this.

[5 stand]

[SpinnerMan]

Date: November 26 (Wondering around in the snow)

Hunters: Myself

Location: JTA Area 6 & 1

Been doing a fair amount of deer hunting. Passed on a doe. I drew a shotgun permit at a premium spot, so didn't want to use it on a doe on the second day. Illinois has a first and second season for shotgun, this permit is good for both. Have yet to even get a "shooter" on my camera this year. Usually see some impressive deer on the trail cam and often while archery hunting, but just not able to close the deal. We got a couple inches of snow Sunday so I decided to do a little small game hunting / scouting / just enjoy wondering around in the woods in the snow.

I saw a lot of pheasant tracks. That really makes me miss having a dog. I did actually see a pheasant, but didn't get a shot. Squirrel tracks everywhere, but didn't see or hear a squirrel all morning

Pulled a couple cameras and was very disappointed with what I saw. The spot where I got the button buck had a lot of doe on it and one buck that had the minimum of 4 on one side that this place requires, but a young one with a lot of potential. I'd rather use my permit on a doe. This is a new spot I started hunting this year and it has a ton of doe and small buck. Where are the big guys, they should be where the girls are this time of year. I do think I've found a great spot and am guessing the mature buck are in the thicker stuff. I know where I'm going to put up some cameras next year. It's too close to nearby buildings to shotgun hunt or I would have moved my stand.

If they come by like this and I'm still hunting Sunday, mommy's in trouble.

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Wonder around when it is snowing is something I love doing. Doesn't matter if I get anything or not. Just very pretty and peaceful to be out with a little snow on the ground and some more coming down. According to my step counter, I walked about 4.5 miles in the snow.

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[SpinnerMan]

Date: December 2 (Another one lives)

Hunters: Myself

Location: JTA Area 3

I think I have finally come to grips with the fact that God Almighty has decided I am not to shoot a decent buck in the state of Illinois. It started out as rookie mistakes. That happens. After I worked through pretty much every rookie mistake you can make on antlered deer. Then I got into the malfunctions. Pin sights knocked off. My messed up shoulder won't let me draw on a buck at 15 yards.

Saturday was the unexplainable. I'm guessing I knocked my scope off at some point.

A few minutes after shooting time I noticed a buck in the distance. Absolutely no doubt it was a mature buck before I saw the antler. A big and muscular deer. Maybe in the 200 lb range. But man was it still dark. Heavy low clouds. A deer has to have a minimum of 4 points on one side at this place.

I can see the main beams, heavy, long. Big rack, but not record book or anything like that. But I can only see the right side and I can't see any tines. I keep watching him. He's moving slowly through the field. After a couple minutes, I still can't see any tines on the right, but damn he's a good deer. He turns and heading more my direction. Now I can see the left side. OK, he's got 2 tines, does he have a brow tine? Keep watching, yep, 100%, 4 points on the left. Not very big or heavy tines and I still don't see any on the right, so pretty sure they are broke off, but I don't care. This is a very good buck. But I have no shot where he is at.

He stops for awhile. I don't know if he's feeding or what he is doing, but I can see him flicking his tail through the brush. He starts moving again slowly, now I can see him through thin enough brush to see him, but still don't have a shot, but he's heading in a good direction. I get turned and situated. Get my gun on my shooting stick. I just have to wait and hope he keeps moving in the direction that he is.

Another minute or so, he steps into a clear shooting lane. Stops, broad side, 50 yards, kind of looking my direction. I settle the crosshairs where I want them. He should drop on the spot with a 12 gauge slug.

Boom, he reacts like he's not hit. Trots off, looks back a couple times, then finally disappears into the woods about 150 yards away. At that point, I am pretty sure I missed.

I wait awhile, climb down from my stand. Go to the spot he was standing. Not a drop of blood, not a hair. I slowly and carefully follow the trail to where he disappeared, again, not a drop of blood, not a hair. No idea which way he went in the woods. Did a grid search for an hour or so. Nothing. Seriously. WTF!

I guess on the plus side. My buddy found a great spot. I'm definitely going to hang a stand in the woods where that deer went next year. It had poured on Friday all day. The amount of fresh tracks was unbelievable. It's going to take some work to clear shooting lines and if we get normal rain next year, I'll have to cross a swamp to get to it which is probably why it's not hunted.

I have shot or should have shot about 10 antlered deer in Illinois. The only one I got was the smallest one with about half his rack busted off. Barely enough antler left to count as an antlered deer. I have got a decent number of antlerless deer and before the crossbow (pretty sure malfunctioning mechanical broadheads), I hadn't let one get away since the first year I started hunting in Illinois. Rookie mistakes on shooting down from a tree stand, quickly corrected. Even got lucky on a couple where things could have went badly and instead turned into quick kills. Antlered deer, complete opposite. Big, little, they all get away save one little busted rack deer.

The others really bummed me out. This did at first too, but now I'm more just resigned. It's not like I can do anything differently.

[Rick]

Ain't nothing that seasons success like earlier frustration. Brace yourself for eventual sensory overload.

[SpinnerMan]

Ain't nothing that seasons success like earlier frustration.

It's very well seasoned at this point.

[Deltaman]

Frustrating, but at least it didn't run off crippled, and you have a new area to hunt in.

[SpinnerMan]

Date: December 9 (Gina's coldest hunt)

Hunters: Myself & Gina

Time: Evening

Location: B&G Blind 15

Weather Conditions: Cold for Gina(40 F), mostly cloudy, ~10 mph wind with gusts probably in the 20's.

Waterfowl Activity: A lot of geese moving from the time we set up until time expired

Gina wanted to get out one more time before heading to Florida. Duck hunting has just been terrible and I didn't want to drag her out into the cold and see nothing. Goose activity had picked up a lot in the area. So Saturday I decided to give it ago. We saw 3 ducks, but the geese kept it interesting. A good thing because it was damp and cold and windy. But she perked up every time geese were in the air which was most of the time so few comments about the cold and no real complaints.

We had a couple nice sized flocks pass by just a little too far. Only had one bird show any interest, but couldn't break him from the flock. If we would have set up in either of the two blinds to the east, we would have got a good bit of pass shooting. But more importantly Gina had fun in pretty cold conditions. It helped I had just bought a new fleece mask that is really freaking warm.

Birds By Species: DNS

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[Deltaman]

Good move on the fleece facemask Ed, and I'm impressed that she will get out there with you

[5 stand]

Good luck on your Maryland trip, hope the star align as they say...

[SpinnerMan]

Date: January 15 (Chesapeake Bay Maryland)

Hunters: Myself, Jeff, and John (Guide: Hunter)

Time: Morning

Location: Tilghman Island

Weather Conditions: About freezing, light wind, cloudy with some snow flurries.

Waterfowl Activity: Saw a wide variety of waterfowl, good numbers including some big rafts of birds

Lots of birds came by either quickly or at marginal range. We made a lot of bad choices. We are all used to hunting mallards and Canadas and waited too much for everybody to have a shot instead of taking what was given. On top of that I missed two scoters, one was probably a surf and other was a black because at least we got that after I whiffed. Neither species I've gotten yet.

We saw a lot of old squaw including a lot of nice drakes. They would stay just wide and many landed between 50 and 80 yards of the pontoon blind. We had a huge flock of bluebills get up and come our way in bunches. I had about 30 land where the closest I could have shot off of my end, but with all the birds coming towards us, I didn't want to blow it for everybody. They drifted out of range and more landed with them. Then a flock of maybe 50 gave us not quite close enough pass. Finally we had another group buzz us and I chipped the drake and he finally bled out about 100 yards away.

Overall it was a fun hunt. I did get the first ruddy duck I've ever seen while hunting and actual was pretty positive on the ID before I shot it. I ended up with that, a hen buffie, and a nice drake bluebill.

Curses: Getting out of the O'hare. Our 11:15AM flight departed at 5:26PM By the time we landed, got our bags, the rental car, and drove to our hotel. I ended up getting about 4 hours sleep. I'll use that as my excuse for less than stellar shooting.

Birds By Species: 2 ruddy ducks, 3 bufflehead, 2 old squaw, 1 bluebill, and 1 black scoter

Photo Ops:

My birds.

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Everybody's birds.

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[Duck Engr]

Nice start to the trip!

Don’t think I’ve ever been through ohare without a delay!

[SpinnerMan]

Don’t think I’ve ever been through ohare without a delay!

I fly out of there probably an average of 6 or more times per year. While most times go smooth, they do seem to have far more than their fair share of delays. Yesterday was a complete train wreck. It wasn't just us, everybody was delayed. Their fuel trucks were crapping out in the -10F weather. Come on, it's freaking Chicago. This is an annual occurrence. That was the last 3 hours of our delay. The first 3 hours was the plane from Traverse City, MI never got there, finally they got another plane, then the crew timed out. I by chance was next to a guy on that flight. What pissed me off is that, they bumped our plane departure 20 minutes, then 20 minutes, then 20 minutes ... So we hung by the gate the whole damn day.

[SpinnerMan]

Date: January 16 (Chesapeake Bay Maryland)

Hunters: Myself, Jeff, and John (Guides: Hunter then Nick)

Time: Morning

Location: Tilghman Island

Weather Conditions: About freezing, light wind to strong wind, cloudy light to moderate rain.

Waterfowl Activity: Lots of old squaw not interest in us until we swapped with a nearby group that had limited in a layout, fair number of scoter, and a few other varieties.

Fairly early we had a pair of scoters do it right. I dropped one on my first shot and we let the other one get out. Had a lot of old squaw around squawking all around us but they just had no interest except a small hen that plopped in the decoys first thing and we let her go in peace. A little later a single scoters came in beautiful, Jeff and John took care of business. Then just the old squaw flying almost non stop in singles to small groups, sometimes landing just out of range mostly showing us no mind.

Then another guide hunting nearby in a layout had his guys limit on old squaw so we swapped with them. Jeff and John went up first. It had slowed down quite a bit. They got a couple Then weather started moving in. He asked if I wanted to jump in for the last 15 minutes or so. I said "no." Then Jeff and John managed to finish their limit and the weather hadn't come in as fast as expected, so I decided to give it a go for as long as the weather permitted. Which wasn't a very long time.

We started taking waves over the back of the layout. Always wear rain gear. Thankfully. I did take a little down the neck. That will wake you up. Then we took a big wave over the back. I sat up and saw how much water we had in the layout. John was with me in the layout and we decided it was probably best to call it before we filled the layout.

Curses: Nothing I would consider a curse. Just waterfowling. If you don't want to be wet and cold pick another hobby.

Birds By Species: 1 surf scoter, 1 black scoters, 7 old squaw

Photo Ops:

We got a few inches of snow overnight.

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You almost always get some water in the layout, but this was a bit much.

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Not a bad pile. Only 2 were mine, but can't complain about the day.

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[Duck Engr]

Glad you’ve been in some birds! Reads like a fine waterfowling experience.

[5 stand]

Glad you’ve been in some birds! Reads like a fine waterfowling experience.

I agree, I've never hunted on the East Coast, bucket list for me...

[Rick]

Should you find yourself in Chestertown, give the Wharf's crab bisque a kiss for me.

[Deltaman]

Glad you are killing some birds! Cool double layout too, but yeh, you had enough water in there to sweep away the comfort factor

[SpinnerMan]

Date: January 17 (Chesapeake Bay Maryland)

Hunters: Myself, Jeff, and John (Guide: Hunter)

Time: Morning

Location: Tilghman Island

Weather Conditions: Started the day around 19 F, not sure it got warmer, but it was windy too. Clear skies.

Waterfowl Activity: Disappointing. We saw a small fraction of what we saw the other two days.

With the stronger wind and rougher seas, we hunted out of the back of the big white boat. I know people do this for sea ducks, but it seems completely counter to ever thing we try to do as puddle duck hunters. However, we've all seen videos of lots of sea gulls behind a fishing boat. Sea ducks do the same. The oyster trawlers in the area stir everything up and the sea ducks will come in for the easy pickings. While we did not see many waterfowl, a better than expected fraction came right into the decoys. I think we had 4 scoters decoy perfectly right at the back of the boat. 2 we got. 2 took a lickin' and kept on tickin'. I missed one hen old squaw that should have been an easy shot, well as easy as there is off a rocking boat. I stood to shoot, but just as a wave and I end up back in my chair. I miss sort of standing and one miss sitting Also missed some bluebills skirting the edge of the spread. I did get one though. One bird that everybody thinks of when they travel to the Chesapeake to hunt

Curses: I think the cold wind kept boats off the water so the birds mostly sat. We jumped a good bunch of scoters heading back to the dock.

Otherwise it was a beautiful, albeit very cold, day on the bay.

Birds By Species: 1 surf scoter, 1 black scoters, 1 coot

Photo Ops:

My prize.

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First actual sunrise over the bay and it was a good one.

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Just a little cold on the water so we put out the very rare icehead scoter decoys.

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Saw a few eagles which I always enjoy.

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[SpinnerMan]

Date: January 19 (First Good Winter Goose Hunt in Awhile)

Hunters: Myself, Niko, John, Mike

Time: Morning through early afternoon

Location: MU #1

Weather Conditions: Cold (~10 F), windy, and mostly sunny

Waterfowl Activity: Pretty steady action from around 9 - 11 a bit of a lull for about an hour and then it picked back up until we were got what the law allows. Surprisingly didn't see a duck until we were back in the clubhouse parking lot.

Definitely late season goose hunting with a little too much wind. A lot of the flocks would hang and hang and inspect every decoy, even got busted by a few, but with plenty of birds we had plenty of opportunities on a lot of working birds.

The best flock of the day. There was about 15 birds or so a few hundred yards southeast doing their normal checking us out thing, but I got two to pull away. Then they started to rejoin the flock. I pulled them away again. Did this for awhile until I finally got everybody coming our way. They hooked down wind and spread out in a long line and just came in slowly and as beautiful as could be. Niko and I each got 2, Mike got hung up getting out of the blind and got 1. John, he didn't shoot.

John was just enjoying being out with us. "You guys can shoot" I wanted him to get his birds. I've shot plenty of geese. I don't need to shoot somebody else's especially since he has never shot a goose before. So Niko headed back to the truck for something. Mike hunts a lot and I told him I really want John to shoot some birds. A pair snuck in on us when we weren't paying attention. They came over the top and I was going to shoot them behind us because I thought they were not coming back. I accidently grabbed somebody else's gun, couldn't find the safe, and never got a shot. But the birds didn't see me. They hooked around and I coaxed them back in. And with the strong wind they came in so slow. Not very far off the ground. John had a perfect view of them. Mike and I just waited and waited and waited and they got closer and closer and closer and finally John had enough and shot them both That made my day more than the birds I shot.

Just an absolutely great day. Days like this are why I come back up from Florida to hunt in 10 degree weather.

Curses: About as close to a perfect day as you could get.

Birds By Species: 12 Canadas

Photo Ops:

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[5 stand]

What a Mighty Fine Hunt, enjoyed reading that...

[Duck Engr]

What a Mighty Fine Hunt, enjoyed reading that...

That makes 2 of us!