MS Snow/Hunting day(1st hunt with my baby girl)
I have worked rather hard all year and I've not been able to do much hunting so I took a week off this January. I hunted fairly hard that weekend and ended up coming home empty handed. The weather man predicted a 2nd snow for the year by Tuesday evening. I had planned to get in the stand early Tuesday morning and stay all day, but I decided to take Lizzy to school 1st then go get in the stand mid-morning. I got Lizzy to school only to be informed that I would need to be back by noon to pick her up... Disgusted with the early closing I decided to pack an all day bag for Lizzy and take her with me.
Lizzy jumped at the chance to go hunting with me, we gathered blankets, breakfast, snacks, a 2 liter drink and her tablet. By the time we arrived to the hunting club the weather was in the low teens and the wind was not forgiving. I couldn't chance the 2 mile ride via atv up and down trails with Lizzy and the rest of the stuff. I decided to drive to a gas pipeline that runs through our property. We made the short drive down the pipeline to the box house and started making our nest for the day. The stand roughly 10ft in the air, had open windows and was recessed on the edge of a pine row. I layered the floor with a blanket, put Lizzy down, piled heat packs along where she was laying, and covered her in two more blankets. I made her a warm pillow out of a fleece jacket of mine and propped her tablet up with YouTube streaming at a low volume. Finally by 9am we were settled.
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I poured us some drinks, we ate doughnuts, sausage wraps, and chips, then we watched cartoons. Around 10:27 am I saw a nice young buck come running across the pipeline to work a scrape. I told Lizzy to cover her ears, she said I got em covered dad... I watched the buck slow his trot and then I let my 25 year old 7mm-08 model 7 do its best. The buck did as countless others before him, I knew he would be laying just in the woods.
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I load 140 grain seirra game kings, with 40 grains of Varget, cci primers. These rounds have been far more effective than the factory ammo, and the increased accuracy is a plus. I've had this little gun since I was about 6 and it's still my 'go to' rifle for hunting.
Lizzy and I got down from the stand, packed our supplies out on the Kodiak 400. We sat in the pathfinder a while to warm up, the drove to a access road further down to get closer to where the deer was laying in the woods.
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I bundled Lizzy up and found 1st blood, from then I had her trail him. She was spot on, she pointed out the blood trail as we moved in the pines, after about thirty yards the blood was gone, we turned to our left and under some brush there the lay a big 6 point. Excited, Lizzy started shouting 'a deer' dad, 'a deer'... We made our drag out, I would take Lizzy a few yards, then drag the buck, over and over until we got him loaded on the Kodiak.
Lizzy didn't get to help skin him, and we lacked on photos as the cold killed my cell battery and Lizzy was freezing by now.
The snow came, and I brought a tub of snow inside on the tile for Lizzy to play with while she stayed warm.
