Mid-March at Long Ridge

Several weeks ago I took a picture of this beautiful Red Fox from our kitchen window. He is about 50 yards behind the house just beyond the garden hunting mice in a pasture. We watch him (or her) all winter pounce on big fat voles down through feet of snow. Even with hard crusts they jam their snouts down through it and manage to catch them. I could see the shine on this one's coat, and fox are in season, but hey, they whelp out this month, so I won't. I do worry for the one lone free ranging chicken we have left though. ( It's the hawks that really do them!)

This is what we call the Overlook. It is on the opposite end of the property from the Far Ridge, faces East, and would be an extraordinary view if I logged off in front of it. We ATV, hike, or snowmobile up there and have fires, and lunch sometimes. During deer season I strap a seat on a maple just over the edge and it makes a great stand looking out over a nice open hardwood draw..

Today, as usual I walked the dogs up one of our main snowmobile trails. If this weather keeps up, it will be too muddy in a few weeks. You can see where this year around brook has finally busted out through two feet of snow. This snow trail won't be back this spring unless we get a late March blizzard, (don't bet that we won't!) and actually even in April and early May we have been wacked. But the sledding season is OVER. Now it is hiking alone, until mud season is over.

On this mornings walk we passed under the Mid Stand whick looks out over the Far Field. It is a good stand, and I have taken great deer from it. It's drawback is that it is quite exposed and you cannot even twitch in this stand or you will be had. You can see that the floor of the stand is quite crooked and I will fix that this summer. It's like that because I put this up last July, all alone. I was twenty feet up, trying to hang this 35 pound base with one hand while I drilled holes for lag bolts to wrench it tight to the tree. It was about 80 degrees and very humid, and when I assessed the job I had done I was too beat to fix it then. Never got around to it, and stood on it like this when I arrowed a deer in October. We'll get it changed...

These two purebred Shelties are the dogs you do NOT want to take for walks in the woods if you want to see anything. They bark, herd my poor old Lab, race around like the nutcakes they are, and I am sure can be heard for miles. In fact I know they can, because often in the fall when I am way out on stand I can hear their barking as far as the Far Ridge. But they are smart, neat dogs, both rescues from smokey, small urban apartments. They can hardly believe they live on a farm now, with real sheep and fields to run on. The physically abused one (Blue Merle on the right) has almost forgotten her pain. They are happy!

Update on the Winchester model 70's - I did spend an afternoon last Monday on the PD range, and shot both rifles.
The wooden stocked Featherweight I shot with Federal Premium 125 grain (remember I want this as a varmint gun) PowerShocks. With it's seven pound factory trigger pull the best I could do was 1 1/4 groups.
I hadn't touched this stock gun until now, and that is as good as it shoots with any load. I decided that this gun needs trigger work first, so when I got back to Deer Camp, I adjusted it down to 3 pounds. We'll shoot it again with the same loads, and see what a difference if any that makes. Remember I am sticking with the same load in an attempt to wring best accuracy. When the gun has achieved that, THEN we'll seach/load up the best round for the rifle.

The Macmillan stocked Winlite also is completely stock, though if you recall I took the stock off and removed a bubble that was in contact with the side of the barrel, sanded it down, and refit the action at 45 inch pounds. With a stock trigger weight of just under 5 pounds I started off with Federal Premium 180 grain Barnes Triple Shock X. I was amazed! Just the small bubble removed from the stock gave me an immediate 1 inch group with this factory load. I was able to reproduce this group several times. I then took both rifles home and as above, adjusted the trigger down to three pounds. Can't wait to hit the range again. I have had that rifle for twenty years, and never, with any load, has it shot better than an inch and a quarter!. I'll keep you posted.

Last item, this week Fish and Game bulletined that everyone should take in their bird feeders, because the bears are out in force and marauding them. They haven't hit us yet, but got a house in the neighborhood about three miles away. Usually we have til about April 1st before they break out of hibernation, so that illustrates what an easy and short winter we've had... Jack

Above is Long Ridge Deer Camp as you read this. But don't get the wrong idea! Today it will get to nearly forty degrees, and we will lose a lot of this snow. The sheep were sheared yesterday, and we are counting on low temperatures of 28 degrees. T-shirt weather!

Today at Deer Camp it was forty degrees in the sun at 1 PM! Imagine that...I spent the afternoon snowmobiling and packing trails before I put the sleds back inside our trailer. Typically in the winter, I load snow into a bay in the machinery barn, pack it with the tractor, and this is where the winter machines you see above will park. Fire them up, and go. But by this time of the year if we get a warm spell like this week, the snow starts to melt and they'd be sitting on dirt if not moved. In the morning now, we can walk the dogs on the trails through the fields and woods, and not break through. They are hard as cement in the morning. But by 1 PM, they start to get soft and hard to walk on. The picture you see above is a trip we took up to the Far Ridge, about a mile from Deer Camp. Lots of snow up there, but even in the near field this evening there was 21 inches of snow waiting to melt. Seems strange since this was a low snowfall winter...we never even went on a real snowmobile trip because of the scarcity of snow on the trails.

Since this blog is primarily about deer hunting, I will say that the winter has been particularly kind to the Whitetails. They are used to surviving way more snow and cold than they were exposed to this winter and they are looking pretty good. The coldest temperature at the house over winter was 7 degrees below zero, way warmer than most winters. If we don't get one of those typical late March blizzards that dump another twenty inches, the deer will be fine.

Deer Camp is still packed in with snow so not much in the way of projects going on, but I have assembled another twenty foot ladder stand, and a hanger for placement next summer.

Still working on the Winchesters to see what they can improve to for group, and today I used a trigger pull gauge I borrowed from the PD armory to measure trigger pull. The wood stocked Featherweight you saw in the previous blog pulled about 7 pounds! No wonder it won't group better than 1 3/4! The Winlite 70 pulled at 4 3/4 pounds. Funny, because I couldn't feel much difference between them, Not terrible, but I will get the needed wrenches and adjust both to about three pounds..

Above is my snowmobile in front of Deer Camp. This is a short lived sight this time of year, though in New Hampshire, ANY time in March you can get 20 inches of snow and -5 degrees. The deer don't like that, and neither do we!

This is looking out of Deer Camp doorway, and the snowbank you see is what had slid off the roof. Today I rode my Ribicon out on the snowmobile trails, and when I strayed off, I bogged helplessly down. Bottomed out, but within walking distance of the machinery barm. Jumped on a second one and hauled mine out. I measured the snowpack there and it was nineteen iches. It's going fast though!

The Dead of Winter - Long Ridge

  Well, it is the second week of February everywhere, and in New Hampshire, this is what we call the dead of winter. Normally this time of year sees a ton of snow, and  cold. This year we have the cold, but little snow. The trails are mostly bare which means the snowmobiles are stationary. Very unusual...The cold we have plenty of. It is near zero or below every night, and the days are lucky to see high teens or twenty. Even our fastest brooks and widest rivers including the Connecticut are frozen solid. I love the old adage "running water never freezes"..

Oh, really? Our very waterfalls are a solid cascade of ice. Our dashing brooks are frozen solid in the layers of flow that they struggled to maintain, the ice flows from rock outcroppings along the highways are fabulous in their beauty...

But it gets old...without snow, brown dirt at 5 degrees looks down right depressing. So we put together 'winter projects' that may last well into summer. Here are some that are underway at Long Ridge Deer Camp..

Below you see two model 70 Winchester Featherweights in 30-06. The walnut stocked one on top sports a Leupold 3.5x10, and the MacMillan stocked one below carries a 1 3/4 x 5 Redfield Widefield scope. I use the lower one with the 1 3/4 power in our woods for deer and the upper one with the Leupold for smaller game such as Coyotes, etc. They are both sighted in at 100 yards,  the black one with 180 grain bullets, the wood stocked one for 150 grain bullets. Both, at their best, no matter the round (sans handloads) shoot 1 1/4 inch groups on a good day, 1 3/4 inch on a bad one. This winter's project is to get them to shoot 1 M.O.A. consistently by mid summer.

 I want to accomplish this task for very little money, since that will appeal to the most of you. I have never messed with these rifles, I have had them for years, I shot them right out of the box, and I want to say, that the present accuracy is totally adequate. These are the sweetest shooting rifles I have ever owned. Bolts as slick as honey, you point and shoot these babes and they always take game. It's almost uncanny how they are so forgiving. Put the crosshairs on it, and squeeze, and you own it. Simple as that. And firing the 30-06, they are good for anything on the continent. Anything.  So this is a cheap experiment to see what we can squeeze from them, if anything, without spending much money. The Walnut stocked 70 I will work with 125 grain bullets, factory loads, for the smaller game such as whitetails, and coyotes etc.  The Synthetic will be loaded with 180 grains, factory available loads only, good for all North American large game (though for grizzlies I would re-sight for 200/220 grains)

Above you can observe the two bores. They are rough. These rifles have been hammered over the years. I hunt with them, not show them. There are small nicks and dents all around the bores. For about fifty bucks I can have these bores crowned, and re-set. I won't do it until I have shot for groups without it so we will know what a change, if any, it made...

The 30-06 is not a terrible kicker, but there were days when I shot a hundred rounds at the range. This could be hard on the shoulder if you don't untilize a lead sled or some such device. I do have a magnum shoulder pad I utilize, but researched recoil pads on the market. Above you can see the hardened and unforgiving factory pads attached to my rifles. I've never minded them, but let's make it better! I have settled on the Limbsaver by Sims. Thirty seven bucks or so, and reports are that the felt recoil is unbelieveably attenuated. I'll let you know!

The walnut stock on the Winchester above is cracked, but when that happened it did not seem to effect accuracy, so I never worried about it. These barrels are not free floated, so there is a rise in the stock cut toward the muzzle end of the stock to put pressure on the barrel. I removed the actions from the stock, checked to see if all was well, and replaced, tightening stock action screws to 40 inch pounds each. The walnut stock was fine, the Macmillan stock had a bubble in the glass just to the left of the riser, and I removed this, smoothed the riser, and re-installed the action, again, tightening these screws to 40 inch pounds. This rifle always shot less than one inch groups, but ALWAYS threw a flyer out an inch or more. I wonder of it was this bubble on the left side of the riser, which a heating barrel would expand against, that caused this? We will see.

Just a picture above of my modest and un-organized work station in deer camp...not many or complicated tools needed for the work I do. I mostly need ammunition, not tools!

After I do all of the above, and achieve the best groups these rifles are capable of, I'll install, and sort out, and experiment with a Sims Laboratory barrel de-resonator. The factory claims these can drastically reduce groups. I'll report, you decide. If they do work, I am not sure what I'll do! I don't think I'll like the look of a rifle with one of these silly things around the barrel! And by the way, if your rifle has sights attached, don't bother. These won't fit!
After all of the above, should I decide that more needs to be done, a trigger job on each will happen. But that is real money, and I am hoping to tighten groups for just pocket change.

I will report on intial groups, and improvements (if any) with each change...I can't wait to get started! Jack

A Cold Hike at Longridge Deer Camp

 Winter is back here in the Connecticut Valley... -4 degrees this morning with twenty mile per hour winds, it was cold! Three inches of rain over the weekend left us with a foot loss of snow, and in the yard, we have next to nothing left. But today it actually went up to 8 degrees so I decided to take a hike in the heat of the day, up though a typical deer yard...I thought there was no snow, so I hiked without snowshows to my later regret. Below you see the Southern side of the Far Ridge...little snow. Lots of blowdown from last nights fierce winds..

Then you see the far Ridge Food Plot, on the North side of the ridge, with a good 14 inches of snow still there..not bad traveling because there was a crust that held me up pretty well.

Below is the tunnel we cut through our Christmas tree plantation last week. The deer love going through here, and we snowmobile though it. It reminds us of a tunnel cut through a huge Cedar swamp grove in Maine that we went through on a snowmobile trip some years ago. It was just like this but a mile long, and called the Love Tunnel...

While these pictures for some reason are not in order, at the end of my hike the sun had gone down, and a beautiful moon was rising. I've heard that it is being chased by Mars this month, and when it gets high above I'll step outside to try to see the red planet.

Next you see me entering the deer yard area, which is typically dark even on a bright day. The rifle you see is my Browning T-Bolt .22, which comes with me on many a hike. It is deadly on squirrels, headshots to 50-70 yards. None chattered today, but I also had my eye out for rabbits, mostly snowshoe hare, for the pot. They are white this time of year, and very difficult to spot without dogs to jog them.

Here is a rabbit trail, and if I had Beagles, this is where I would turn them loose...thousands of tracks this year, whereas last year there were hardly any. Go figure...

Of course, anywhere you find rabbit tracks in this part of the country you are going to see some Fisher tracks too...these were four plus inches, a very good sized animal.

Now, in the deer yard we can see some deer scat, and trails. Today, there was nothing really fresh to see. I have entered this yard in the past and observed many deer. When the snow is very deep they do not run at first, rather they check you out and decide if it is worth the risk to tramp through the deep snow...Today I saw none...indicative of the low snow level.

Apparently the deer had decided at one point to yard up, and had started to strip the hemlock trees of their bark. There isn't much nutrition in this, but it fills their bellies and quells the hunger pains as they burn off natural fat to stay alive. The tree below is so stripped it probably will not make it another year, though they ARE tough!

On the North side of the ridge I began to regret my not bringing snowshoes. There was easily 18 inches of snow, and while that is very little for this time of year, I had thought we lost a lot more. Fortunately the crust was decent in a lot of places and held me up quite well.  

Once I got to the trail system, and stopped bushwacking I found places on the trail that the rain had washed nearly to ground level. Then at temperatures way below zero, the ground froze and produced these heaving crystals over 18 inches high. In some places when you hit bare ground you will fall in over a foot, as the earth has heaved and frozen so hard that you are stepping on nothing but a world of crystal, and plunge through!

Below, as I approach the farm through the woods, I take a look at the mess ahead of me, all ice and snowstorm blowdown, and a huge clean-up project that surely won't start before spring. But all in all, a nice two hour hike, it was 8 degrees when I started and four when I finished. Didn't see a single creature, but know that they saw me! Another wonderful afternoon at deer camp!

A Winters Afternoon at Long Ridge

  Today I just had to get out and do something related to hunting deer. Can't work the land, yesterday I felled some Maples for the deer to munch on during super cold spells, and burned a couple of brush piles...what to do?

Yesterday it went up to 36 degrees here, and we lost a lot of snow. I didn't even wear a sweater! Today it just about went up to freezing and was very pleasant. Tonight we are getting up to a foot of snow again, so I figured I would take my ATV out to the Western stand to loosen the hanger straps, and retrieve the foam seat from it before the mice beat me to it. Another week or so and the ATVs won't be able to make it through the snow, and we'll be on snowmobiles. I headed up the road we live on and a quarter mile away is one of our log landings you see above, to enter that part of the trail system.

Just above the log landing you enter the Western trails and I am headed to a food plot, both to service my hanger stand, and to check out any recent sign. You can see I have been up here  before we lost some snow on a snowmobile...

When I reach the food plot I can see that the deer have been on this one, digging down through a foot of snow to reach some greens. That will soon stop though, as we begin to accumulate snow, the deer winter in their yards and stop moving around. With a foot or less on the ground they are still active.

Twenty feet up on a Black Birch, shrouded in Hemlock branches is my hanger..Up I go and loosen the straps and toss the seat down to my ATV parked below...

After I got the job completed I couldn't bear to head back to camp quite yet and head on up the Western perimeter trail to see what else is going on. On quite a few steep inclines I have to work the Honda to keep going, but make it up over the top, and head along the upper reaches. A ton of tracks, mostly deer, fox and coyote, but I do find one very fresh set of Fisher tracks crossing the trail. These are just a bit bigger than a large Coyote track, and easy to spot by the way they kind of scrabble along. Then up and across the top and over to the Eastern stand, and on the way back to camp I took the time to mark trees that I plan to take out along the trail this spring. Not an exciting afternoon at Long Rindge Deer Camp, but a satisfying one! Hope you all were able to get out as well! For those of you still hunting, lucky you!

Experience An Evening at LRDC

The evenings typically start at Long Ridge about 5 or 5:15 PM as hunters return to camp from still hunts or stands. During the main of deer season  it gets dark here about 4:50 PM or so and it'll take 20/25 minutes for 6 to 10 hunters to all get back to camp.. some are walking, some on ATV's, some arrive in vehicles because they hunted spots up or down the road and way out. In any case, there are floodlights at camp and these can be seen for some distance as you approach from any angle in the woods. There is a perennial fire going in the large stone fireplace and first hunter back to camp stokes this to intoxicating levels. Sparks and the crackling of burning fire wood are what I first see when I come out. Because I do not like to school the deer on my elevated stands, I wait til well after dark to return to camp, so am often the last in. Coming across the fields to camp I can see the shadows of hunters around the fire, and it is always exciting to hear what they saw, shot, experienced. After unloading rifles and carrying in whatever gear we want, we gather around the large dining table that seats ten. On the table you'll find soda, a large variety of wines, liquors, mixers, beer, snacks, and the most delicious array of crackers and cheeses you've experienced. It's cocktail hour! Above you see a typical shot of a toast about to be hoisted...no doubt to a successful past year. If this is the first night of the season, it is time to clink glasses, refresh ourselves of family, work and personal news, and to renew long and enduring friendships...

After an hour or so of socializing, we begin preparing the main meal. Always, good Maine Russet potatoes, the best baking potatos grown, are wrapped in foil and tossed into the grill for a good hour or more. This give us time to gather around the fire, hoist another drink, admire the harvest, and to prepare our meats. Our meats are rarely purchased, almost always wild game harvested by us. Venison, moose, elk, mule deer, wild boar, bear, are all consumed with gusto. Several of the hunters actually enrolled in a first water cooking class and learned how to make up the most savory sauces one could imagine. These meals truly rival anything I have ever eaten in some of the finest restaurants in the East. Our best grill artist is a hunter from Pennsyvania, who can broil any game there is to tender perfection...Toss in a first class salad, and the crew is called in. Tons to eat, tons to drink - diets are put asides for deer camp, and mountains of gourmet food is enjoyed by all, delicious red wines accompany the meals and we all wonder why we cannot live like this year around!

After supper, of course, out to the fire and chatting over the possibilities for tomorrows hunt, our children's future, national politics, or the beauty of life itself. A lovely evening indeed..work is far away, drudgery, if there is any in our lives, is far away, finances, The Long War, everything, right now, is far, far, away from us at deer camp this evening.

Several hours later, depending on how early one wants to rise to hunt, it is moved inside, deep in easy chairs around the reading table for a night cap, easy conversation, or quiet contemplation. It is the moment of first walking out of the woods, and this final moment of the day, that I have my deepest thoughts and appreciation for real friends, in a real world, so far from Washington DC, so far from where our brave youngsters are warding off the murderers around the world. Our camp is primitive, and modest. Just a porta-potty. No running water. But it is warm, and dry, and comfortable, and when filled with the voices and bodies of real hunters, a true variety of cool people who love nature, and family and life, then I feel surrounded by a richness and luxury I can hardly explain. I have sat in my easy chair and listened to the buzz of enjoyment around me, and been humbled into stunned silence and not a little thankful prayer. What a thing, deer camp!

2010 - A New Year for Long Ridge Deer Camp

Here it is in January and very cold, windy and snowy. Above you see one of the main trails out of camp leading to the Southeast Bowl, the Trail Stand, the Ridge Stand and the East Plot Stand.  This is how it looked after being beaten to death by foot traffic and ATV during deer season, which was as rainy and wet as any I have ever been through.... The top photo shows it just over a month later, frozen solid, twelve inches of snow, and farther up, eight solid inches of ice under the snow where the draining water from rain froze in place at 5 degrees.

Like the pictures above, you see LRDC in it's glory during November, full of use, firewood consumed, and ready for a winters rest! Tired!

And here we are, snuggled in for the winters beginning..by beginning, I mean, it'll drop to 20 or 30 below before we are done, and the snow will pile up 3 to eight feet by February. Right now it is sixteen degrees inside camp - cold but not cold enough to stop the projects we have started already. Got a new hanger stand for a stocking stuffer, brought it down and have just put it together. Come spring I will buy seven,  eight foot 2x4s, pressure treated, to make a twenty foot ladder. Up she'll go and I'll hoist this baby up and attach it sometime in August over a new stand site. We are off to a good start!

Hunting Season 2009 - Gone!

Well people, it's over for us in New Hampshire! This Sunday is the last day of season for archers, and few will be out, probably including me...It is cold here, wind chill down to about zero, and trees waving all over the place. Like seventy five per cent of the rest of the country we have a foot of snow on the ground. While this is great for tracking, firearms season is over, so save your energy. Bows won't cut it. As I write it is ten degrees!

Here you see  hunters arriving and getting ready for first camp, early in November for a late afternoon hunt!

We harvested a lot fewer deer this year. Only four campers tagging out except for several that went to West Virginia and (as usual) hit the Southern jackpot. I got one by bow, two got deer by muzzleloader, one by rifle. One of my trooper buddies, earlier, hit a ten pointer with a high shot arrow, and he was never recovered, most likely surviving. We even had game wardens tracking him, and he never laid down.

Cooking venison for eight!

One of the reasons we took fewer deer this year is that I instituted rules eliminating taking anything smaller than eight points ( except does in season) and having only two, three day camps vs. three in past years.

Our first camp was a bust because of weather...Friday afternoon we hunted, but by ten that night it was pouring and never stopped all through Saturday into Sunday morning. That put a big damper on things and definitely brought out the cribbage boards!

Interest in the second camp was limited at best, and next year we may cut back to one single four day camp. Not sure why attendance was down, but most of New Hampshire is wide open to hunting and we all have multiple places to hunt. Many of the hunters tried new places, some with great luck.

In any case, after about November 8th, I noted that not a single buck fired up any of our game cameras until after dark. Evening after evening I sat over does, twenty feet below me, feeding contentedly with no bucks in sight. After hiking back to my ATV after dark, I would just ease down the 1/2 mile trail to the far field and inevitably find a half dozen deer on my clover. I could never see in that light if there were any bucks among them, but I doubt it. So it's over. The freezer is full, I have arrow heads to sharpen, guns to clean, and camp to put in order for the winter. All of it is fun.

Campfires always bring out the best in us all...

And below, we see the cramp and joy of hunters downloading their gear into camp...

Gearing up for a venison supper...