Is it September yet?

Sunday, my family was gathered at my mothers house for her birthday. It was unbearably hot...98 in the shade, and I was standing over a mini grease fire under the grated surface of the gas grill. Seems the beef patties my brother bought were not the most lean hamburgers we have had( I know, I know, should have been ground venison, but I wasn't the one providing the food), and all the fat dripping from them ignited quite a blaze in the drip pan. Anyone for blackened burgers and hotdogs?

The heat of summer had me longing for cool autumn days and crisp, frosty mornings, and of course, bow season. For most of the afternoon, me and my two brothers sat around reliving old hunts through probably somewhat embelished hunting stories...well, at least theirs were embelished, mine were remembered exactly as they happened. We had a good time telling hunting stories, and it reminded me of why I have been keeping hunting journals for many years now. Not only do the journals provide great entertainment of re-living hunts of days gone by, but I have been using them for, and actually began keeping them in the late 1980's for the purpose of, logging good information on deer habits, and what patterns have worked in the past.

My log sheets contain boxes for detailed weather and wind conditions, moon phase, the equipment used, deer sighted, etc. at the top of the page. Below those boxes is a large narrative section in which I recount the details of the hunt. I often attach photo's and maps to plot the approach route of any deer sighted. I have used the information kept in those journals sucessfully a few times. In years with a heavy mast crop, I go back and check previous seasons to see what the deer were doing, and have found patterns to be pretty consistent. I have actualy been able to note which white oak trees deer preferred, and found the same to hold true years later during times of heavy acorn production, when acorns litter the ground and it can be a daunting task to narrow down the best place to be. Knowing what specific trees deer have preferred in the past has helped me greatly. Also, in times of sparce mast production, knowing what trees have produced has enabled me to find those secret little honey holes where there are acrons in years when they are scarce. That also works with crop rotations. Deer patterns change depending on whether we have corn or beans planted on the farms we hunt, and those close to us, and I have found it useful to study what deer have done in previous seasons with the same crop plantings.

Over the last few seasons, my journals have become very illustrated. I print them out on a good HP project paper, so they have taken on a magazine-like quality. I have also been doing the video taping thing since about 1991, and absolutely love taping hunts. Since upgrading to high quality, 3ccd mini DV cameras in 2001, I have over 100 hours of videos lying around, a small sampling of which you can find in the October, December, January and March months archives on this blog. I also have dozens of finished videos on three separate hard drives, and several years worth of home videos I've compiled. I go back and watch them myself from time to time in addition to looking over the journals. It's a great way to relive those hunts. I'll try to make time to upload some here, but time is something I don't have much of to spare, and it takes a long time to upload videos, so I don't know how many I'll get on-line.

Sitting around talking hunting with my brothers, re-reading those journals and watching some of our videos has me asking...Is it September yet???

It'll be here soon, and I'll be ready.

DV