01-Jan

[Jaackrabbit]

The last offical day of deer hunting. Boy what a day.

You know the story.......
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[davetclown]

I see you are up to tellin woppers again [] we all know you had three privet land doe tags for your privet property... LOL

sure dose make for an interesting read tho...[laugh]

thanks for the story...

one of these days, I will get around to tellin ya about the 4 foot ground hog.[]
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[lonehunter]

At the start of reading your story it went just like our late season hunt .
Bill and I left his house after calling his hunting buddys and hit a bean feild , it was my first time hunting deer on a farm .
We crossed the feild covered in that almost cement like snow and found his buddys delapidated plywood blind . Bill took the left flank of the blind with the seetless kitchen chair , I had the right flank with the plastic lawn chair .
After tring to sit and wait for sunrise a bit I could tell bill wasen't to comfortable in his spot so I told him I was going over to the other side of the woodline on the property . I found a nice cottonwood to lean up against and used a rusty bale of barbed wire as a bit of cover from deer crossing the woods . 10 minutes later I could hear something walking thru , almost sounded like another hunter it was so loud .
Bang ! The noise stopped , I waited a couple minutes and still nothing , not a peep from anything , anywhere .
I got up and walked back over to the blind and said "well"?
Bill as calm as could be said ,"I got one ".
" I shot it and it just dropped " pointing his finger just about over to where I was stationed at . I guess you could say bills not the excitable type , a far different person fom last years hunt when he would shoot in the sky then level off at the deer , lol !
We walked over and yes about six yards from where I was sitting lay a buck that had lost it's sheds . Bill had taken his first deer ever with a head-on shot to the neck , he lost a good roast but hey , at least he got a deer so his wife will let him go hunting with the boys again next year .
I showed him how to feild dress the buck , what to do , what not to do and what to look for My camera had new batterys from wal-mart in it , so we wern't able to take pics or a vid of how to feilddress a deer , the batterys were already dead out of the package .
Bill used his cell phone to snap a pic ,I took one after we took the buck to the shed to hang .
Bill and his buddy had hunted muzzle and part of late season together and had an agreement to share the meat with each other if one got one and the other didn't , those guys kept true to their word too . Both of them are young dads , the food they harvested will not go to waste .
We (all three of us ) hunted the golf course the following two days Bill lad a bit of luck on the evening hunt but the deer crossed over onto another private property where we were not able to retrive his would be second deer .
I saw a 0 x 4 point but being late antlerless season only , I had to watch it walk on by .
I had been listing to the weather reports and was a little more than concerned about the aproaching storm , I cut the hunt short for myself and headed back home , driving home during a blizzard is not something I want to do again , the last time was back in 98 , it was no picnic thats for shure .
Anyway , looks like it's another 10 months of beef for me , but steelhead season is just around the corner so I can't complain any .
Pics are of the dressed out deer and one from the golfcourse Billys buddy is in the center of the pic .
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[Jaackrabbit]

Oh.. forgot the best (Most expensive) part of the deer hunting story. After I tracked down the last doe through the swamp along the creek I shot off my last remaining round that was still in the chamber. I didn't really want to walk back through the swamp with it loaded. It's extremely thick in some spots and didn't want to take a chance walking back through it with a loaded gun even if it did have a saftey. So I shot the last round into the ground.

Ok... here is the problem. In tracking down the deer there was a few spots where I had to get down on all fours to get under some stuff. Snow must have gotten packed into the top of the barrel. I didn't even think to check it before shooting. I'm ok, but the end of the barrel didn't survive. It split from the top down about 5 inches. STUPID STUPID STUPID... why didn't I check? MAN !!!

Oh well... it was time to get a new gun anyway. How long to shotgun barrels have to be to still be legal?
Pictures to follow.. standby...
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[lonehunter]

Ouch ! an expensive boo-boo , someone was looking out for you !
I have a old mossberg 20 ga. barrel in the shed , a little rusty but it might clean up if thats any use to you .

Those pocket hand warmers are great for warming the barrel when pluged with snow out in the feild , used it a couple times myself this year with the muzzleloader .
I think 18" is the length but you lost the tapered (choked ) end , thinking of making it a scatter gun for home protection ?
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[davetclown]

Dam Sam! that is one of my worst nightmares when out in the woods, I remember my youth days taking my hunters safty corse, "I was not required to because I was born be for 1960" I too the corse because some one put up the 2 bucks to pay for me to go though it...

any way my instructor was a one armed one eyed bandit... and he had a shot gun that had breached all the way down the side of the baroll from an inch near end all the way back to the receiver. In the middle was a two inch breach. wich took out his left arm and eye.. and Yup, it was a plug of snow and ice that had capped off the end of his barrol that wat dun him in...

finaticaly I find my self constantly looking at the barrol to see if there is any blockage, especialy when I am walking thought the thickets, even a twig haning on the end is enough to do damage...

It is leagle at any lenth, but there is an exception, if the barrol is below 24 inch you need a hand gun permit. "I will double check the lenth to be sure" It might be 18 inch it has been a while, but if it has a pistol grip you will have to have a hand gun permit at any lenth...

I can understand why you might want to leave that part out, its embarising, but it can happen to any one who is not vidgulent in checking for blockages...

Glad to hear your ok, not many people live to tell about it when it hapens....
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[davetclown]

here is the official answer for the state of michigan


[size 1][font "Arial"]3. Do rifles or shotguns with collapsible/folding stocks have to be registered in Michigan?
MCL 750.222 Yes, provided the rifle or shotgun is 30 inches or less in overall length with the stock collapsed/folded but at least 26 inches and the barrel length is at least 16 inches and 18 inches respectively. Attorney General's opinion #6280: if the firearm is less than 26 inches in overall length or the barrel is less than 16 or 18 inches respectively, the firearm is considered a short-barreled rifle or shotgun and is illegal to possess. MCL 750.224d There is an exception for short-barreled shotguns and short-barreled rifles which the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has found to be a curio, relic, antique, museum piece, or collector's item not likely to be used as a weapon.

The possessor must comply with Section 2 (License to Purchase) and Section 9 (Safety Inspection Certificate/registration) of Act 372. [/font][/size]
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