My wife, daughter, son in-law and grandkids just spent the last 5 days up on our land getting ready for the deer opener. It rained 4 out of the 5 days but we had a good time in spite of the weather. Our stands are ready, deer seem plentiful and hopefully the rain will be gone in 2 weeks or at least it might be cold enough to turn to snow.

Sighted in my Redhawks and got my ATV all muddy. Gotta love the outdoors!

I'm sure many of you are going through the same motions, getting ready.

Sometimes getting ready is more fun than the real thing. Any more stories out there?

Yeah I can't wait either i have been passing the time and trying to keep my mind off it by duck hunting. But that early does only season really got me excited.

Spent the weekend at the family land up near Mora this past weekend.

We were able to scare up a few grouse, but the woodcock seemed to outnumber them. We have a stream that runs through the land, and unfortunately, it has turned into a small river with all of the recent rain. It was difficult to get out to my stand, but I made it and everything looks good for deer opener....couple scrapes out there and lots of tracks. We did find a dead 4-pointer out there...no apparent wounds though, not sure why it died. I hope the rain subsides for the next few weeks so we can fix our bridge and get acrocss the stream without having to wear waders.

Did a little repair work to the stand, shot a few grouse and a few woodcock, and LOTS of flying orange birds. Even got the pistols out for awhile... it was my wife's first time shooting my .40 XD sub-compact....she couldn't rack the slide, but she could shoot it OK. Recoil springs are tough on those little guys. She really liked shooting the .22 MKIII though. Definitely more manageable.

I'm jealous. My fiancee and I are getting married this weekend, and the honeymoon overlaps rifle opener, so I won't get out there until the second weekend.

Sounds like you guys are hunting private land. This will be my first year hunting private land. On a side note, have you had any issues with trespassing? I posted my land this summer, and I've heard some hunters have no problem either ignoring signs or tearing them down and saying they never saw them.

--off topic response--
My wife sometimes had difficulty with that operation until we tried a different technique. Have her hold the pistol close in to her body, assuming she is right handed, hold the left hand still gripping the slide, PUSH hard with the right hand. The pushing motion has more leverage and the left hand just holding the slide is found to be easier. Try it yourself and and then have her try it. This generally works with the women shooters in class.

--back to deer hunting--

Not deer hunting but ...

I'm envious of the guys who got grouse. We drove to Lake Jeanette (N of Ely and Babbit) Th - Su and saw precisely 4 Grouse. 1 Taunting us as it walked by the crapper, 1 that Step Brother took, one that my dad was too far from and a third that Step Brother kicked up but couldn't get around to in time.

12ish hours of driving, rain, wind, rough terrain and THICK brush. I had a GREAT time. Wish I'd gotten a grouse though.

We typically have pretty good luck w/ grouse in the area that I hunt (west of Mora, North of Ogilvie, kind of by Ann Lake). Every year, we manage to shoot a couple. We saw 7 total on Saturday, and probably about 20 woodcock (plus a skunk, an owl, two porcupines, and some bear tracks). I love the outdoors....

About racking the slide on the .40....

I tried having her push with the right hand and pull with the left, but she had a tendency to get her fingers a little too close to the ejection port...I didn't want her to get pinched as the slide came back forward. She just about had it fully racked a couple of times, but not quite, and her hands were trembling. Better grip placement on the slide and a little practice and she will be good to go. It's all in the technique...I remember when I first got it, I found it a little ackward too, but now it's nothing.

Got some pictures of her shooting....there's something incredibly sexy about an attractive woman holding a pistol.

Never....the land we hunt is bordered on 3 sides by farms, and across the road is another farm. Down the road is access to the Mille Lacs Wildlife Mgmt. area....so with vast public land a few miles away, we've never had problems with trespassing.

We had a lot of trouble with trespassers in the past, the DNR was of no help, and the local sheriffs office was only slightly more helpful, as they lived FT in the area and we were "just landowners" (deputies exact words).

We had a deer cam that showed them hauling a deer out of lower pasture, some 7-800 yards from the property line on sept 10th. They claimed they were bow hunting to DNR but two rifles were clearly visible.

Finally sending a letter from atty demanding cease and desist under penalty of fine and jail time did it sink in that we were serious. A copy of the pictures sent to the DNR did nothing again.

It was only when the farm was forced to sell for back taxes did the situation change.

It must've been a longer drawn out ordeal. You obviously had to know who was trespassing and they must've done it more than once.

Sad to hear about the DNR's lack of response. Millions of Lottery dollars hard at work...

We've never had any trespasser problems. Our land joins thousands of acres of state land that you cannot get to without crossing private land on our (western) side. It's a strip about 8 miles wide and 20 or so miles long. There is some limited public access on the east side but there are wetlands in the middle that no one crosses (basically impassable) so we never see anyone on our side that we don't know. Kind of nice to have all that land to hunt and only have to share with our neighbors. We all get along and know where the others hunt so there is no conflict.

I helped my father in law put up his deer stand near my cabin (use to be his) so he is ready.

Then we took 3 nice long walks in the woods for grouse but no joy. We saw a couple to far to take a shot and few more that flushed at 50 yards. I'm sure 20 more were with in 10 feet saying "You can see me if I don't move!"

I'll get them

HA! That's the tough part of hunting those birds....you basically have to step on them in order to get them up. They blend in well...one that I shot last Saturday took me about 10 minutes to find, even though it landed about 20 feet away from me.

just another reason to get a dog.


I can not stand hunting birds without a dog, and it gives you a reason to exercise the "alarm system"....