Lilred took some huntin pics

[Lilred]

Well ya'll...aint no game in here..my week aint been to good as fer as the deer huntin. I been seein em...but they just wont give me the shot i need...so i decided to do a lil more shootin of the camera while i was out...ya kinda gotta look close to see the real beauty of these pics...plus i had to resize em...but i still think that those woods are the pertiest thing in the world..and a wonderful place to just git away fer a while...

First pic...here's what all them deer are after...acorns..and they might not look like it in the pic...those are huge. the woods is full of em...we had a good hard mast crop this year...and soft mast too fer that matter. A couple of em almost took me out this week...hey..dont laugh..them sunsabeeches hurt when they fallin from 50 feet! lol

[Lilred]

Here's a pic of the big oaks in that area. The woods are full of em...pin oak, red and white oak. Theres a mix of hickory, poplar and beech in there too but they are kinda sparse. That place has got enough squirrels in there to take over Iraq...lol. But they are real skittish...kinda unusual...but they got things figured out.

[Lilred]

Yessir...there is 2 bucks in them woods. That small rub there in the pic was done by a scrub 8..he'll probaly measure 16" er so and there is a larger 8 that will probaly go 20" or so...give er take. That rub aint too fer from my stand...I've seen the big one and the little one numerous times this week. If I woulda had a gun...I'd be fryin some tenderloin bout now...lol Thats the beauty of bowhuntin tho..and I think even the does know where my 20yard mark is :p

[Andy L]

Lil Red, it amazes me how much deer like acorns. A farm we had leased for 10 years had 500 acres of corn and beans, rotated. A hundred acres of alfalfa. And 650 acres of oak timber and cattle pasture mixed.

Early bow season, they would attack the alfalfa. Only thing that would compete was honeysuckle, of all things. I had the best of both worlds. I had a stand on a trail that always produced good bucks in some brush along the alfalfa field and right in the middle of a huge honeysuckle patch. A bowhunters dream. Early and late and with a light, you could see huge numbers of deer in the alfalfa. (this place was loaded with deer anyway) But during the day, it amazed me how many deer browsed on that honeysuckle, just yards away from the alfalfa field. They loved it and felt secure just inside the brush a little ways.

Then of course, they liked the crops around harvest. But when those big ole white oak acorns started to fall, you might as well kiss it all goodbye and hunt acorns totally. It seemedd like it was cotton candy to those deer.

I know they eat them everywhere, but always thought that was a prime example, given the smorgasboard of food those particular deer had. The acorns won every single time.

Andy

[Andy L]

btw, you cant tell those pics from here. identical.

[Lilred]

This here is my "groundblind" fer bow huntin and gun huntin both. I love fell over trees. I'm small...so i can slip in a corner in one of those and deer or squirrel dont have a clue. Had does come from right behind that stand..was so close i coulda threw rocks at em..they made a 90 degree and hopped in some thick stuff to my right. such as life...i sit right about where my bow is

[Lilred]

This is what i see to the left of my ground blind...and man that sun will blind ya..lol..but it's worth just seein how perty it is. Actually, it's almost on a slope...so you can imagine hoe tough a shot would be from that angle...esp with a bow.

[Lilred]

This here is sassafrass...young saplins that's perfect fer pullin up the root and makin some tea er jelly. I had quite a few folks on here ask me what it looks like...so there ya go.

[GoodOlBoy]

We have had a great crop of acrons (Or as we say in East Texas Akerns) this year too. Only problem is most of our seem to be on the smallish side. The up side of course is that under and given oak in my neck of the woods ya can't see the groun fer the akerns.

Anyway great pics Lilred!

GoodOlBoy

[Lilred]

Last but not least...this is the front/right side out of my treestand that i put in the woods the week fore season. Good shootin lanes on that saide..too bad they been goin 50 yards out...:p
or better yet...they're walkin too fast and nuthin'll stop em...:p
or they're behind me and wont come out:p lol

but i have enjoyed this week bein in them woods and just soakin it all in. to be honest...while it aint worked out so good meat-wise...i still thought it great to see all the game i have seen this week...not to mention those 2 nice bucks.
I have tomorrow left...in which hubby is takin off and we are both goin squirrel huntin together...seein as how he dont bowhunt.
I gotta work on sat...but i might slip out there sat. afternoon.

Sorry there are so many pics...but i know i rarely post pics..and i hope ya'll enjoy em as much as i did takin em and just takin the time to look around and appreciate life in general. There aint many of these oak woods left...and in another generation or 2...those will probaly be gone too.

well...off to the huntin dogs forum to post a couple pics there.

[trex]

Great pics!!! I too worry about the future of our Oak woods. Nothing and I do mean NOTHING (Dont hold me to it!) is prettier than a big ole Oak bottom.

[GoodOlBoy]

When I was a kid I hunted several mixed hardwood lowlands (the banks of the Neches, the San Pedro, and many others unnamed) in east texas (where it is mostly pines now AKA The Piney Woods) There used to be ALOT of redoak, pecan, pignut, black walnut, hickernut, and Chinquapin trees. Every once in awhile you would find persimmon, ironwood, tickletongue, and a few other odds and ends. All in all I found the best hunting in the world in these patches. Many a deer, rabbit, possum, coon, and squirrel were taken there. Now they are cow pastures that flood every time it sprinkles. . . . :(

GoodOlBoy

[skeeter@ccia.com]

Lilred, after you dig the roots for the tea or jelly, this is one thing you can do with the rest of the tree....makes for great canes..esp if ya leave the little handle in it...I have made about a dozen or so twisted ones like this one for walking sticks and gave them all away....but the ones I leave the L handle on, I use for walking canes for those that need one...I carved a bear head on this one.

http://i10.tinypic.com/42uqo2d.jpg

[skeeter@ccia.com]

just another look at the sassafrass stick...this one had a nice vine growing on it to make the twist...
http://i9.tinypic.com/2wch0cw.jpg