Bringing in 2008 with a bang.

Well, let me start by saying I’m sorry I have neglected this blog for a while. It was a busy Christmas season and New Years too. The first week of the year I was swamped at work and didn’t get home until almost 10:30pm most evenings, hardly saw my kids at all. I also became a Council Member for the United Bowhunters of New Jersey, and had been a little busy learning some things about this organization and what we have on the table for 2008, and I think it's going to be a very good year. I really didn’t think anyone would notice a few weeks without a new post, but I guess that feeling comes with the territory on these blogs, as comments are left infrequently and we just don’t know if anyone is reading. It was nice to see someone was paying attention though.

There wasn’t much time for writing, and less for hunting, but I did manage to get out with my niece on Saturday, January 12th. We went to the place I have been having all the problems with trespassers this year. The weekend before, my friend who leases the property with me, called and wanted to do a little rabbit hunting and walk the place to see what the deer were doing. Neither of us had spent much time scouting the farm because we wanted to keep the intrusion pressure as low as possible. After walking around, we found our efforts were for nothing. For the first few hours of the morning we walked the northern end of the farm, kicked up a few rabbits, missed a few shots, but eventually I managed to bag one bunny. In our travels across the farm, we found several dead deer, 5 bucks and 2 does to be precise. The field was full of ruts where some trespassers had been driving back our roads and into the fields, I suppose to shoot deer. I found a few shotgun wads in the field, along with two carcasses. A few more dead deer were found in the woods, and two were found, gutted, with the head and antlers still attached, dumped right along the road not far from our gate. I have no idea why someone would do that, but it’s typical of the type of outlaws we have to deal with in this part of Salem County.

While kicking around at mid morning, we did see four deer run from the cedar thicket on the north end, across the field, and into a briar tangle in the center of the property…that was somewhat encouraging. Unfortunately, I had previously told my niece and brother to buy the permits for this particular deer management zone in New Jersey. I had no other place in that zone to hunt, so we had to go there, despite all the poaching the property has endured.

On Saturday, just before 3:00pm, we made our way to our stands. It was a very mild day for January, with temperatures in the low 50’s and sunny skies…a perfect day for a new hunter to get a pleasant taste of the great outdoors. Not long after we got settled…well, I’ll let the video tell the story. I'll just end with this…this was only the second hunt for my niece and she did very well. She had a great time, and I had a blast being there with her. Check out the video to see what the afternoon hunt held for us.