2012 ends on a good note

 The final months of 2012 are ending and I am reflecting on a fun last couple of months.  Deer season ended without me landing a buck.  However I certainly cannot say I did not have my opportunities.  On opening day at Hedges I missed a ten point with my muzzle loader.  Hannah was with me then and she did great.  A couple days later Jessica and I saw a massive 10-12 point buck.  I thought it was great that both my girls had the opportunity to see trophy bucks.  They now have ingrained in their memory the true size difference of a big buck.  It was also a highlight for me to have all three of my children deer hunting this year.  Jake shot a doe, but the carcass had a funny color and smell to it so we decided to burn the whole thing rather than risk messing around with tainted venison.

Seneca Lake perch late December

I am often asked by other hunters who have young children how I was able to get my kids into deer hunting. There is no doubt that I introduced them to the sport when they were very young with a strategy in mind for hooking them into the sport.  What follows was my approach.

At the ages of 5-10 we would have "deer camp" parties where we would play family games and have a big turkey meal with pies the weekend before the season.  I would bring the kids out into the woods with me to help me prep my hunting stand.  This would entail having them climb trees.  We always made a picnic out of these trips, packing lots of hot cocoa, cookies, and the like.  Whenever I would shoot a deer with either a bow or gun I would locate the downed deer then I go and get the kids.  I have the kids help me "track" the deer and I pretend I have do not know where the deer is.  One time I recall Hannah, about 5 years old, helping me track a deer in her pink rubber boots with a pink umbrella.  She had a blast on this "big adventure".

From the ages of 10-14 I would take them with me to my actual stands.  I would use two person stands and I would hang fabric around the rails so essentially we would be sitting in a blind 16 feet high.  This would allow the kids to move, snack, drink cocoa, etc....I also would have a sleeping bag in the stand to cover ourselves up when it was cold out.  I cannot emphasize enough the benefits to the curtains and sleeping bags.  This enables kids to move and stay warm.  I am on a low budget, so the fabric I got on clearance from Walmart in their sewing department...36 feet for 5$...I leave the sleeping bag in the woods in a waterproof decoy bag...10$.

Finally, I always hunt playing the wind.  It is not worth the grief to try an eliminate and/or cover your scent.  You will spend a lot of time, a lot of money, only to be winded still by a trophy.  My success rate jumped dramatically when I gave this practice up and hunted parallel to the wind.  In other words, I hunt knowing the deer will be walking into the wind so I setup 30-80 yards parallel to where the deer will be moving.  I have got the racks to prove the effectiveness of this strategy plus the kids will see a lot more deer.

The last day of deer season I actually went perch fishing with Dave on Seneca Lake.   It was so beautiful out that we could not pass it up.  We hit our favorite place for fatheads and worms at the Outdoor Store.  We were the only ones at the boat launch.  Using minnows on the bottom hook and worms on the top hook we started off in 20 feet of water.  Eventually we moved up to the weed line at 13 feet which is where we stayed for two hours and kept 40 over 10 inches.  I ended up cleaning all this fish by myself, but our family had a wonderful perch fish fry that night.

Christmas Eve Jake, Dave, and I went back out again.  This time we sat in 20 feet of water with a blue sky overhead and no wind. We could actually see the perch on the bottom.  It was a blast lowering the minnows to the bottom and watching all the perch approach the bait.  We caught over a 100 perch keeping 90 that were between 10-15 inches, all caught on minnows.  The bite was so strong we could have caught a 1000, but being Christmas Eve we thought it would be in all of our best interest to remember our family responsibilities.

I am going to make perch chowder using a new cookbook I got from honest-food.net.  A great, great book.

So 2012 ends being another great year for memories of quality time spent with friends and family.  I am most richly blessed.