Getting Ready!

We have been working very hard getting everything ready at Camp Chicken for Deer Season 2010.

Last spring, we purchased two new deer feeders from Moultrie that feed automatically on times that you can set yourself. It has been so much easier to put out feed for the deer than in the past.

We have been encouraged by the number of deer that have been taking advantage of the regular feeding schedule.

Last Saturday night we actually had 5 deer at the camp feeder at once. It is so much fun watching them.

We have been hearing a coyote pack pretty regularly so we think that the wolves that have been inhabiting our property have moved on. Conversations with some folks who are pretty knowledgeable about these things have told us that wolves won't tolerate any other canines in their territory so the fact that we hear the coyotes is a good thing.

For the first time last weekend, we had deer cam photo of a buck. He is only a 4-point but right now any buck sighting is pretty encouraging.



The raccoons are still pestering us but that is to be expected when you feed with corn. The little buggers just love corn. We even put out tuna fish and cat food and watched them totally ignore it in favor of the corn on the ground.



This guy is trying to figure out how to get more corn out of the feeder.

This past Saturday started out very cold, 14 degrees, but warmed up into the 50's by afternoon so we hopped on the 4-wheelers and just rode around to various areas checking for deer sign and looking at the wind damage.

We've had five or six major wind storms in the past few years that have totally changed Camp Chicken. We have so many huge trees uprooted and blown down that what used to be some of the most beautiful parts of our property are unrecognizable. It is sad to see what the wind has done.

We are scouting a spot to move the Skyview Shack to. It is in a nice spot but when we built it, the area was in a drought. Since then we have had very rainy times and the road to the shack has been very wet and at times under water. We plan on totally dismantling it and moving it in pieces. We'll have to see in the spring how that all turns out.

All in all, we are getting excited for the coming deer season. Hopefully, it will be better than last season when we saw so few deer.

We plan on going to camp this weekend to finish up our preparations. Our shacks are ready.

We checked out "The Cube" on Saturday. It is the first hunting shack we built on the property. It is just a 4 x 4 foot cube built on a wooden pallet. We eventually attached it to the old pair of skis that my Dad's old ice-fishing shack was on so that we could tow it around the property.

It is in a really good location on a hillside overlooking the balsam swamp area on the north forty. It hasn't been used since we moved it there three years ago. When I got into it, I found that the front end of the shack had sunk and the windows were looking at the ground about twenty feet in front of the shack.

So Arlene and I attempted to pull it forward up onto a rocky knoll by hand. That didn't work very well as we aren't as strong as we used to be. So Arlene thought that she could pull it with her 4-wheeler. I headed back to camp for a tow rope and she maneuvered her big 4-wheeler into position. She found that she couldn't just pull it, she had to back up and jerk it to get it moving. So she pulled and I pushed from behind and we managed to move it three feet up onto the knoll.

We swept it all out and I think I'll try to hunt out of it in the afternoons.

Of course, Arlene is hunting out of the "Cadillac II" and has all the comforts of home in there.

I'm going to alternate between "The Cube" and the new popup blind that Arlene bought me for my birthday.

Only 8 days until we get to go hunting!