Well Bless My Soul!

I want to welcome the newest link to my site (hint, hint). Her monicker is Blessed. She runs a very nice blog called A Blessed Crazy Life.

I'm a wife and mother who enjoys reading, hunting, fishing, scrapbooking, cooking, hiking, and a whole bunch of other stuff and I am abundantly blessed and always feel just a smidge crazy.

She is! She is also looking at life from a humorous point of view even though it is hard and trying most of the time. Go give her a look and smile at her hunting stories. Oh yeah, how come I can't find her picture? Darn it, that reminds me of another shy blogger.

The Lost World

This morning I watched the old movie "The Lost World" from 1960. As I knew all along it was originally shot on location at the famous Christmas Place.
It has all the things you want in a movie.
The story has strange prehistoric creatures.
Lots of guys running around with guns.
Hot Chicks.
A Lost Hidden Mine.
Secret Symbols and A Deadly Conspiracy.
A Buried Treasure , lots of Bad Guys, a truly diabolical and Evil Genius, and an Unlikely Hero.
A fun, great movie for everyone or you can just keep coming back to The Deer Camp Blog.
Please bookmark this site and come back soon!

Helping Bloggers Get Noticed

When I first got into blogging I decided to design and give out business cards. When I would tell people I was a blogger or ran a blog, people would look at me as if Old Scratch had said he killed a deer. (A very blank and unbelieving stare). So I had the cards printed up. At first I was shy about giving them out but soon learned that if you tell someone about your blog they might visit, but if they have your card they will almost assuredly come visit. Do Not Be Shy In Handing Your Cards Out!
Marian sent me an example of her new cards and mine is reprinted underneath.

A Handful of #2's

Piasa, MS> I, for one, am glad that turkey season is about to get here. The main reason is that I am sick and tired of these damn Thunderbirds. It seems like every time you get a deer in your sights, one of those giant birds comes swooping out of the sky, snatches it up and carrys it off.
I am going to take buck shot or #2's with me this year and if I see one of those things, I am going to blast the hell out of it.
I have no idea what the state regulations are for shooting these so called Piasa Bird varmints but I can't find any rules against shooting one.
If you come visit, bring your shotgun and make sure you have some heavy load shells and you can help me get rid of the damn things.
We will have Thanksgiving dinner for everyone that reads this blog!
Paul says they "taste like chicken"!

Huntus Interruptus

Rattling Chain, Peru> In case you haven't heard the news,
Ivan at Crossbow Hunters of Peru is getting married next week. This is really big news since no one can figure out why she is marrying him. Most figure it is just pity. How could a Spanish beauty like her fall for a guy like him? It is a bigger mystery than the Mothman.


Her name or nickname is Luli.
Everyone please email her and send your sympathy.
Even worse is that everyone knows that she can
out-hunt, out-shoot, out-fish, and assuredly out-last him, no matter what he thinks.
She is a beautiful girl and I wish her the very best of luck in straightening him out.


Of course, he thinks that he is going to continue his life exactly like it is.
HA-HA-HA. When Ivan returns from his honeymoon,
he will be as tame as a kitten.
Deer season? Ducks? Hunting?
Ivan will be matching fabric samples for the couch and picking out wallpaper etc for a year or two, so expect his personal blog to be light for awhile.
All joking aside, I wish Ivan and his beautiful (soon to be)
wife the very best in life and hope that someday they find a way
to visit me at the famous Christmas Place.
Please go over and leave a comment of congratulations to both of them.

A Strange Harbinger

There was nothing different that morning as I got ready to go turkey hunting. Spring had come early and the weather was extremely pleasant. Everyone in camp was excited and the turkeys had been gobbling everywhere. I left the camp before day on my 4-wheeler and headed up the old road, turned right, then across the Beaverdam to the area of big woods near the Double White Oak stand.
This 40 acre block had been missed when the timber was cut about 50 years ago and the timber there is unbelievable. There are giant oaks of all types that two men can’t reach around and the forest here is so open that you can see 100 yards or more through it.. That year it seemed like it was also filled with turkeys.
I worked my way by flashlight into the center of this area and found my blind. A couple of old logs and limbs piled up in front of a large red oak tree. I eased myself back against the tree, tested my ability to swing the .12 gauge and settled in to wait for daylight. The woods grew quiet as I relaxed and got my calls ready.
Ten minutes later a loud rushing sound seemed to suddenly start up in the woods and was rapidly heading in my direction. It grew louder and louder as I listened, then suddenly it was right upon me as I pulled the shotgun to a ready position.
In the false light of dawn I could see what looked like a gigantic turkey flying through the woods straight at me.
It glided through the woods, and just before it reached me, it seemed to swoop up and land on a huge limb not 30 feet in front of me. The strange animal wiggled around a minute and grew still. I was staring at the strange bird and eased my hand inside my jacket and pulled out my binoculars. I slowly moved them up to my eyes, focused and found the bird in my glasses. Except it was not a bird.
To this day, I do not know what it was or even what to call it.
It was not a turkey, in fact not a bird at all. Smooth limbed with slightly rounded wings folded on its’ back and it was a brownish or dark green color. The creature was about 5 feet tall (if standing) with short human like legs that ended in talons that gripped the big limb. It squatted like a human on the limb with the claws on its hands resting on its knees. The head seemed to have no neck. It turned and glanced at me and its’ eyes were huge red orbs that glowed in the darkness. I was not afraid until it looked at me but felt fear then. I did not move as it rested there. I watched it as it studied the woods but repeatedly kept looking directly at me and I knew that it saw me. In fact, I had the feeling that it wanted me to see it. I did not know what it was or how dangerous it might be but it reminded me of the ancient Gargoyles from mythology and I stayed frozen in place.
Daylight kept getting closer and closer and the woods started to wake up around me. A turkey gobbled a few hundred yards away, then a limb cracked off to my right and I quickly glanced in that direction. When I looked back up at the strange creature it was gone. No sound, no movement, it was just gone. I studied the limb and all the limbs around it, then the trees next to it. By broad daylight I knew that it really was gone.
I sat there a few minutes, pulled my map out and drew a picture of the creature on the back.
Later in the day I got ready to head back to Water Valley. I had no turkey and the thought of the creature was heavy on my mind. Another strange thing was that I started dreading the ride home as if something was wrong that I could not quite understand. Finally on what I considered the spur of the moment, I decided to go home by a different route than I usually did. I found out later that the long bridge over the Big Black River collapsed, killing seven people, that afternoon at about the time that I would have been on it.
Research has led me to believe that for some reason the mysterious harbinger sometimes called the Mothman had warned me, but I have no understanding of the reason why.

Great Googly Moogly!

Honey Hole, MS> Critter brought this pic by and said that he was sworn to secrecy about where the deer was taken. The smaller deer is a 10-pt. and the monster buck is a 14-pt. The deer was taken locally in Yalobusha County by Barry Vaughn and scored 180. Congratulations on a great buck!

Happy 2nd Blogirthday

Today is the 2nd anniversary of my blogging career. I started blogging on a very cold day in February 2006. It has been two fun years and I am still excited to post every day. I have met some great friends and am looking forward to having each of them visit me at the
Christmas Place as soon as we can put it together. You visitors please leave a comment and come back often to visit. I appreciate links and hope we are all here for another year too.

Will He Make IT?

Whopper, MS> I have been in contact with the very entertaining GuyK at Charming, Just Charming. His old body has been falling apart recently, but his wit and enthusiasm has been undiminished. The question remains, will he make it to the famous Christmas Place or not. Looks like he goes to see Catfish about every weekend and his Jayco is always ready to go. He has an open invitation and everyone down here is waitng for three things. Turkey Season, Crappie spawning and our friend GuyK.

Como Conversation

Como, MS> We had a great time at the windy City Grill in Como last night. Everyone showed up for our annual get together and it has turned into a tradition now.
Kim Stewart was bright and funny but I couldn't get her to dance on the table as we sipped our champagne. Mark is still in mourning for Romney's Presidential hopes and told truck driving stories and gave us his political views. Greg was just glad to get the hell out of Water Valley..


Greg and I spent half our time just priming Mark and he was pretty entertaining. We might have to shut that Talk Radio off in his truck though. He has that Teddy Bear look that the women love, look at that Grinnigan with Denise in the pic.

Kim Jones was fun as usual and is always sparkling to be with.
I really enjoy her company. I haven't seen She and Greg much lately and Kim seemed like she was really enjoying her break from the grind of daily life. We talked, ate, drank and caught up with each other. Many fun plans were discussed and a consensus was reached on what to do about Paul. Now all I need is a box big enough to hold him and a plane to drop him in Pakistan.
Denise was the center of attention and kept the conversation flowing. Me, I was just there for decoration and tried to keep up. At the end I got to make a toast to FRIENDSHIP and have some chocolate covered strawberries with champagne.
We ended up easing to the Como Steak House for the best dessert on the planet. Their homemade cheesecake is fantabulous.
I hope we can keep doing this every year. Y'all come next year.

Valentines Day Again

Last year I posted about the sexy camo lingerie that Denise desperately needed for Valentines Day. This year she needs roses and some other small gift to show how much I appreciate her.
Tonight we are going to meet our friends Greg (Old Scratch) Jones and and his wonderful wife Kim, Mark (Mailrider) Stewart and his wife Kim (Bear Claw) at the Windy City Grill in Como, MS. We are having drinks at 6:30 and dinner at 7:00. If you are in the neighborhood stop by for a drink or join us for dinner.

The kids are about to worry me to death about Webkinz for Valentines Day. They are the latest, greatest thing and it looks like I will have to get those for the girls and Spencer needs a turkey call.

Ballad of Archie Who

If you were growing up in the south around 1969-70 you have heard this song. A tall gangly red-headed boy from Drew, MS made history as the quarterback for the Ole Miss Rebels. He was headed to the Heisman trophy till his arm was broken in a tough ballgame, but #18 became a hero and legend at Ole Miss as his son Eli did too.
Turn It Up!!!!!
Ballad of Archie Who
If all the hunters that read this site would chip in and help me, we could capture Archie, put him in a pen, sell his "fluids" on Ebay or to college coaches and we could all become Zillionaires. I wonder how much we could get per ounce?

Typical Duck Hunter

Taylor, MS> As you can see by this photo, my cousin Kent Howell is destroying the roads into and out of Water Valley. Kent owns the company Endevco out of Oxford and is a contractor and engineer that specializes in culverts and bridges. Needless to say that they will work all summer and fall on this project, but come Duck Season they will mysteriously disappear till the next spring. Typical Duck Hunter!
Hers's the link to the story.
You Can't Get There From Here

Turkey Season Cometh

I am finally getting fired up about Turkey Season. Spencer should get his first one this year and I am looking forward to being in the woods again. I am a little concerned about my Canadian friend, Othmar Vohringer. He mentioned in passing that he would like to come down and blast a turkey with me this year. That would be great, but I need to travel light when hunting turkeys so I started calculating how many rocks I would need to take at least two gobblers with a 10 inch beard (3) and how many boxes of shells it would take Othmar to get one turkey of any size (3). If he runs out of shells I should have at least one extra rock for him to throw.

A Soccer Championship

What has this got to do with hunting? Not a whole lot, but very few people can ever say that they were part of a state championship team in any sport. These girls had been praticing since the 8th grade for this moment and Denise and I were glad to be a part of it.
The phone rang Friday and it was Paul on the line. Excitedly he told me how his girls team had made it through the play-offs of the 5-A Girls Soccer Championship and were playing in Clinton. Could we please come?
His daughters are Hillary and Haley. Both are exceptional athletes and excel in soccer. Later, Wanda called and was so excited that we could not say no. I do not know much about soccer and was hesitant to go but their insistence made Denise, Camo and I pack up and head out Saturday morning.
We met at the camp, dropped Camp off to visit with Dad and Trigger and headed to the big game. Gulfport -vs- Madison Central, one game for the state championship.
The Lady Admirals of Gulfport played hard defensive ball and scored when they had the chance.
Hillary was a whirling dervish across the field and I wish I knew the other girls that played so hard. They were true underdogs and pulled out a stunning victory 3-0. Congratulations to all of them and of course they couldn't have done it without Paul continually screaming from the sidelines.
Denise and I want to personally congratulate Hillary and Haley on a great victory. You deserve those championship medals!
Go see more of these new Mississippi State 5-A Soccer Champions at admiralssoccer.com

PUH-LEESE LET ME SLEEP

Meeses, MS> I hate going to camp this time of year. It is always the same.
Dad has some project going and I am the only one there to do it. Late on Saturday night I will stumble back to the bunkroom and collapse in the bed.
It never fails…. 2AM….
WHAM, WHAM, WHAM
what the ????
WHAM, WHAM, WHAM
Puh-leese go away and let me sleep.
silence…….
SCRATCH, SCRATCH, SCRATCH
for Gods’ sake
SCRATCH, SCRATCH, SCRATCH
damn stupid dog!!
WHAM, WHAM, WHAM
damn stupid deer!!!
WHAM,WHAM, SCRATCH, WHAM, SCRATCH
Damn! I’m coming, damn varmints, why can’t y’all play during the day?
I open the door and my dog, Camo jumps out, The giant buck, Thunderhoof, is waiting with his big tongue hanging out ready to go play. They stare at me and I tell them hell no I am trying to get some sleep! Leave me alone! This time of year it is impossible to get a good night of sleep at the camp. Stupid Dog! Stupid Deer!

Hogs Circa 1972

I knew nothing about wild hogs in 1972, but I learned quickly. A very rich landowner built a fence around his property and put Wild Russian Boars on his place. They promptly escaped of course. We were hunting the property beside him when a whole herd ran by my Dad. He thought on it and decided he was going to get one of the big hogs. We were bowhunting then and what is known as "The Pod" was legal. A medical powder attached to your arrow that when a deer was hit, would be absorbed into the blood and help kill the deer. Dad decided a hog arrow is what we needed. We took an old Bear broadhead and opened it up on the side, filled it with the powder and put electric tape over it. He was ready.
The next day as the hogs came by he took the tape off one side of the broadhead and let fly. A white cloud flew from behind the speeding arrow. Through the cloud he saw that he had popped a big one that only ran about 50 yards.
He hit it perfectly, so we don't know if the powder worked or not. It was a good thought, thank goodness he made a good shot. For years, when we were after a big buck, we would say you need a hog arrow for that deer.
This pic shows deer and a domestic hog gone wild on an island we hunted and is a story for another day. That is the story of how Wallace Odom saved Baxter Jones' life.

How Wide?????

Burgess, MS> Years ago when Dad was hunting the Peddler Field Phantom, his stand sat on a ridge overlooking the scrapes of the giant deer. He took several nice bucks off of this stand including the Phantom.
One frosty morning as the bright rays of the sun lit up the forest, Dad saw movement way across the hollow on the side of the adjacent ridge. A nice buck was easing along about 300 yards away. Hershel got a good rest and put his scope on the deer. It was so far through the woods that it was an impossible shot but the deer turned slightly away from him into a wide open spot. He put the crosshairs in the center of the bucks' back and squeezed the trigger. BLAM!
The buck instantly fell in it's tracks. Dad sat there amazed that he had even hit the deer much less killed it. What a great shot!
When he got to the deer and checked it, he could not find a bullet hole in the deers back. Searching he finally found the hole exactly between the antlers and in the back of his head. The force of the bullet had cracked the skull so that the antlers
were loose. I had killed a nice little deer that morning and we kidded each other about the size of the horns as we posed for a picture. At the last second, Dad spread the horns as wide as they would go and the picture was taken. In the pic it looks really big, but it was a good joke for a long time.

Mountain Top Removal (My Take)

I am not big on jumping on bandwagons, but the more I have read about mountain top removal, the more I feel inclined to back the little people in stopping this practice.
The truth is that I do not know much about mountain top removal and the mining involved. I know we need coal and I think that if someone makes the investment on their land to mine it, they should have that right. But where do you draw the line between the effect on your land and the effect on a whole area or region.
I do know that thanks to Congress, the Appalachia District starts way up in Dennys’ area, winds down through Tennessee, and ends in my little area of Yalobusha County, MS. This is the ARC District. (Appalachia Regional Commission) So when I want to confuse people I tell them I am an Appalachian.
Driving along the bluffs in my hunting area in Mississippi, I have noticed that the bluffs all had gravel in them at one time, and just like the mountains of West Virginia, they have been strip mined. They dug out the gravel over the years and no one made any effort to restore the landscape. Now the areas are dug out, covered with Kudzu or barren and are gouged out horrors to look at that you can not cross. This is mining just for gravel and will take hundreds of years to erase the scars if ever. I hate to think of what happens to a mountain that has coal in it.
What is the answer? I don’t know but I would hate to look out my window at a beautiful mountain and then realize that it was slowly disappearing before my very eyes.
There has to be a middle ground or another way to mine this coal. Is the cost too prohibitive to mine differently or is strip mining just easier? Read up on this at the Backwoods Drifter and the Outdoor Bloggers Summit. If you feel strongly enough about strip mining and its hazardous effects on the people there, please contact your local Congressman by email or letter in a calm way pointing out other ways to extricate the coal and the residual effect on the land if things do not change. Good luck Denny, I hope this post will prompt at least one person to get involved. Make sure to visit Denny at Backwoods Drifter for more links and the Outdoor Bloggers Summit for more information.

Celebration!!!!

Oxford, MS> My head is spinning and my nerves are jumping from wild delirium. There is little or no work getting done today in the little town of Oxford Mississippi as everyone celebrates a great and jubilant Victory! Did the Ole Miss Rebels win the Sugar Bowl?
Hell, I can't tell, it sure feels like it.
Today we are celebrating the New York Giants victory over the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl in one of the greatest football games in history.
All that is being talked about today is "The Game" and "The Play" and how a group of men became a team as adversity after adversity fell upon them and at the end they proved they were equal to the challenge and became Champions. Each man on that roster rose above himself to become a focused team and to believe that they could be the World Champions.
Earlier in the year as they lost game after game, few people here could believe it. We knew about Eli Manning. He is a winner and maybe one of the best quarterbacks to ever play the game. We were proud that he went to New York and figured that, that was that as they were about to win and win big. We knew.
We had held our breath on too many fourth quarter last minute drives as he moved down the field to win. Why did I doubt? I knew he had nerves of steel behind that boyish grin. Now New York and the rest of the world know that he is a Champion too.
I watched him beat Oklahoma and Nebraska in big bowl games for us in the exact same way. Last minute drives to Victory that left you covered in sweat and unbelieving in his coolness in a pressure situation.
Eli Manning and Archie are at the very heart of OLE MISS and today we are celebrating Victory with the Mannings again.

Posing With Denise

All the hunters love to pose with Denise. First she smels good, unlike them and second she is just lucky. When she comes to camp, someone is going to get a big old buck. Paul is usually that person (damn).

That Bob gets a little lift in his step when he poses with her too.

A very good shot of Denise and I on New Years Eve.

Scenes

Rebelville, MS> I am totally exhausted after watching the best Super bowl in history. I don't know why I was so shocked that the Giants won, I have seen Eli and Co. score like that about a thousand times. He is a legend here and now a legend to NY too. Here is a pic of our camphouse.
This pic is a long strip that goes through the middle of our CRP. We call it the landing strip and at the very end in those trees is the Point Stand. You can see 500 yards in almost every direction here and it is one of our best stands. The CRP is so thick that the deer will be on you before you are ready.

Eli's Coming

Camos' Corner II

Water Valie, MS> hi! Camo here, Rex don let me talk on comperter much so I want 2 tell you that deer seeson is over. I don know Y. Thes is only secunt time I get to rite on comperter. Go chec my firsts fun post.
We lef camp Sunday and 7 of those evil deerses jumped in the road rit in front of us.
Theys horrible white tails were stickin up and I could see ther big ears. they wuz buoncin around and lookin terriblez. I barked as loud as I could and tried to bite them but Rex wood not let me chase them. He said deer seeson wuz over. I really hates those nasty thangs.
I got to bite them when the hunters wood bring one in, the ones with the horns are really horrible. I chased lots of them out of the yard this yeer and had fun. Me and Trigger could smell them all round the camp and would bark and bark if they got too close.
I love goin to camp and Rex dont know but deer seeson is not over for me.