It's Official...

This weekend was the first annual "Lead Slingers" deer camp held on Mt. Magazine. As you can see from the photo below, it was quite a motley crew of hunters.

The hansome fellows pictured above from left to right. Front row: John, Conner (aka. Hunter), Mason, Connor F, Jeb; Back Row: Randy, Jason. Jackie, Philip, Clarence, Mike, Jesse with John F taking the photo. What a great group of guys! I'm already looking forward to camping with them next year.

Well, let me give you the rundown of how this all began. Friday, I was off work and had every intention of getting up to our campsite early but Murphy decided to show up, you know, "Murphy's Law" Whatever can go wrong will go wrong...or something like that! Anyway, Jackie and I ended up finally leaving town at around 11:45 A.M. Not exactly what I would call early.

So, we get to our campsite and decide that since it's late in the day we should go hang the remaining tree stands that we wanted to put up and then worry about camp.

We finally finished hanging stands around 4:30 and then started clearing out the campsite. It was a disaster and there were piles of brush everywhere. I wish I would have taken a picture of it before it was cleaned up so that you could see the efforts of all our hard work. I told Jackie we should send the forestry service a bill for all the clean up we did. Below is a picture of part of the camp. If you could have seen it before, where the purple tent is was a large brush pile and behind the white tent was another large brush pile, both of which came in handy for firewood when the sun went down and the night air got cold.

Jesse was the next to roll into camp and the three of us had a nice dinner of hot dogs and potato chips while listening to the Greenwood vs. Alma football game on the radio. A little after the game started; Jason and Clarence showed up, followed by Philip. I was beginning to get tired and unfortunatley couldn't make myself stay up to see John, Conner, and Randy show up. They stayed in Greenwood to watch the football game and then drove up the mountain.

Saturday morning, the big day was finally here! I was the last to roll out of bed but still had plenty of time to get to my stand before daylight. I had laid my climbing stand out at the base of a tree late Friday afternoon so I wouldn't have to backpack it in on Saturday morning but with all the noise I made trying to get up the tree, I might as well have packed it in. You just haven't lived until you have wrestled with a thorn bush at 5:45 A.M. while you are suspended 10 feet above the ground in a climbing stand. If there were any deer close by, I'm sure they got on the secret deer hotline and alerted all the other deer in the area to my wherabouts. I guess that will teach me to learn to pick trees a little better.

So, after a few bonechilling hours in the stand, watching the squirrels, I decided to call it a morning and head back to camp, but before I did, I made sure to move my stand to a different tree that proved to be much easier to climb the next morning.

I was greeted at camp by Jackie and Philip who had also come in from their stands. I warmed up by the fire and then Philip and I headed back into the woods. I dropped him off at his stand and then started hiking down an old 4 wheeler trail in search of the biggest deer in Arkansas. I went to the stand we nicknamed "The Saddle Stand" and planted myself there for a couple hours. No deer graced my presence so I decided to hike deeper into the woods where I took up residence underneath a large tree for a few hours, still no deer. So, I began the trek out to camp. About halfway out, I ran into Jackie who was busy blazing a trail down into the hollow. Jackie had also decided to go deeper into the woods in search of deer, but both of us came up empty handed.

When we got back to camp, more folks had arrived. Jeb was manning the grill and cooking up what turned out to be some really good deer steaks, baked potatoes, and beans. Another great surprise for me was that my Dad and Connor showed up. It was great for Connor to spend time with me and my dad just hanging around a campfire and hanging out with the guys. Connor was mad that I wouldn't let him stay all night, but the weather report showed the temp getting down to freezing that night and since he is just skin and bones anyway, I expect he would have been extremely cold. Around 7:20, Jeb, Mason, Dad, and Connor all headed back to Greenwood, leaving the mighty hunters to brave the elements. We got time checks from John until it was 8:00 and then we all crawled into tents to get some sleep. Below is a picture of me, Dad, and the Con Man!

Sunday we all woke up to a balmy, 33 degrees, BRRRR! Not exactly shorts and flip flops weather. I really wanted to stay in my sleeping bag but I also wanted to get to my stand earlier than Saturday and I was also supposed to make the coffee. I technically made it the night before and so all someone had to do was turn the fire on under the coffee pot. So, after a quick cup of java, I headed to my stand, climbed in, and waited patiently. I know I have said this before, but there is nothing like being in the woods when they "Come alive" in the morning. It started out with one lone bird chirping in the distance, then a few more chimed in. Then the crows had to make sure that every other living creature within a hundred miles knew that they were there. Next the squirrels came out to start gathering food. At first it was one or two but in a short time, I had a lot of little furry varmits running around. Squirrels sure do make a lot of racket and I kept thinking that there was a deer coming through the woods. Don't get me wrong, it's still a sight like no other to watch the sun come through the trees and see the darkness slowly give way to the sunlight but I could do without quite so many crows and squirrels. I finally decided to head back to camp. When I got out of the woods and on to the main road, I saw Randy walking towards camp as well and when we got back we both commented on how cold it was so I made us another pot of coffee and we visited around the campfire for a while. Randy is a really great guy and he has been hunting this area for a long time.

After checking the weather several times, we decided to break camp and head home a day early. An 80% chance of thunderstorms made us all decide that taking down tents and packing up all the camping gear might be best done in dry conditions. We pulled the tents down and packed up camp, went and pulled our stands out of the woods and headed to Greenwood.

Where's the pictures of all the deer we killed you ask? Well, we decided to be more environmentally friendly hunters this year and we have officially changed the name to the "Lead Savers" deer camp. Actually, the real story is; that secret hotline I mentioned earlier, well, the deer heard that the Lead Slingers were coming to the mountain and they all got scared and left the area. To stay true to the Lead Slinger name, someone had to fire a shot or two so; Me, John, and Conner all took turns shooting Jackies 25-06 single shot rifle at a pop can. We all killed our limit of one grape soda can in a matter of minutes, it doesn't take long for skilled hunters such as ourselves to hunt down the elusive Grapette can!

So, all in all, we killed one grape soda can, and had a great time doing it. I'm looking forward to next year already!

Proverbs 27:1 "Do not boast about tomorrow, For you do not know what a day may bring forth."

Disclaimer: No deer were harmed during the weekend or during the writing of this post!