Well we have had two days of torrential rain keeping me for continuing my quest with my bow... I re spooled my sailfish and sword outfits and even added a couple to the collection. Now what to do? So I sat there thinking of something to kill some time with and came up with this...
No its not some flowing glowing description of nirvana. Its not some "hurry up and get here" secret revealed. Its a look at what I get to hunt in. Not better than what you have north of here. Just different, and I thought I'd share some of it with you.
The Road In
Yeah we all have bumpy dirt roads to deal with in order to get to our spots. This place isn't much different but some things are. Though its supposed to be shell rock road ours is mostly rocks and sugar sand. When the stuff is wet its is axle eating rough and when its dry the stuff is worse than snow. If you get on the brakes you will become part of the furniture and sink to your doors in the powder. Now its not just the condition of the road but how much of it we have. Just getting to the management area is five miles of it. Pock marked from kids on their atvs and go carts, its a place you gotta read every inch.
Then you get to the check station. Here we have a friendly keeper and usually a couple wildlife officers or biologists hanging around. This little log cabin has the count list posted out front next to the scale and a bunch of interesting displays to educate the public. Mini always yells "Ewwww" when she sees the one of jawbones that they use as a guide to determine the age of the deer in there.
From the check station there is roughly thirty miles of main road to the other end of the property. Its huge! Some is reserved for still hunting. Some for bow only. But most at least during the general season is open to swamp buggies and dogs. The land if you want to call it that varries. My main spot is pretty wet. Sawgrass, knee deep water, and stip islands best describes it.
You can drive to a place about a half mile from my stand.
Then you get out and its hot. Stiffling hot...
Here we hunt in shorts, t-shirt and sunglasses... I cary a little tripod seat and start hinking down the powerline toward my spot. Along the way the water is just short of the top of my redballs... Then I hit some higher ground where the water is only a couple inches deep... Aha! A piggie track...
They are tough to see but in the shallow water spots they appear as slightly darker spots with raised edges. In the deeper water they appear white wwhere the little piggie feet have pressed through the settled vegetation to the sand below...
I follow the tracks to my spot. Along the way though I need to go slow. First so I don't make noise. Second because I don't want to step on a gator, cottonmouth, or one that often is overlooked... A catfish. They have venom filled spines that will go through a boot in a blink and ruin your day in a big way...
This my "spot A" has an island about thirty yards across sawgrass for my right shooting lane. Its here I took my biggest pig, several others and a couple deer over the years...
The left shooting lane is a small strip of some dry and some wet with several cut throughs. This side has barfed up most of the deer I ever took from the area. Before you get excited about "numbers" of deer, understand that if I get three shots in a whole year its a good year. The remember that a 75lb buck is considered big and a 100lb one a "monster"
Behind me, there is a third shooting lane but in twenty years I have seen little come down it other than otters and racoons...
Loke many places, spot "A" is a hearing hunt. Loud bugs and frogs can make that hard but with all the water the telltale "splooshes" can be heard plainly...
In there you want your shot to be a good one. With all that water its tough to find a blood trail. Deer you shoot like anywhere else but the piggies you really need to think about the shot. You want behind the ribs quartering away. If you go for lungs or shoulder there is a gristle plate 2-6 inches thick that will stop the finest shafts and sharpest steel long before it reaches anything imprtant...
In tomorrows installment. I'll talk about the "B" and "C" spots and how they differ from this one...
I dont see any turkeys in spot "A" but spot "C" and "D" holds some... When I get to spot "C" I'll relate the story of a turkey hunt to remember in there...
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