Camp of a Lifetime

It was decided in mid October that Nick and I would have a deer camp in western Iowa at a buddies parents place. Ethan Shetler invited us to have this privilege the last few days before the new year. Nick and I headed out from Boone and made a quick stop at Jordan Creek to swap out my ring. We ended up getting to Ethan's later than we hoped but we were still able to shoot the shit and hang out. We put together our strategies for the morning hunt and to bed we went. The next morning we headed to our places and waited for something to happen. No shots fired. I got a text from Ethan a little before 8am saying I should start walking to the river. I could tell he was already getting antzy; we hadn't been sitting for an hour yet. Just at 8am I started to walk the road back to the river and eventually started walking the CRP along the creek. I would walk and pause about every 30 yards. When I could see blaze orange I pulled out my range finder and glassed out Nick just to make sure of his location. I walked about 50 more yards when I watched him stand up. About 20 more yards and CRACK! A cloud of smoke hovered over the prairie and I see Nick trying to look for what he shot at. He then starts running and I hear him yell. He yells for me to get over there quick he needed a second shot. A B-E-A-UIFUL buck was doing the spinny-whirlies in the bean field and needed a second shot. I handed Nick my gun and he took care of business. We look North to see Ethan come check out the ruckus. He was some 300 yards away, so all we really see is blaze orange bobbing up and down across the other bean field. He goes down into the creek and comes up over the top and then his eyes got as big as dinner plates. He expected a doe but now we have a brute of a buck on the ground. Unlike what we are used to, we took our time to slowly absorb the moment. We took a bunch of pics and talked about the mornings happenings. This was still just the first morning's hunt.

 

 After grabbing a bite to eat and hanging out for the rest of the morning and early afternoon (temps were in the upper 50s) we decided we could be just a productive in a deer blind. We headed out to the hut where we could bullshit, smoke cigars, and still deer hunt. I taught the two young guns how to blow smoke rings. We practiced for the better part of the afternoon.

At one point we actually got to see some deer. Three does filtered into the field for about 20 minutes before they retreated for no apparent reason. Then all hell broke loose. In the far corner, deer just started pouring in. We wanted to double as both Ethan and I had tags to fill. We practiced the count, which we had Nick do, and waited for the deer to get closer. Eventually, two deer started closing the distance and we got ready for the shots. Practice; One, two, three, bang.

"Ok Nick now." Ethan said.

"NO NO NO NOT YET!" I said

"Okay now Nick." I said 

"NO! Mine's takin' off. Just WAIT!" Said Ethan

Ethan's finally stopped and mine presented a shot.

 One, two, th- BOOM!
BOOM!
Ethan rattled off a shot before I knew what to do so I shot anyway. Mine deer dropped and his took a loop before keeling over. My deer was now trying to get up but failing miserably. We got out of the box blind and went to finish off mine and drag Ethan's back. I took Ethan's .357 and shot my deer again. Wouldn't you have it but the damn thing got up again. All I hear behind me is...
"Oh no you don't!"
Ethan is drawn and ready to shoot again but both Nick and I knew he was done and not going far. 50 yards and plop. Done. We drag both deer to the blind and take a few pics.

We figured as Ethan put it; "dumber things have happened", so we climbed back into the hut as we still had daylight left. Well, wouldn't you have it at 5 minutes to last light, a small deer showed up at the far corner of the field. We were both going to take a pop shot as the distance was 280 yards, according to the range finder diagram in the hut. I knew this was not going to happen with my gun so I backed out. Ethan propped up and squeezed off a shot. BOOM!....Thud. Ethan jumps up and does the "clutch-superbowl-catch-for-the-win" war cry and takes off across the field. He nailed this labrador retriever-esk doe at 277 yards. With a muzzleloader. UNREAL. He hit her right in the neck and she dropped in her tracks.

I never thought we could top the morning's buck. Then there was the not impossible but exceedingly difficult double which we accomplished. To top off the day, Ethan made the best shot I have ever had the privilege of witnessing, let along with a muzzleloader. We threw the deer in the back of the pickup and left to gut them at the farm as it was raining and we didn't want to fight it. Nick gutted the three of them in less than 15 minutes and we hung them for the evening. We retired to the man cave with a wood stove where we finished our evening with cards, fellowship, fine cigars, and unlimited amounts of John Prine.

Great day on earth.

The next morning we didn't feel the need to jump into anything but we still had tags to fill as farm tags went on the three doinker does. First push I missed an opportunity at a nice 8 pointer but he was booking it out. I then jumped five more does and they took off over the hill. I no more than got settled and BOOM! Ethan struck gold again on a big doe. The group then came back over the hill and stopped on the other side of the wooded finger I was in. I just couldn't get shot. Ethan's dad Ken and I met up with the pushers and then went to see his doe. After yesterday 35 yards was more than a chip shot. Ethan made short work of that.

 

As Nick gutted Ethan's deer, (camp wench), we all propped our guns up on this fence post and it just begged for a picture:

 

Oh how the muzzle loading world has changed...

We tried a couple more places before we decided this was more than enough deer hunting to satisfy the soul. We headed back to camp to get a truck and to start lunch. Ethan and I doubled back with his truck for the doe and Nick cut out tenderloins for lunch. Nick and Ken worked on frying up some potatoes and the inner loins of the doinkest doe and Nick's buck. It was awesome.As their dude cave is still in the works, we had to improvise food prep and feeding surface. We managed.

 

We got all of the deer harvested together for one last photo before processing of some and HUSH for others. 

This turned out to be one of the best if not the best camp I have even had the chance to be a part of. Ethan, his dad, and his mom were gracious hosts and did there best to make Nick and I comfortable. We went into this camp not needing to just shoot deer. We just wanted to hang out and spend some time in the woods. Fellowship, conversation, and maybe a sighting of a deer. Funny how that always seems to work out. I left seeing that Western/Southern Iowa really is God's country. Ethan, Ken, I hope we can join you guys next year.

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Coleman's Work: Ned's Revenge

 My buddy Ned drove up from Cedar Rapids for a few days to do one thing; cut down a lot of trees. We went back into Coleman's and cut down a ton of maple trees. I bet we cleared almost an acre of maples. Girdling did not work so this time we dropped them all. Ned was in a bad way and needed to cut down the rain forest.

This opened it up substantially but a lot more work needs to be done. Hopefully, this next spring we can start pushing trees into the grundy county soil.



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Michael's NTD (Non-Traditional Doe)

Over Christmas break I was able to take the neighbor kid out for some of the usual deer hunting. One hunt I took three shots at a nice buck at 200+ yards which is just too far for that gun. After shooting it later I found you really have to lead them past 170 yards. Anyway, still in the midst of shooting at this deer Michael started walking across the plowed corn field. When he got to me we look near the crest of a hill and there was a doinker buck at 94 just standing their even with all of my shooting. We set up and he shot. It bucked and took off looking as if it was hit hard. We came back with flashlights and found nothing. From either deer. That's the game I guess.

 We elected to come back the next evening despite shooting so much the day before. We set up on a terrace near where the little buck was. When we got there, there was a single deer in the middle of the field. I sent Michael out to stalk it but it busted and was gone. Just before sunset the yahoo whom always feels it necessary to cut firewood at magic hour started up again. We stayed put and waited for nothing. As usual in the late season we got up ten minutes early to check the field. This time it was in our advantage that the guy decided to chainsaw. It pushed a small group of does right to us. At 130 yards we slowly set up and I had Michael take his sweet time. As usual with him nothing. "Michael shoot. They are going to bolt!" BOOM! The deer take off and I turn back to grab my gun. One doe is face-planting in the frozen dirt clods. I knew then he hit it. The only problem was it kept trying to get up and run. I knew then it was a less than ideal shot and we would have to make a finishing shot. We got a little closer but our legal light was diminishing fast. BOOM! Game over. We walked up on one of the largest does I have ever seen. The shot was terrible, blowing throw the knees of both front legs. Oh boy. Nonetheless, she was down for good.

 

We took our time and Michael dressed it out without me trying to take over. He took some pointers although but for being his first gut job he did flawlessly. I called Dad and had him come bring the trailer as I had no rope or anything. We dragged the deer slowly to the top of the hill and when Dad got there we threw it it and hung it up at home. Next morning we took a couple day light pics and then commenced butchering; on Christmas Eve. 

I think the kid likes to hunt deer. 

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The Honeymoon

It's about time I got to the honeymoon! WELL:
The beginning of our Thanksgiving break was the beginning of our honeymoon to Washington DC. We drove to Forest Lake to spend the evening with my Uncle Dave and Aunt Laura (and company), before our flight in the morning. When morning came Dave was gracious enough to take us to the airport for a quick dropoff. Rachel's expertise in planning made it a simple breeze to get through the airport. Once in Baltimore we picked a cab to take us to our hotel. Once at our hotel we had no problem staying in our room for a awhile. It was probably one of the more terrifying place we have been just from an intimidation factor. Our room was our sanctuary.

Once we got comfortable we just walked around Alexandria for awhile before settling on going back to the in house restaurant for dinner. This was probably not the best idea. This was more high brow than we could have ever imagined. The food was good the service was insane, but our midwestern lifestyle was bleeding through our napkins. After a bill that would give anyone a heart attack we headed up to the room and ordered dessert room service. Mistake Number 2. Expensive and not even close to the brownies and ice cream we expected.
Morning came when we had our first scheduled stop to the Eastern Market. Imagine a year long farmers market. It was spectacular!

We ate lunch at the market corner burger joint which ranked up there with the best cheese burger I have ever had. Once we finished with that we moved on to our next objective: National Zoo. We navigated the metro train again and found the zoo. We, for lack of motivation, just sort of walked around and stopped at a few exhibits.

We were honestly disappointed with the quality of the national zoo. No giraffes is a big deal. We got ice cream and a fuzzy elephant for the nephew and headed back for the evening. Subway and Ben and Jerry's served us well this time.
Next day brought us to our segway tour of the national mall. I was very skeptical from the start but Rachel was so excited about it I had to play along. After about 30 seconds it was my new favorite toy, and Rachel seemed to like it too.

Our three hour tour was not nearly long enough. We got to see all of the monuments and them some and basically played with them for the tour.

 Way too much fun for our own good! After it finished we grabbed a quick bite and headed to the natural history museum. I got to see dinosaurs.

This was AWESOME! Through all of that though, Rachel found the coolest thing I have ever seen; petrified slabs.

After a day of all this crazy we were hungry and tired. We made reservations for a quiet little Italian restaurant Giranio's. I had shrimp linguini and Rachel had smoked mushroom orzo. Both were spendid and I even got to finish it off with tirmisu. At this point we were exhausted and ready for a break.
Next morning we decided to stick to one thing for the day instead of packing in too much. Ford's Theatre: A Christmas Carol was on the venue.

Again, I was skeptical, but it turned out to be wonderful. This was a fair poke from the hotel, so much of our time was spent in transit, but we still had some down time before our gift dinner from Lisa and Mike. We took a snooze and recollected ourselves before heading out to the Chart House. Mike and Lisa made us reservations the day before and gave us a gift card for the place for our wedding gift from them. I had the in house mojito and Rachel had a mango puree green pepper martini. Coconut shrimp as an appetizer and then another drink. Chipriha was my next choice. It's a Brazilian mojito and that's as far as I can describe it. For our meal Rachel had the crab bearnaise filet and I had prime rib and lobster tail. Again, WOW. After our entree they brought our out molten chocolate cake and key lime pie for the Mrs. I finished the meal with a wonderful aged Cognac. Couldn't have asked for a better meal. We waddled back to our hotel and slept it off.
Last day of our stay in Alexandria. We walked around once more tooling around the little shops. We found a few things and spent way too much money. We blew enough time before we needed to catch the metro to another train. We found the MARC train we needed even though Rachel about went into vapor lock. At the Baltimore airport, Mike and Lisa picked us up no more than when we got there. We now were to spend Thanksgiving with them and the little Gabe-let.

It was nice to have some familiarity in family in the area and spending time with them was great. Our room was flourished with candies, presents and champagne. Lisa and Mike always surprise us. We got to have actual conversation, and some much needed Gabe time. Lisa found it necessary to play Christmas music throughout the day and Mike just wanted the turkey day to have some much deserved respect. This was something I could easily help with. We feasted on broccoli cheese hot dish, apple pie, and bread pudding provided by my mother. Mike prepared a spinach sourcream dish that was too good to be true. The market provided sweet potatoes, biscuits, and a cajun fried turkey, If I remember correctly, we ate it all in three meals. My meat sweats were the much needed respect the turkey needed. When it was finally time to call it a trip, Mike took us to the airport and gave Lisa some much needed break time. It was a fantastic visit and we could not have had more fun and would not have changed a thing.
Our flight got us back to Minneapolis and as great as a visit as it was, it was nice to be in the midwest again. We had dinner again with Dave and Laura (and company) and Rick, Sue and company were there as well. It was a great time. When everyone had finally settled down for the evening, Dave and I snuck out for a little whiskey and a cigar. Well, you can about guess how that ended. A little before 3am Dave and I finally came in for the night. Laura told me Dave got into bed and giggled. Rachel will tell you I did pretty much the same thing. We both nursed a hangover in the morning. That afternoon I still managed to walk around the entire Mall of America where were did the final throw of our Christmas shopping. Once home we as predicted collapse in a heap. This was a honeymoon done up right. We packed more into it than I thought possible, and the best part was, Rachel planned it. She can do ANYTHING!



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