Grouse Hollow Journal for November 29, 2012 by Greg Koelker
The Big One has come and gone. El and I had a good time opening weekend staying with Barb and Chuck down on Dutch Hollow Ridge near Burton and eating too much good food like homemade vegetable beef soup or homemade chicken noodle soup or barbecue or, well, you get the idea. We partied a bit at night, and we hunted hard with the Burton Deer Hunters. Our group killed 9 deer in the first two days. Nine deer is down for us; our deer party has been averaging something like 18 critters tagged in the first couple of days over the last couple years. El and I did not fill any tags.
On Sunday morning, I was celebrating, lost in a reverie of days spent in the woods with lots of deer (okay, I was snoozing with my back against a tree) when I had that feeling that someone was watching me. I opened my right eye and saw a frozen deer staring down at me from about forty yards away. My Ruger was leaning against the tree to my left, and I slowly slid my left hand to the gun and got a hold on it. I knew if I moved much the deer would vaporize. I waited until the buck - it was a small buck - put its head down and stepped into some gooseberry bushes to pull up and look through the scope. No deer! There it was! I made out its head and neck. I slid the scope down to where I thought I could see it's shoulder behind the bushes and squeezed the trigger. The deer spun as if hit and ran away low to the ground. In less than a second, I lost it in the trees up the hill. I climbed to the spot where it had been standing, for some reason thinking it might be there yet. It wasn't. There was no sign, that is no blood or hair, that I had hit it. I must have pulled the shot or shot under it. After half an hour of circling about where I saw the deer run, I realized that I had missed. I saw ten other deer that day, all too far away to shoot at.
Anyway, we butchered 9 deer on Monday morning by 10:30, with most of the crew (some were at work or school) doing their time honored jobs on the line. Brother-in-law Dave had two deer skinned by the time we got there at 7 AM. Dave takes the back straps out after he has the deer skinned and puts them in a cooler. They will soon be work for the steak cutters. Brother Bill had a child's wagon loaded with loins and rib cages ready for the boning tables. I put on some rubber gloves, got a newly sharpened knife out of Bill's knife drawer, slapped it over a steel a few times, and began working on dismembering a hind quarter that was waiting for me on the end of a picnic table. The boys were boning out rib cages and shoulders tossing waste in boxes and burger chunks in coolers and chunks to be cut into steaks and chops in others. Chuck and Dave had taken out the tenderloins on the nights before so they wouldn't dry out. Those most special cuts of meat would end up as medallions fried in butter and onions by sister Kathy (who does not hunt) for lunch, along with more pots of homemade soups, cookies, meat sticks, cheese, and cookies and such. The boys got the huge grinder going making burger. Dave drove a cooler full of trimmings down to Hauber's in Dickeyville to be made into summer sausage. Bill's wife Amy returned from Sam's Club in Dubuque with boxes of pork shoulder that some of us cut open, boned, and then sliced into strips to be used in making rope sausage. Eventually, a mix of seasonins was worked into some batches of ground trim and ground pork that were run through a couple times for making rope sausage. Todd and nephew Nick ran the sausage stuffer filling lengths of casings with mix destined for some apple smoking in Bill's outhouse sized smoker. Ellen and Barb and Katie cut steaks and butterfly chops and packaged them in meal-sized bags ready for the freezer.
I hit my first deer on Thanksgiving. Ellen and I hunted here at Grouse Hollow on Turkey Day morning. Dan Brown was here too. He called the house a bit after 6 AM to say he had just seen a big buck in the field. I changed my plans and took the truck around the back way to the ridge to try and get ahead of the buck while Ellen went up into the Grouse Hollow to watch for it if I managed to turn it back into the farm. I took a long walk through the Corner Woods, along the neighbors, and out onto the point above where I hoped the buck had taken to ground. If it did, we never saw it. Ellen did see some baldies run over the hill. Dan later told us they stopped by his tent blind, but he figured they were too small to shoot. Anyway, that night after a day of feasting and visiting and watching football, Ellen and I and nephew Jason Junk were headed north on Highway 35 just out of Lynxville when Ellen exclaimed, "Deer! Stop!" There was a small deer in the middle of the northbound lane, probably blinded by the light. I slammed on the brakes and the Explorer performed admirably stopping almost on a dime after a straight, tire squealing slide that ended when the car rolled the small deer. The deer went down hard but managed to get to its feet; it jumped the concrete barrier and scrambled up the steep hill beyond. The lights were okay and the engine was working fine, so we drove home. An inspection under the yard light showed only some deer hair on the bumper and maybe a bent license plate, but otherwise no visible damage, so we got by with one I guess.
We didn't hunt on Friday. The wind made it so miserable, it was just nice being in a warm house and doing inside stuff. Ellen made homemade chicken noodle soup so the house had an aroma to die for. I did homework and worked on wedding pictures.
On Saturday morning, El walked along a ridge top while I stumbled up the ditch in the bottom of the Oak Hollow. No deer.
After a trip to the dump and our friends the Swenson's at the Flying Horse Stables, we went out again to sit out the last two hours of the day. Ellen took a stand overlooking the Grouse Hollow, while I went to the Corner Woods and found a comfortable stump. The air had a bite to it that burned my cheeks as the sun went down. There was an occasional breeze that rustled dried oak leaves over head, but the only action I had was birds and squirrels. There were maybe half a dozen fuzzy tree rats playing a rough game of tag on a topless hollowed tree a few yards down the hill from me. They were fun to watch, but I couldn't hear much when they were ramming around. About 4, I heard something else coming. I managed to stand and slowly turn in time to see a deer running by maybe 40 yards away. I couldn't get my gun up in time for it, but then another one, a bigger one, came on the run through the same spot. I got it in the scope and fired. I waited. I had hoped to see a buck coming right along or maybe standing watch somewhere up the hill from me, but after a bit, I gave that up and walked over to where I thought the deer had been when I shot. I called Ellen and told her what had happened and that I found some deer hair at the scene of shooting. She was up at the of the Grouse Hollow and on her way. I looked for blood. Nothing. I walked down the way the first deer had gone, thinking I'd find some sign or maybe find my deer. Nope. I walked back up to the original spot and then saw a deer stretched out facing me twenty feet away. I was standing by the doe when Ellen got there. She found blood immediately. Apparently the deer had spun away from me when I hit it and had run a few yards before turning and falling down. I had made a good kill with the entrance wound in the lower rib cage. I tagged the deer's ear and Ellen held the deer's legs while I field dressed it. As it would take a lot more time if I did it, Ellen walked back over the ridge to where I had left the four wheeler and drove it back. After a bit of struggle trying to lift the limp critter onto the back of the quad, Ellen suggested we lift up the front end together and slide the rest on. That worked well. Back at the ranch, after a turn at the hydrant to wash out the deer's insides, we shifted the body to the back of the Ranger and I took it down to the Thirsty Turtle in Stoddard to register. Chad Myhre slipped a metal tag through the ear hole of my deer and then told me about his group's hunt and the busy weekend the folks at the Turtle had registering deer. Saturday and Sunday of opening weekend sounded like it was crazy. Early on, all reports were of a record kill on opening weekend, but keep in mind the weather. It was downright balmy so a lot people who might have waited to register their deer until later in the week probably couldn't wait. Back at the ranch, I was able to back the pickup under the rope hoist and hang the deer up to the rafters in the pole shed. I used a flashlight and my hunting knife to cut out the tenderloins before I went in for the night.
On the last day of gun season, we lay pretty low. El went to church, while I started this column. I also did a load of my dirty clothes and finished fixing up the Christmas lights. El got the kitchen floor ready for a rug under our kitchen table. You see, although we have geo-thermal heat, the tile under our kitchen table is attached to a cement slab that used to be a porch and has no heated area under it. The rug makes the area more comfortable. Ron Von Glahn came up to collect the deer I shot for canning later this week and he and I got in a load of firewood up on the ridge. Later, our neighbors the Sikoras called and wanted to deer hunt so we made some plans and got out. In two drives, I did not see a critter besides squirrels, rabbits, and birds. Anyway, we did move a few deer around. While our neighbor Jim Pickar did not see anything from a tripod stand in the bottom of the hollow, 12-year old Jake, had two baldies come up to him. He said he didn't dare move as they were on his "wrong" side. Gregg said there were at least three deer that moved in front of him, but all escaped for another day. At sundown, I stopped to chat with Jared Krause who had hunted all day with no luck. He said their group only had one buck, and - because their group has rules on buck size, it cost the shooter - his nephew- $100 for shooting a buck with less than a 15-inch rack. The money goes into a sausage fund. Jared had heard that most of the neighbors hadn't done much better. I shared that our Iowa hunters only took home one doe. Anyway, I know the warm kitchen felt pretty good by the time we quit. El and/or I might get out with smoke poles (muzzle loader rifles) this weekend; however, we are off to Lambeau Field and the Viking/Packer game this weekend. Let us hope for great weather and a Packer victory. After last night's debacle, they have to play better right?
Until next time, get out - there is plenty of deer hunting left what with the muzzle loader season on now and a week of antlerless hunting and the late bow season. If that's not enough, well then, I don't know. The stories will have to do for another year, I guess. Turkey hunters who haven't got their spring permits applied for should do it. The deadline to apply is December 10. Enjoy.
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