Some times you are forced to see things differt.

[alleyyooper]

Most years I head for our deer camp in the UPPER and hunt from blinds like this. Also some quicky made ones with a folding saw and some twine.





Due to a illness in the family I am stuck with hunting lower Michigans shot gun ML zone. I have this one PVC blind I really like a lot except it is heavy and the PVC fittings are brittle in the cold.




And 2 of these dog house blinds on 27 acres.



Saturday the 15th opener was a wet one. I saw 14 deer by noon. Thats close to a weeks worth in the UPPER.



Right around noon on Sunday the 16th it started to snow hard. I saw 9 deer for the day.



Al

[alleyyooper]

Monday dawned bright and cold. From Dog house blind #1 I saw for an instant the buck I am after. Problem was he was chaseing a hot doe and crossed the shooting lane into the brush so fast a shot wasn't there. I did see 5 other deer.
NO PICTURES.got to remember to grab the camera.

Tuesday was another bright cold morning. I sat in Dog house # 2 blind It is in a old fence row on a hill between two over grown farm feilds. A little buck came in the shooting lane. Another one came and laid down till some dogs came and run them off.










Wednesday I only got to hunt a hour and a half in the afternoon and saw no deer.

Thursday I saw 21 deer in the morning while hunting.
One said to me I SEE YOU in there. Another 12 from the liveing room window at lunch. they were laying in the pines.





Al

[alleyyooper]

Friday it was cold again Like 19F at 6:30AM. I seen 13 deer from the dog house # 2 blind. At lunch there are 22 laying across the creek out our living room window.



Saturday again from the PVC blind I see 11 deer in the morning. I seen 4 more in the afternoon.





Al

[alleyyooper]

Did I mention that the UPPER green blind isn't like that any longer?



When I was there during the 2006 season I seen this hornets nest. I had planed on getting it down when I returned in the spring of 2007.





I never made it in the spring. By the time I got back there in the fall some spineless cowardly tresspassers had shot a huge hole with shot gun/s in the floor of the blind to get ther nest down.

First off hornets had died in the fall of 2006. The one queen found a place to hibernate for the winter but she would not use that nest again.
Also there was no reason to do any thing about the nest as it WAS NOT ON THEIR PROPERTY. Just leave these up to the property owners to take care of.

Need less to say the property is posted now. We have caught one tresspasser and pressed charges. He and his buddy paid a huge fine. Word has got out that we do not warn people any longer about tresspassing. We don't know who ruined our blind but we know who is paying for them doing it.
I bet they call them selves hunters/sportspersons too.

Al

[Elizabeth]

Did you do any hunting while you were out taking pictures?

[alleyyooper]

Every second after I leave the door I am hunting during season.
I just am not going to shoot just any deer as I have been there done that and have several patches to prove it.
Since it is just Kare and I, and she isn't all that crazy about any type of venison except hamburg I grind. I am waiting for that deer of a life time to reappear when he has time to stroll in my shooting lane rather than run pell mell after a hot doe.

Al

[big rockpile]

How long do you have the Blinds Set up before seeing Deer and do you Brush them in?I'm asking because lots of places here you can't leave a Blind out over night.

big rockpile

[JJ Grandits]

Those are great pictures! If that is the kind of deer hunting you have near home I would'nt travel. Do have to tell you though that the first picture you have is what we call a "squirrel".

[alleyyooper]

I set the blinds out a week before the season. since it is private property I don't brush them in either. Of course I stay aways back from their main travel routes. Plus they are use to me as I walk my dogs every morning and evening till opening day.

Ya that first picture is a wet bedragled squirrel. Just trying to show the wetness as the deer shake it off like a dog and look dry.

Al

[alleyyooper]

Here are the rest of the pictures of the new blind I threw together. Next fall it will be raised at least 8 feet. Of course it will have lots of stain colors on it too.

I had 3 sheets of T1 11 so bought a 4th one. I had one window the front one and thought I had 3 more like it, which it turns out they are different sizes. Two of them will work, for the third the south one I just placed the cut out on hinges and won't close it if it gets cold.
I also had all the hinges and black plastic I covered the roof with.
Kare said it seems tall. YUP it is but not all bad cosidering I am useing a Muzzle loader. Gives room to use the ram rod with out a bunch of banging around.







Al

[OkieDavid]

Beautiful pictures Al. Looks like a wonderful place to spend time with a gun OR camera. I see snow very rarely here and probably less than 10 times in my life during deer season. This season I have started out at daylight with a jacket and been in shirt sleeves during mid day. I can close my eyes and almost imagine the cold crisp air up there. While I would love to have one or two days of weather like that, I also must say I like only having to wear one pair of socks to hunt......

[alleyyooper]

Thank you for the nice comments.
I only wear one pair of socks when I am sitting in my blind. Of course I have my felt lined pac boots on over them.
Yes we have had some well below normal temps this season. Mornings running from 17F to 31F. The nornmal temp for a day time high is 44F, highest we have had so far is 36F.

Years ago I remember well above normal temps for the first 5 days of the season. You would start out with a sweat shirt and by mid day be in a T shirt.
It was so hot the deer in their winter coats were hardly moving at night even.
On the 6th day it turned cold and by dark we had 10 inches of snow. I was 22 years old then.

Al