OK. I'm back.
Things change. I hunt in an extremely condensed environment-- lots of deer and lots of hunters. On the Opener, I may hear 3 shot strings per minute for the first 4 hours. My parcel of land is 200 acres. Around me, there plots of 18 to 300 acres. I figure there is 1 hunter per 4 acres on average. There are also a lot of deer. We are in Zone 1, which means take as many doe as you want, but just one buck per year. Safety alone dictates that you are careful where and how you move during season.
My point in bringing this up is that this is the reality of deer hunting, at least in my part of the world. It probably does not sell magazines, but what I write is an honest portrayal.
With that number of hunters and that many deer. We also have to be careful with how we use the property. Most of my neighbors ( I call them the Orange Army) mount up on ATV's and ride everywhere. My crew walks, and we use a 4X4 pickup judiciously. About 9 AM the Orange Army cranks hops on their ATV and rides out for coffee and that is when our hunting really cranks up.
I'm explaining all this, because that is what the "Me and Joe" story has morphed into on our ridge. There is not a whole lot of tech involved, unless you want to discuss which bullet out of a 30-06 kills a deer inside 50 yards. Innovation? We haul the deer back to camp and gut head-up. Why? Because it is the fastest we found and we have to get our deer out to the processor before his cooler fills up. Strategy? In a nutshell: Make your resident doe happy and then use them for bait during the rut. After the rut, top off the freezer with pampered doe.
Exotic? No. However, it is fun and exciting for me and mine, and I love writing about it.
