Things have been very quiet here on the forum, we need something to talk about. So I'll tell you my plan.

I haven't been checking my mountain trail cameras very often, haven't had much time to hunt this season, so far. Only fired one shot so far.

On my #2 and #3 cameras, I've got a sow bear with 3 cubs, not sure, maybe 70 pounders? I think the sow will go 200#. Also have a single bear that will go 100 plus. And then there is one that will go 250 plus. Maybe 300 ?

Anyway, I'm off work today. It's warm, warmed up over night. Winds out of the southwest at 8, gusting to 18 mph. The leaves are dry and noisy.

Think I'll hunt up that first hollow past Camera #1, go up to the top and come back down the south side of that big ridge. Good chance the big one is laying in that laurel.

One bear and one guy on 400 acres, I've pretty much got him cornered. lol I should have the west side of the mountain all to myself today.

I'm off work tomorrow too. So, we'll see what happens.

Well, I didn't amount to squat yesterday. Up on the mountain the wind was coming out of the northwest, with the leaves/woods being so dry, figured my chances of sneaking up on a bear with the wind at my back, was pretty much a waste of time.

That's a big ridge, it's about a mile across. I've hunted that ridge dozens of times, and it'll take me a good hour or 2, maybe 3 hours to hunt through. Seems like all of my guys are busy or too lazy to hunt anymore. Or already wasted their vacation time and are back to work.

Anyway, we had a little rain shower here last night, should have been enough to settle the leaves. Going to pack my lunch, flashlight, and try again today. We'll still dry as a bone, I'll probably end up watching the spring until dark.

I did see 2 deer yesterday. Forget how many times I've hunted up there this season? But that makes a grand total of 5 deer that I've seen on the mountain. Not counting the doe and fawn that I seen in the headlights that one night. Seven total.

While it's fresh in my mind, I'll tell you what happened Sunday. It wasn't much.

I had a couple of things to do here before I left town, got on the mountain late. The little bit of rain we had here in town, it didn't rain at all on the mountain. Only 6 or 7 miles away.

I walked the road for a while, watched down under the rocks for a while, sat in the truck eating baked ham and rolls for a while. About 3 hours before dark I walked up to the spring, did see a doe about halfway up. I think it snorted at me, I heard something. Anyway, I watched it walk away.

I've got a spot about 75 yards above the spring, pretty much in the hollow. I've just been sitting on the ground, kind of leaning against a maple tree, two dead ash trees beside me. The ground is fairly steep, I've got a little pole, the size of your arm wedged on the high side of the maple. Keeps me from sliding down the mountain everytime I twist around.

Honestly, it's not very comfortable, no worries about taking a nap. But I can see to shoot down the hollow better than a hundred, and can see up the hollow to the base of the rocks. I can see the south side of the ridge, on my right pretty good.

So I snuggled in and watched. A little before dark a gray squirell came up the hollow, den trees off to my left. So I watched till it was too dark to see the spring, too dark to walk without a light.

After sitting that long I get about half stiff, my legs. So I eased off to the truck and came home.

Had to work yesterday, the same for today. I will have Wednesday morning off, Thursday I'm off all day (hopefully) and Friday I'll be off work till 2pm. I'm running short on time!

We did finally get a little rain shower yesterday, I'm looking forward to Thursday.

It sounds like your having a good time and getting some exercise. How are you planing on getting that big bear out by yourself? My son and I both shot nice buck in some rough country, and @ 64 years old i'm not a shame to say that I was glad to see the pickup truck at the bottom of the mountain! We did shoot one bear in our season, it was 192#. In PA. you have to get them checked by the Game Commission. Anyway nice hearing about your Adventures,and Good Luck to you!

Well, it sounds like you've had a good season and good times with your son. That's the main thing to get out and enjoy your time afield.

It's a long story, but I'll tell you anyway. Honestly, I wanted to double check and make sure that there wasn't a misprint in my calendar. But it was right, and bear season ended here on 12/31/2021. VA's season ended on January 1st. I checked.

Last Wednesday, that would have been 12/29/21, we had a good rain, I was told about 3/4'a oF an inch. It was a good soaking rain, but we're still dry.

Thursday morning, it was really foggy on the mountain, and I had to do a few things here in town. Long story short, it was 10am when I got on the mountain, and with the fog, you could only see 40 yards.

A little before Noon the fog started to clear out. I'd checked 2 of my trail cameras, the "lured rock" and "thunder rock" cams. No bear on them.

I was parked, hmmm, 2 miles behind a locked gate or so? I had the place to myself. So, I hunted out the road, just walking. Watched the "Slabpile hollow" for 20 minutes or so? Hunted on out and watched what we call the "Junkpile Hollow" for 20 minutes or so?

While I was in the Junkpile hollow, there were 3 fawns that crossed the hollow above me. They stopped 3 or 4 times, probably just winded me walking past? Who knows?

So, I sat there for another 20 minutes or so, didn't see anything else. I started up the hollow, it's pretty rough and pretty mean. I was just picking my way up, going slow and easy. Don't want to get up there all hot and sticky, then you'll freeze when you do sit down.

Once you go up that hollow, and get to the top, you'll come into an old skidder path. The path forks just across the hollow. The lower path takes you out under the rocks, the upper path takes you up above the upper 2 benches.

So, I was sitting there on a log,just watching, taking a breather. I'd been there maybe 5 minutes, and a 6-point buck runs up the hollow from the lower path. It was only off 40 yards or so? Ran up there and stopped at about 75. He stopped in the wide open, and just stood there looking around. Buck season was closed at the time, can't say that I could have killed him, but he offered a good shot. He trotted off to the left and on up the hollow, out of sight. Looking off to my right, same place the 6-pt came from, there was a spike buck standing under the grape vines.

The spike was standing there stomping it's foot. Looking right at me. I guess from where it was standing, it could only see my head? He jumped and ran to my right and stopped, out in the wide open, and snorted 4 or 5 times. He knew that I was there, but wasn't sure where.

The spike ran back to my left, back up through the grape vines, on up the ridge and I lost sight of it, just sneaking around the ridge.

Not positive, but I really think those 2 bucks were bedded in that skidder path. If they'd been up on there feet, they would have seen me coming up the hollow.

So, climbed up the skidder path, just taking my time. The wineberry and rose bushes have taken over that cove. Got up on the backbone of he ridge, up as far as you can see there were three deer running toward me. I stepped off to the side where I could see better and went prone.

The deer came down the ridge and angled to my right, circled back onto the ridge below me. The sun was getting low, I eased off down the south side, and didn't see anything but one white tail, way down the ridge. I'd guess it was one of the 8 deer from above. Who knows?

But that was a good day, 8 deer, plus 2 bucks, plus 3 fawns. 13.

We'll never know for sure, but something spooked those 8 deer. And it's very possible that I jumped a bear. They came down the ridge, tails tucked, not at a dead run but moving pretty keen!

Back 20 years ago, if I'd had something like that going on, I'd put Dad up in the Slabpile Hollow, Big Donnie up in the Junkpile Hollow and had Wardney walking the road. We might not have killed a bear, but if one did come out, good chance one of us would have seen it.

I called Big D. the other evening, he was planning on farting around on the farm trying to kill a doe. Moe would have went, until I told him that he wasn't allowed to shoot a doe, and that I was going to stay until dark. Wardney told me 10 years ago that he couldn't handle that mountain, so I didn't ask him to ride along. Not going to take him up there and let him get hurt.

But, I had a great day. Didn't amount to squat, but it was a good day. I just enjoy being out.

We've got snow on the mountain now, and calling for more. That would have been a game changer.

Yes,the snow is a game changer! the area that we shot our deer in is fairly tough to get to, but you have a lot of country to yourself. We had snow when we shot them bucks,but with the snow i saw coyote,bobcat and a good size flock of turkey tracks. My son said that he heard 3 0r 4 different birds gobbling. I can't hear very good anymore,and i should have been able to hear them.
The mountain that we hunt, don't have a lot of deer but some old deer live their.
If you get a chance to get out again, i'll be glad to hear of your adventures.

No, you don't hear them gobble in the fall very often. I've noticed some turkey scratching here and there on the mountain. Had a picture of 3 or 4 gobblers on my spring camera a while back. A nice gobbler went to roost one evening just up the ridge from where I was watching that evening. I took a picture of him before he flushed and sailed over on the next ridge and roosted again.

Well, I'll give you a run down on my season. Moe and I fooled around the first 3 days of season, I did see 3 bucks the first day. A spike, 4 point and just got a glimpse of the other one, he was a shooter. He was chasing a doe, told Moe that I was going to hang tight for 15 or 20 minutes. Moe buzzed me back in a minute or 2 and told me that he was getting cold. So had to walk away from him.

We went up and stayed at the camp Tuesday, I didn't see a single deer Tuesday or Wednesday. I stopped and checked on Wardney on the way home, they hadn't killed anything yet.

Thanksgiving day I went up on the mountain, wanted to check my 3 cameras. I didn't know it at the time, but there was a bear on my spring camera at 9:00 and I was on the camera at 11:00. That bear would have been a good 100 pounds or better.

The leaves were really dry, I figured since I was there, the spring would be as good as anyplace on the mountain.

I'd been there watching for an hour or 2? Noticed this buck coming up the same path that I'd just came up. I could see his horns with the naked eye from 100 yards. He stopped down there in the clear and I put him on the ground.

WV's hunting reagulations are difficult to understand, like everywhere. I was legal to kill a bear. And the way I see it, as long as I don't touch the deer or take posession of it, I can keep right on hunting.

I only had 2 or 3 hours of daylight left, so figured I'd just hang tight. By the time I'd drag it off to the road and walk back to the truck it'd be dark anyway. So, I snuggled in and watched. About an hour later, a 4-point buck started across the hollow above me, he walked back the way he came. About an hour after that, there was another buck coming up the same trail where my deer was laying. Deed honest it was within 10 feet of that deer, and it was a decent buck. It milled around down there for probably 20 minutes before it finally walked off.

But I sat there until it was too dark to shoot. I know it was a slim chance, but I thought maybe a bear or bobcat or coyote would come by.

I'll give you an update on my trail cam status. I checked my #1 and #2 cameras Sunday, 1/02/22. Forget when I checked them last, but I didn't have much. I had a bobcat picture on #1, couple coons. On camera #2, I had 3 or 4 fox and coyote pictures. A couple of deer pictures, but couldn't see their heads, looked like adult deer. But no bear.

One thing that I don't understand, above I mentioned the deer that I killed Thanksgiving day. I skinned the deer that night, let it hang for a day or 2, before I cleaned it up and all. It would have been right at the 1st of December, I took the ribcage, hide and legs up on the mountain and dumped them off just past the #2 camera.

That's all private land, legal and all. I thought for sure a bear would find it and it'd be gone within 2 or 3 days. The whole works layed there untouched for at least 2 weeks. I could see where birds were picking at it and maybe something small like a fox or coon. But it hadn't been moved.

I guess it was a coyote finally dragged it about 20 feet? It was pretty well dried up by then, but still has some meat on it. As of Sunday before last, it was still laying there.

Since season has ended, I've talked to 8 or 10 guys that have bear hounds, and about all of them have told me that the bear holed up early. They said the last 2 weeks of December, a track was very hard to find.

Talking about snow, it snowed here last Thursday and most of the night. It started out wet and then ended up dry and fluffy. Here in town we had 8 inches after it had settled, my sister had 13 inches at her house. Friday it stayed below freezing all day, Saturday morning I had 9* F, our coldest day of the season so far. It warmed up over night, got up into the 40's Sunday and we had light rain off and on all day.

The mountain road was greasy the last time I was up, we've got the road rutted up pretty good now with the freeze and thaw. The snow is pretty much gone now, I had 18* this morning, so the road should be ok. Much needed moisture.

I killed a doe on the last day of season, here in the valley. So I'm going to take that ribcage up on the mountain tomorrow, we'll see what happens.

Hey Tim, did you check out the gut pile at the field dressing site?


Ain't trail cams wonderful!?

Frank

Around here, ravens would devour the pile before anything else did.

Old Wiley Coyote beat them to it!! But I know what you're saying.


Frank

I was up in Pendleton Co. (50 miles from here) the other day, and there was a dozen or 15 ravens there beside the road. Biggest flock I've noticed for years. Snow on the ground, maybe there was a deer carcass there? Big ravens, they'd make 3 crows.

Honestly, I didn't think about it at the time, but if I'd have waited another couple or 5 minutes, the deer would have been on my "Spring" trail cam. Maybe it is? I've got pictures of the buck a day or 2 before on that camera, but I don't think I've checked it since Thanksgiving? That's where I was going to hunt, didn't have time to mess with the camera.

Long story, but I first noticed the buck in the skyline of the ridge to my south, lost sight of him for a little bit, behind the timber and all. It was walking toward the spring, when he came back out, I was on him. Just walking, he turned to his right and stopped. I could see everything except his head, wasn't sure what it was doing? Wasn't sure if it'd had winded me or what? Just stood there, all 4 feet on the ground. Two or 3 jumps up the mountain and he'd be gone, so I took a shot at him. As a rule I'll take the first good shot I get.

While we're talking about it, I was shooting downhill at a fairly steep angle, at the shot the deer hit the ground. Just a nice, clean kill, and that's what we all hope for.

I didn't know it at the time, but the bullet didn't exit the off side of the deer. I forget the exact numbers, but whatever foot-pounds of energy that a .270 Winchester generates at 100 yards, the carcass took it all.

Just a nice and relaxing hunt, very nice day in the woods. (I'm waiting on a phone call now, or I'd be gone.)

Well, I didn't get out of town today, had a girl off so I was on call. I'll take the ribcage to the mtn tomorrow.

Frank, I forgot about the gut pile. After I rolled the innards out, I always slice open a deer's stomach. Once you find out what they're eating, then you know where to hunt the next day.

As well as I could tell, the deer had mostly grass and I think a few soy beans in it's belly. My flashlight was about shot, and I didn't dig around in it much.

I don't remember exactly how many days later I walked up, probably 3, but the gut pile was gone. Nothing but a wet spot on the ground. I'll check that camera tomorrow, maybe I'll be abe to find out what did clean it up?

The doe that I shot the other day was stuffed full of clover.

How many deer are you allowed per season?

Well, it varies in different areas of the state, I live in Hardy Co. WV. If I'd buy all of my additional stamps (which I don't), I'd be legal to take 2 with a bow/crossbow. I could harvest as many as 3 antlerless deer, with a rifle. And 2 bucks with a rifle. Oh, and I could harvest 2 deer with a blackpowder gun. So, 9 total. I think that's right?

For any of you that are not following along with Musher's Utube channel, Brian posted an interesting video a while back about deer hunting. I forget the title of that one? But he took a nice buck, big bodied deer, with a shotgun yet. Shooting slugs and all. $5.00 a shot, I think he said?

That's new to me, I've never hunted deer with a shotgun and slugs.

But his video is interesting, at the end he unloads his pack and shows what all he carries. Well worth watching.

Here is the link to the video.

https://youtu.be/ASHToVUenGw

The opened the season here 2 years ago. My son got one the first year and I had my chances. This year my son chose not to hunt (wasn't a fan of the meat or the kill). I hunted less than the year before and got lucky.

Crossbow/bow for the first 7 days and muzzle loader/shotgun for the last 3 days. Buck only.
The deer season is a couple of weeks after the moose rifle season.

Yep, those sabot slugs cost 5 bucks a piece. But they tack. They also kick a lot and make a dandy BOOM!

That is a lot of deer to hunt in WV. Here it is one and done. I think you can kill 2 on
Anticosti Island.

Just watching Mushers video, there's lots of good info there, reading between the lines.

I'll give you my take on the situation. We've got some young guys here on the forum and all. Brian made a good shot on his deer, and had a good blood trail. It doesn't always work that way.

$5 a shot!

Tracking an animal is something that is very serious. Reading between the lines, you'll notice that Brian asked his wife to stay put. Where he had a good blood trail, you don't want 2 or 3 guys tromping all over the trail, and get it all botched up. Put one man up front, take it slow and easy, that one little twig, or pine needle knocked out place, that could make the difference.

It's always nice when you can have a buddy, stand back and help you mark a trail. But when you're out on your own, you'd better mark it. If nothing else, use a snotrag. A piece of paper towel, or whatever.

But anytime you shoot at a game animal and it runs out of sight, you need to mark your shot. And mark the last spot where you lost sight of it. And mark the spot where you shot from.

I know it's tempting to run out there and try to find it, but you're better off to just take 5, mark the shot, and all, and then go get him.

Once you cross a little cove, get out there 100 yards or so, everything looks the same. Ridge to ridge is even worse. But tracking is a very nice skill, hopefully you'll never need it, but if you hunt very much, one of these days you're going to need that skill.

Usually I flag every blood spot. Looking back it makes a line which can keep you on coarse. But in this case, there was too much blood and I knew I could go back and flag if the need was there.

The worst are bears. They don't bleed much. A moose, on the other hand ....

Yep, $25 for five slugs. But they seem to work well!

I assume they are making you use shotguns simply to limit the harvest. Ohio was shotgun only for many years, but that was partly safety concern since we are fairly densely populated. Recently they have reneged and now we can shoot straight walled rifle cartridges. I had a Mossberg shotgun with a rifled barrel, and scope mount cantilevered off the barrell. It would shoot 3 inch groups at 100 yards with saboted slugs.

You are correct about the harvest. I can rifle hunt moose from my deer stands. Rifled barrels and good slugs turn a shotgun into a rifle. A rifle that makes a big hole.

Oddly enough we were prohibited from using rifled barrels here for a long time under the silly pretense that putting a rifled barrel on a shotgun did indeed turn it into a rifle and hunting with a rifle was illegal. It was really stupid that our DOW didn't want hunters to shoot as accurately as possible, even using a shotgun. The sensible regulation would have to limit the ammunition to shotgun only, and let folks shoot. Eventually rifled shotgun barrels were made legal and as I mentioned we can hunt with straight walled rifle cartridges now.

A few years ago a bunch of us were hunting and one guy had a shotgun. If I'm not mistaken, it was a Benelli pump slug gun. It seemed like a well built gun, don't remember what for scope he had mounted? But he said it'd group about 3 inches at a 100 yards. That's pretty good.

Two weeks ago, I got myself a new dog, new to me. She's a 14 month old Walker, big tall dog. I lost my old dog, Sundance last summer, I had her out one day, she followed a truck out to the main road. She was hit and killed. Sundance was getting old and gray, and I knew it was coming, but that really sucked.

The man that had the new dog is a bear hunter, we talked on the phone 20 minutes, telling me all about the dog. He told me later that he just couldn't hang with his dogs anymore. And, he's only 80 years old.

Moe is retired now, so he rode along with me, to go get the dog. Not sure? 160 miles round trip, give or take. Her name is Specks. Black and white, with a little brown on her face. So, I've been loving up on her 4 or 5 times a day. She's got some sense, that's easy to see.

I put the word out to 4 or 5 of my Facebook friends that I needed a GPS tracking collar. $1,000 new. Just happened that one of them had a control box and 2 collars that he didn't need, he's wanting to upgrade.

So, the man stopped by Saturday, showed me how the collars and everything worked. It's a Garmin Alpha 100, with 2 collars, chargers and all, I paid him $750.

Sunday of this week I took Specks up on the mountain. She was behind the truck out past Slabpile Hollow, and I just lost sight of her. I drove on out to the #2 camera, had intentions of going up to check my Spring trail cam.

I checked the GPS thingy, she was out 0.7 miles, heading north at 6 MPH. 7 tenth's of a mile would have put her about the Slabpile Hollow. I took off out that way, at one time she was off, 1.3 miles, then 1.7, then 1.9 miles, then I started catching up to her.

I can't say exactly what she was running, but it wasn't a deer. I'd bet you 100 bucks on that. It was starting to snow pretty good on the mountain when I caught her, she was worn out.

We had 8" of snow here in the valley, I figure 10 or so on the mountain. Hopefully, I'll be off work tomorrow. The snow has been on for 3 nights now, if things go good, I'm planning on tracking out the mountain.

Need to check that last deer carcass. Bear season is out now, but I'd just like to see that big one.

Depending on what I track, I might set a few snares.

I sure do miss chasing coon with a pack of hounds. My best friend had 16 dogs @ onetime.
Mostly redbone and bluetick hounds. I'm stuck with a mountain cur,she sure likes to hunt squirrels.

I thought that mountain curs were great dogs? That they would hunt whatever they were taught to hunt.

Sounds like a lot of excitement with Specks. A dog gives you an excuse and an obligation to get outside once in a while.

-34 C. right now here. I've got my excuse and obligation lined up!

Years ago, Dad and I had 2 good coon hounds. Dad had Little Joe and his pup was my Little Red. A man named Hoyt, owned the female dog, I had the pick of the litter. That's been 45 years ago, but as well as I remember I paid him $20. Might have been $25. Not sure?

Both of those dogs hit their prime back about the time that I got my driver's license. 16 years old and nothing to do, we hunted those dogs 2 or 3 or 4 nights per week. That's what it takes to make a good dog. Lots of time and effort. Lots of good memories!

My new dog Specks has what it takes, 14 months old and she has spunk. So we'll see what happens.

Kind of got in a bind here Thursday, school was on a 3 hour delay. That's another story. Had to work, didn't have time to get out of town.

It warmed up here Wednesday night, the snow settled, and the game should have been moving. Honestly, I'd planned on finding Specks a good bobcat track. Easier said than done.

I had 11*F this morning, I've got 14* now. Gotta work tomorrow, but I'm going to take her out Sunday.

The mountain where I have my cameras, I just don't think I can get up there now. I was told today, at the base of the mountain the snow has settled, glazed over and nothing but a sheet of ice.

One of those things.

Not a good idea to bring the hound anywhere near the ice. They get cut up in a hurry.

I had beagles and a drivers license when I was in my late teens. Organized my schooling around hunting them. There was no fat on the dogs and none on me either!

I thought about the crust on the snow too. I'm not sure how it is now? Dry leaves will chew up dogs feet too.

Last night was our coldest of the season, I had 1* F. We're up to 17* now at 11 O'clock. Beautiful blue sky, so it'll sun glaze.

Talking about dogs feet, a man told me years ago that when his dog's feet would get cut up and sore, he'd plunk it's feet into iodine. Supposed to help the little cuts and scratches heal up quicker. I bought a gallon jug of iodine years ago at the co-op for like $10. Handy stuff to have around.

The man that I bought my GPS system from, he just posted videos of his hounds with a bear treed. I guess it was yesterday, so, some of them are still out moving around.

-34 C.again this morning. Warmed up this afternoon. Just back from tapping some dog trails. Rough going. Snow up to my crotch. I took one heck of a flip with the snow mobile when a ski went off the old trail. I lost a boot! My toes were touching the very top so all worked out well. The Tundra died and I had to crank a couple of dozen times to get it going again.

A group of moose feed where I was. At least three wolves were tracking them. I had 3 wolf snares out in the area. I picked them up because the trails are too snowed in.

At least I can dog sled again. Between the snowfalls and the cold I haven't gone sledding in 5 days.

One of my daughters and her male friend traveled to Ely Minn. recently for a scheduled meeting with a dog sledding business. (had roughly 100 dogs I'm told) Don't know the name of the outfit, but they were given a sled to use. With instructions, of course, they themselves had to hitch six dogs to their sled. As they were locating the predetermined dogs by name, all the rest of the dogs were howling to be chosen. After the chosen ones were taken from the compound, it became deadly silent. They then take off, following the business owner on her own sled, for a two hour loop around a given course. They were given verbal commands for left, right, slow, and stop for the dogs to hear. Was -1* when they had breakfast, and around 7* when they went on their ride. Bundled to the max they said it was a blast! While one rode, the other steered. Midway they switched positions. When they returned, they had to unhitch the six dogs and return them to their houses. They had so much fun, I just might give that a try next winter!

Frank.

That would be fun riding a sled.

Here's a little story that made the headlines from WV. I've got 19* now.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/01/22/canaan-valley-low-temperature-record/

Frank: Most people enjoy it. The dogs do the actual driving and you get to look around. If the terrain is flat and the dogs aren't too fast, you get to relax. But with a fast team and some hills, you will work up a sweat.

The instructions they got was to not allow the six dog team to break into a gallop. With that much energy expended, they would quit and lay down after five mins, or so. I'm sure the trail was not full of hills. They were told to make the team 'trot', or maintain a 'pretty prance'. That way, they'd be good for 20 miles. They were also taught how to handle these Alaskan Huskies. With all the muscles and strength in their front legs, they had to lift the dogs off of their front legs and walk them to the sled on their hind legs. My daughter, at five foot nothing, said this was part of the great adventure.

Frank.

" They were also taught how to handle these Alaskan Huskies. With all the muscles and strength in their front legs, they had to lift the dogs off of their front legs and walk them to the sled on their hind legs. My daughter, at five foot nothing, said this was part of the great adventure. "

That's called taking them off of 4 wheel drive!

Search: Ely, MN Dogsledding.

https://www.ely.org/things-to-do/winter/dogsledding/

The different outfits all have a website. I watched one video the other day, it was taken by a drone. Flying along, with a dog team. It does look very relaxing, dogs just chugging along.

But if you'd check their www, they have prices and all, for all skill levels and such. But it does look like fun. Expensive in a way, but reasonable too. To keep that many dogs fed and watered, 12 months of the year, for a 4 or 5 month sledding season, that'd be a lot of work.

Outfitters always have Siberians or Siberian/Malamute crosses. Strong dogs that are easy to care for in that they do not eat or drink much compared to Alaskans. They are not fast but they are steady and recoup quickly.

Plus they are very pretty in a photograph. In racing circles, they are sometimes referred to as Kodak dogs. Good for pictures but not for speed.

I have had many. I still have a couple and they are on my "B" team.

I prefer Alaskans for 2 reasons: The first is that Alaskans will bond with you better. They listen. The second is that fast is fun!

The need for speed.

They are pretty dogs.

I can see where for a tourist, sledding in a new place, a place they've never been before, it would be more interesting to just coast along. More or less sightseeing and just let the dogs do the work.

One thing that I noticed in that video I watched, the guy was in a blue sled. Blue or red one, I forget. To me, that would just take away from from the experience. I'd much prefer to have a wooden sled, traditional old time, handmade sled.

While it's somewhat fresh in my head, I'll tell you what's going on around here. Sunday, 2 weeks ago we got 8 inches of new snow. We still had a little bit of old snow in the mountains. Pretty much shut down everything for a day or so. Long hours for me here at work, I told everyone to stay home.

Last Sunday, the snow had been on for a week. I took the new dog for a ride, took her to a place known to have bear and bobcats. Long story short, I broke track from the public road, to the back end of the property. About 6 miles total, one way. It warmed up, I had 34* midday. I tracked a fox, 1 maybe 2 coyotes a small bobcat and a dog. Everything was walking on the crust, and they were all old tracks. In those 6 miles, I'd guess there were around 25, maybe 30 sets of deer tracks that had crossed the road, and I'm sure some of them were the same deer. That one section of road for a mile or so, there wasn't a single track of anything.

Last Wednesday, I rode up on the mountain where I have 3 cameras. Being extra cautious. Moe more or less gave me a warning the other day. He said: You're screwing up if you go on the mountain. Told me later: If you get stuck, don't call me! The snow is all packed down and botched up from where that one guy had taken his buggy up the mountain. Looks like he fishtailed all the way up the road. It's slick. Only tracked one coyote, and a something. It was a track made early after the snow, melted out and caved in, I couldn't get a good track. It was either a huge coon or a fisher.

Last Thursday, I went up and changed the batteries in the camera at Wardney's salt lick. Very few deer tracks, considering the snow had been on for a week and a half. No fox or coyote tracks. I did find a few turkey tracks where they'd been under the pine and cedar trees, old tracks.

Last Friday we had another snow, 2 inches here in town. I was out yesterday, in a different spot, there's almost a foot of snow up on top. Only tracked a fox, there might have been 2 ? One fox can lay down a lot of tracks in 2 nights time. Just not finding much sign.

Where I sled there have been very few tracks of anything since the moose and wolves went by. I had one fox snare out and removed it today.

However, lots of deer tracks by the house. A pack of wolves swung by prior to yesterday and I set 5 snares for them. I want to set a foothold or three but we'll be getting 15-20 cm. of snow starting tomorrow.

We have a few deer here on the edge of town. Pretty much off limits as far as hunting, just beyond the city limit sign, that's some pretty good hunting. Easy hunting, that's where I took my doe the last day of season. I've trapped that farm, and helped the landowner a little bit, so we get along good.

The other day when I went up the road to change batteries in the camera at Wardney's salt lick cam, there was a deer carcass laying over the road bank. I stopped on the way back to town and snatched it. It was a fawn, pretty much intact, my guess, that deer won't weigh 50 pounds. It's tiny.

I didn't notice it going up the road, but there was a hawk face down in the snow about 10 feet from the deer carcass. I guess it flushed off of the carcass and a vehicle nailed it too. I didn't mess with it.

I'll have more time tomorrow, going to take the fawn carcass up on the mountain and see what kind of tracks I can find. We're to warm up today, I had 16* at daylight. Going out to check another place now. A coyote ran across a landowner's lane a day or so ago.

Above we were talking about the shotgun slugs that Musher uses while deer hunting, costing $5 a shot.

I'll tell you this. About 3 weeks ago, a man stopped here at work, told me that he'd just bought a rifle online, and wanted to have it shipped here. So, we could do the ATF paperwork and all. Shipping guns from state to state, that all needs to go between the 2 FFL dealers.

He was telling me all about his new rifle, it's a 500 Jeffery. That is one big, BIG gun!

Anyway, it was delivered the other day, boxed up in a hard box, wrapped in foam. It's a pretty gun, beautiful wood stock. Blued barrel and action. It's a bolt gun.

The man stopped and picked up his rifle the other day and was telling me that he'd found a 10 (ten) round box of ammo for $250. $25 per shot.

My daughter Kim and I double checked the serial number, just to make sure. She called off the numbers, everything was square. I handed it to her and told her just to feel it. I forget what she said, but it's a beast!

It does have a good set of open sights, fixed sights, with another flip-up sight. Maybe a 16th or 8th of an inch higher that the main sight, for long range.

But, $25 per shot! Do a search: 500 Jeffery. You'll find a couple of videos of guys shooting the same gun. Interesting to watch, but I have no intentions of ever shooting one!

Sighting in a scope would be really interesting for the wallet - and for the shoulder!

So Tim, I guessing you wont be getting one of them 500 Jefferys today. Hey, 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY' anyway!

Frank.

Frank, thanks for the birthday wish. I'm 57 now. Should have enough birthday apple pies to last me for 10 days or better.

No, I have no intentions of buying a 500 Jeffery. Unless it's cheap. And that ain't gonna happen.

Talking about sighting in a gun, Moe and I always go to the shooting range 2 maybe 3 times a year. We'll just go out and plink now and then too.

Last fall we sighted in a new rifle, it's my gun, I've owned it for 30 years but never did shoot it. It's a Remington 721, 30-06 Springfield. According to the numbers, looks like it was made in 1950 or so.

I had a local guy tune up the trigger and float the barrel, and mount a scope for me. I didn't have time to mess with it. Anyway, we took it to the range, shooting it sandbagged, I fired 2 shots and had Moe make the adjustments. Up or down, right or left, we had it pretty good, on the 3rd shot.

The M721 came out with a metal buttplate, not much of a recoil pad. I fired 10 rounds, just shooting it with one hand sandbagged, just to see what kind of groups I could get. It thumped me pretty good, and it shows promise.

I honestly don't like the scope and it's mounted on a cheap set of scope rings and bases. When I get a chance, I'll mount a better scope, with better rings and all. And we'll see what it will do. Some of these old rifles will shoot like nobody's business. We'll see.

Well, I finally checked my Spring camera the other day. I hadn't checked it since Christmas day, so 2 months worth of pics. No fox or coon pictures, one bobcat and a pair of coyotes just recently. Picture of an owl, a 4-pt buck in January. That's about it. No bear, so I guess they did move out or hole up?

The other day when I checked the spring camera, I carried up my grubbing hoe, spent about an hour scratching out a bigger water hole. I've got the lower puddle reamed out to about 10 feet long now. Not many deer up there, but they've gotta have water. Camera batteries were at 6%, I won't check it for a while. Not much action on the other cameras either.

West Virginia's bear harvest was down 20% during the 2021 season. I'll try to find that link and post it later.

Here's a link about bear with mange.

https://wvmetronews.com/2022/02/15/mange...-a-major-worry/

Another bear link:

https://wvmetronews.com/2022/01/29/west-virginias-21-black-bear-season-yields-2756-bears/

This link will make you shake your head.

https://wvmetronews.com/2022/01/27/w-va-...-investigation/

https://wvmetronews.com/2022/01/12/popular-mountaineer-heritage-hunting-season-is-here/

https://wvmetronews.com/2022/01/04/charleston-hunter-scores-three-trophy-bucks-in-a-single-season/

https://wvmetronews.com/2021/10/19/the-f...omes-this-week/

I read another story a while back talking about our mast crop, other than hickory nuts, we had a very poor mast year, in this part of the state. I know of an area that had a very good grape crop and another area where we had a very good gum berry crop. As a rule around here, it was slim pickings for the game.

Before I forget, I did see a small 6-point buck on February 13th, Moe had a small buck on camera 2/18/22, both of them still have both antlers. They should be dropping off soon.

The last couple of days felt like spring 70 degrees!! calling for snow tomorrow night.

That's about the same as we've had here. I remember Sunday morning, it had warmed up into the 50's overnight, rained off and on all day Sunday. Yesterday (Monday), we had a strong south wind, I think we hit a high temperature of 72*. We're back into the 40's now with a chance of rain, ice and snow.

Our ground is wet and warm now.

Above we were talking about or mast crop. I noticed 6 or 8 weeks ago that our deer have really been working on pine brush and laurel. Some areas worse than others.

A while back I was out on one of the local hunt clubs, that club is only 2,300 acres. But once you get to the property line, behind a locked gate, there is a big sign, it's like 3 feet square. Can't miss it. This is what it says:

'PLEASE SAVE OUR DOES. In order to reestablish the population, please refrain from shooting does, unless you are a youth hunter or it is your first deer. This is voluntary and we would appreciate your help".

The theory being (and I agree with the theory), that if we'd cut our female deer some slack for 4 or 5 or 6 years, our population will rebound. But it's not just this one little club of 2,300 acres, you can talk to about anyone that hunts in the mountains and they'll tell you the same thing. If we are all in aggreement and stick to the plan, it will make a difference. In my opinion it has started to make a difference.

Nobody is going to get upset or bent out of shape if someone does kill a doe or 2. The club is just asking everyone to cut them some slack.

Don't want anyone to thing that I'm against killing does, I'm not. I've shot my share, but when I go doe hunting, I'm going to go down along the river someplace and get an easy one.

Here's an interesting link:

https://dwr.virginia.gov/blog/do-white-tailed-fawns-breed/

There is another link about fawns breeding, I'll try to find it later.

Very interesting link,we had a problem with a low deer population about 10 years ago.The game commission cut back on doe tags and it seem to help some.But you could go for a drive and see 5 or 6 doe with only one or two fawns with the whole group.Then one year a group of dog hunters shot 19 coyote in the general area, the next spring you would see 5 or 6 doe with six or eight fawns. Our game commission claim that black bear kill alot of new born fawns.But I really took notice of more
deer when that group of hunters shot them 19 coyotes. (we only had enough snow to cover the grass)

Black bears kill a lot of moose fawns. I imagine they do the same for deer. Rarely are twin moose calves or deer fawns seen. There is always only one.

Years ago, we didn't have a doe season. Our deer season was much like what Musher has in Quebec, Canada, today. One buck and you were done. And you were lucky if you could find a buck.

Back before my time, I think the season was only 3 days, bucks only.

I think it was back in the early 70's the DNR had a 3 day antlerless deer season. I was just a kid. And that was only in certain counties within the state. I live in what they call a "Mountain county". For years and years, there was only a bear season in the Mountain Counties. Now it's open statewide.

Twenty five or 30 years ago, I could have taken you to a farm north of town, walk up on that one little point, a little bit before dark and count 75 or maybe 100 deer. I've got them on video. That farm is exactly 20 minutes from here at the house, if you know the road. Oh, it was fun to go down there and hunt with my blackpowder gun. Chase them around in those cedar trees all day long.

I have friends that live down there, today you'd be lucky to go down there one summer evening and see more than 10 or 12 deer. I was down there last summer swimming, I think for the grand total it was a doe and 2 fawns. Not sure?

If you think about it, we've got bear, coyotes, bobcats, eagles and now those black buzzards or black vultures, whatever you'd call them? 30 years ago, we didn't have as many bear, no coyotes and we didn't have the black vultures. And a lot less eagles too.

We've talked about these black buzzards before, this is above my pay rate and all, but they are an invasive predator. So, what do you do?

I talked to one of my landowners the other day, there were 6 or 8 of the black buzzards sitting in the trees above his calving pasture. It'd be a shame to see a critter that's worthless pick apart a healthy $150 Angus calf. We shall see.

My neighbor has them buzzards sitting and shi##ing on his house roof, He said what can i do about it.
I went over with my pellet gun and shot 2 or 3 of them,(didn't kill them, but got there attention)
I don't no if it is legal or not but if they come to my roof i will be getting a bigger gun out!

We don't want to get backed into a corner talking about these black buzzards, but they are worthless.

Next time I see an officer I'll ask exactly what the rules are as far as dealing with them.

The other evening I was talking to a farmer, I just said: I've been seeing some of those black vultures here and there. You'll be calving before long, tell your guys to keep an eye out. He told me that he's calving now, and that they've been watching.

Talking about our deer and moose with only one fawn or calf. Last fall I did see one doe with 3 fawns. Above where I told you about the day when I counted 13 deer. 3 fawns, 2 bucks and 8. It's very likely those were the same 3 fawns. They were right there in the same area. Never know.

Most times when momma doe is taken out of the picture, (hunting-roadkill) the very young fawns will migrate to another doe in the herd for raising. Auntie doe, as it were. Hence, two or three fawns together.

Frank.

You can get a depredation permit for black buzzards. However, since they are migratory birds, you have to shoot them with a shotgun using not-toxic shot.

Tim said something about seeing 75 to 100 dear twenty five years ago. Honestly that's way too many deer. Deer wera a pest in my neighborhood back then. However I think many people, got used to seeing that many deer, and when populations return to normal, they don't realize it as normal. I am not a fan of deer. If I'm deer hunting, I'm shooting the first one that walks in front of me.

In deference -- I suspect mountain populations are different from those in agricultural areas.

We have some strange laws on the books. That non-toxic shot was designed for waterfowl, for folks out hunting in a marsh or bog.

That one farm where I noticed the buzzards is 2 miles from the river. I can go out there and shoot crows, rabbits, squirrels and all else with lead shot. I can shoot all of the same with a rifle.

I'll try to get in touch with one of the local officers and see exactly what I can do. Legally.

Talking about seeing 100 deer, our local deer population peaked in the mid 80's. The DNR kept upping the bag limit, the 3 day doe season went to a week, now we're up to more than 3 weeks. In some areas the population is above where it should be, in other areas it's way below.

The DNR hasn't changed the bag limit or decreased the bag limit, more or less leaving that up to the property owner. Which that's good. About all of the property in this area is private land.

About that farm where you could count 100 deer, it's the last pasture along the river for 7 or 8 miles, late in the evening the deer would come out of the woods in herds. They'd come out, 15, 18 or 20 deer in a bunch. That property was sold to the WV DNR several years ago, it's the McNeil Wildlife Managment Area today. Open to the public. Years ago I had keys to the gate, it was nice. 464 acres, I believe. It's hunted pretty hard these days, from what I've been told.

Above where I mentioned the hunt club with the "Save our Doe" sign. That property has been overhunted. There are less deer on the mountain today than there was back when I was 16 years old.

Part of the reasoning for the "Save our Doe" sign, is about a deer's "homerange".

I don't remember where I first heard this? Not sure if it was some DNR study or if a biologist told me in person? According to this theory, they say that 90% of whitetail deer will die within a mile and a half of where it was born. Not that is for here in the east, I know out west muledeer will migrate miles during winter.

Assuming that's true. If we have a circle with a radius of 1.5 miles (diameter of 3 miles), that would be an area of 7 square miles. 640 X 7 = 4,500 acres. Give or take.

Do a search: Deer homerange. You'll find all kinds of #'s.

But the reason for the "Save our Doe" sign, and I agree with this. The deer that are born here in the valley, are not going to migrate 5 or 10 or 20 miles to eat pine and laurel brush. And face a tougher winter, more snow and all.

Above I mentioned the doe with 3 fawns, that was last summer when I bumped into them. Not sure, maybe July? But the fawn's spots were very vivid, they weren't very old. The doe walked up the ridge a few steps, stopped and waited for the fawns to catch up and then walked out of sight. Never did get a picture of them. But I believe they were triplets. You don't see triplets very often, but now and then.

The last time I checked the "saltlick" camera, this was back when we had snow on the ground. I wasn't getting many pictures. I had 3 or 4 pictures of a single fawn. About a week later I had 3 or 4 pictures of 2 fawns, about a week after that I had pictures of 4 fawns. One of the last, most recent pictures on that camera is a picture of 4 fawns and an adult doe.

I'd guess that the snow kind of pushed them down into the pine and cedar trees, where they could get to bare ground. That's where they found each other and just stayed in a group.

Last Susnday, when we had fresh snow on the ground I took the new dog for a ride. The snow stopped Saturday evening, just before dark, so it'd only been on the ground one night.

I went to the best place that I can think of to find a bobcat track, not likely that I'd find a cat track, but only one way to find out. This new dog is a bundle of energy she needs something to run. I thought maybe I could find a fox or coyote track. I was going to try to get her started on any of them. There's a lot of pup in her yet.

Anyway, I tracked out the mountain, the only thing that I tracked was 6 or 7 deer. Not sure about 6 or 7 miles of road? Plus we made 2 little loops, never cut a track on them.

The first 2 deer tracks were of an adult deer and a fawn. Forget about the rest? They were milling around in the edge of the road eating pine brush, had it tracked up pretty good.

Didn't track a squirrel or rabbit or anything else. Beautiful sunny day to be out, the temp stayed right at 32*. I was up at 3,000 feet elevation, give or take. I was on the mountain till almost dark, the dog had a good run, just trotting behind the truck mostly.

Coming off the mountain, the road comes down the backbone of this pine ridge, I was almost in sight of the public road and there were 7 deer in the powerline. All 7 of them were fawns. Not an adult deer in sight. On up the road another mile or so, there was another single fawn.

If you read those links above, we are probably in the zone where we could expect 0 to 25% of our fawns to breed. One thing that I read in one of the links above was about "poor farming practices" That just doesn't apply to this area.

I live in Hardy Co. WV. Just checked, Hardy county has an area of 584 square miles, I can take you to places within the county, where deer are over populated and I can take you to places where there are very few deer. It varies from spot to spot.

Above we were talking about the rifle caliber 500 Jeffery. Day before yesterday the man that bought the gun stopped by here at work. I asked if he'd had a chance to take that big gun out play with it yet. He said: No. My hip has been giving me trouble, I couldn't hardly walk for 2 or 3 days, I'm about halfway afraid to shoot it right now.

It's going to thump him hard, and he knows it too.

He's supposed to bring a live round up so I can check it out. He said he always likes to compare it to a round of 30-06 ammo.

He will probably flinch quite harshly if he is afraid it will hurt him. That flinch can trasfer to all of his shooting. Not a good thing.

Just back from a deer spotting drive. Wifey and I saw 30 in a 50 km. run. Everything looked pretty healthy, too.

I agree, it'd be hard to squeeze the trigger when he knows that it's going to pound him. You can't shoot a gun that you're afraid of, no way.

Do a search: Utube video 500 Jeffery.

There are a bunch of videos of folks shooting the caliber. One is a video of a small framed girl shooting the rifle. Interesting and fun to watch in a way, in another way it's kind of silly. Not sure what she's trying to prove?

That is one very big gun, and it does have some impressive ballistics.

I remember the first day that we talked about the caliber, he was pulling numbers off the top of his head. It's got so many more foot-pounds of energy at 500 yards than a 30-06 does at the muzzle, velocity at so and so? Felt recoil and all.

We were just joking, I remember I told him: That ought to knock over an old doe.

But he told me that after he'd bought the rifle, he'd bought some once fired rifle brass for the thing too. Pretty sure that he already has some kind of magnum reloading press, dies will probably cost him who knows what?

But it's possible that he can go online and find some kind of loading data, where he can cut the powder charge, maybe 10% and make the recoil just a little bit more tolerant?

IT's a heavy gun to start with, but if you go screwing around and put a muzzle brake on it, you'd be messing with it's value.

Do a search; 500 Jeffery for sale. I didn't realize it before, but if you'd buy one new, the retail price is up around $20,000.

He paid a bunch of money for his rifle, but nothing like that.

You see something like that and wonder what the history of the gun would be? Did Great Granddad blast a rhino or 2 with the gun? He died off and the kids don't know what it's worth? Grandkids stole the gun and sold it to a pawn shop for a quick $5,000 ? You never know.

Next time I see the man, I'll ask if he has an idea of when it was made and all. But it's a pretty rifle.

That sounds like a very good run out counting deer.

I checked my "lured rock camera" the other day, to the best of my knowledge, I've had a grand total of one deer picture since back in November on that cam. Just one picture of a single deer.

Taking the dog for a run tomorrow, GPS collar is on charge now, I should have time to check the other 2 cameras on the mountain.

I'll tell you that GPS system is one very neat machine.

We saw 18 deer last night.

Knew a guy that won the lottery for a moose hunt in a provincial park. There is a mandatory sighting in of the rifles prior to the hunt. Guy brought a .375 HH. One of the guides told him he couldn't hunt moose with a .410! The range instructor had him take 5 or 6 shots to adjust a perfectly adjusted rifle. Instructor just wanted to seethe guys shoulder take a pounding - I guess.

I shot that 375. The kick is more like a push and nowhere nearly as sharp as the kick of a single shot Cooey 12 gauge shooting 3 inch shells.

Brian, you're seeing more deer than our local mailman. School bus drivers aren't seeing many either.

Well, that's good that they have a required sight in, before the lotto hunt. Never know, maybe the instructor was just picking on him?

I've never shot a 375 H&H Mag. That is one big powerful gun, I'd think it'd do a fine job on moose.

The guy was a good rifle shot, also. He usually won the offhand shoot off.

He dropped a small buck (35 inches or so)with one shot.

Well, I'm glad to hear that your buddy got his moose. I figured he would.

The way you're talking about him, I take it that he's no longer with us. As a rule, if a man will let you shoot his rifle, you're pretty good friends. And it always sucks when you lose one!

Well, Steve, the man that bought the 500 Jeffery, we've been talking about stopped by yesterday. Steve said his rifle weighs about 11.5 pounds, it does not have a muzzle break, and he thinks that it was made right at 1900.

If that 1900 date is correct, and if the bluing and stock finish are original, it's in remarkable condition. If all of that is true, I'd say that he bought it dirt cheap.

Said his hip is getting better, he wants to shoot it.

You know they make these bolt action rifles chambered in .50 BMG. Browning Machine Gun. Steve and I talked about them, I shot one years ago and Steve has also. But the rifle that I shot weighed 20 some pounds, it had a scope mounted and had a muzzle break. The recoil from it was more like a push, a powerful shove. Nothing at all like a sharp kick.

If you'd take that same rifle, take off the muzzle break and cut the weight down to say, 12 pounds. That thing would pound you hard!

Steve has another big gun, forget what caliber it is, but he told me that after the 2nd shot it makes his eyes go "squiggly".

I checked my #2 camera on the mountain Sunday. Not many deer, but I do have a picture of a 4, maybe 5 point buck, dated April 5, 2022. Those are last years antlers, bleached out white as paper, but it still had both sides. And a picture of a very nice bobcat, no coyotes or fox or coon. No bear either. In years past I've had bear pictures in January, February and March and April, none so far this spring.

I still have one camera to check.

Talking about the condition of our deer, I've got some that you can see their shoulder, hip and rib bones, they look pretty scruffy. Most look ok.

If you remember, a few years ago "blue tounge disease" hit our deer herd hard. We talked about it at the time, if I'm not mistaken, our deer harvest that next season was down something like 40 percent, compared to the previous year.

Here's a link to the 500 Jeffery.

https://revivaler.com/w-j-jeffery-company-rifle-500-jeffery/

W.J. JEFFERY & COMPANY RIFLE IN .500 JEFFERY
Bolt Action Rifles, Main, Rifles Permalink

The W.J. Jeffery & Company was formed back in 1890 when Jeffery was in partnership with a man named Davies so it was called Jeffery & Davies but that partnership had ended a year later so W.J. Jeffery & Company formed in 1891 and having passed through various premises over the years is still in operation with an outlet in the United States. Jeffery was famous for his heavy caliber rifles for African and Asian big game hunting and he built affordable rifles and guns for practical and professional hunters. The emphasis on his arms has long been one of excellence in build and reliability.


Engraving on the barrel of the Jeffery rifle coming up for sale by Rock Island Auction.

Despite being a relatively small workshop Jeffery not only produced the sort of rifles that professional hunters appreciated the value of but he was also instrumental in either creating a number of big game calibers such as the .404 Jeffery, and the .333 Jeffery which not only proved its worth in the sporting fields but also during the First World War when its high sectional density bullets proved highly effective against the protective steel screens used by German snipers.


This .500 Jeffery magazine rifle is coming up for sale by Rock Island Auction on September 10th, 2017.

The largest of the calibers to wear the Jeffery name, the .500 Jeffery, was actually not designed by them however but by famous German designer August Schuler, whose most famous cartridge is the 6.5×68 Schuler which is still in production by RWS (Note: for the Revivaler post on the 6.5×68 click here). The .500 Jeffery began as the German 12.7×70 Schuler which Jeffery recognised as a brilliant answer to the problem of providing a sufficiently powerful caliber for dangerous African and Asian game but in affordable magazine rifles. August Schuler had originally created his 12.7x70mm cartridge as a way of providing an elephant and hippo stopper in a conventional Mauser 98 action with a minimum of need to open up the action.


Three iconic African cartridges that can fit into a modified Mauser 98 action or an M17 Enfield action; from left to right the .375 Holland & Holland Magnum, the .404 Jeffery and the .500 Jeffery (aka the 12.7×70 Schuler). (Original picture courtesy huntforever.org).

In a modified Mauser 98 action the rifle could normally hold two .500 Jeffery cartridges and the surplus M17 Enfield action also provided both a basis for creating an affordable stopping rifle for use against animals that were “B.A.D.” (i.e. Big Angry and Determined) with the advantage of having a slightly larger magazine capacity. The early Mauser 98 based .500 Jeffery rifles were sometimes made too light weighing around 9lb and recoil of those early rifles was described in typical understated British style as “hideous“. But if they were made a tad heavier up around 11lb then recoil is better managed and they are more like a .500 Nitro Express double to shoot.


W.J. Jeffery Mauser action magazine rifle in .500 Jeffery coming up for sale by Rock Island Auction on September 10th, 2017.

The rifle pictured above is a fine example of an original W.J. Jeffery Mauser action .500 Jeffery which was made to order in the nineties when Jeffery still had their London shop open. The rifle was made for a customer from Zimbabwe who was not able to export it from Britain to Zimbabwe due to British export restrictions at the time and it is pretty much in as new condition having only been sighted in and taken to the range a few times. The rifle has otherwise resided in the maker’s vault in the UK for about fifteen years. This rifle is to be offered for sale by Rock Island Auction in the US on September 10th, 2017.

You will find the sale page for the above rifle with more comprehensive details if you click here.


Three examples of W.J. Jeffery rifles that are still in production. From top to bottom: Classic square bridge Mauser in .300 Winchester Magnum, Magnum square Bridge in .375 Holland & Holland Magnum, and Square Bridge Magnum Mauser in .416 Rigby. (Original Pictures courtesy customsportingarms.com).

W.J. Jeffery rifles are still being made and are available in .243 Winchester, .300 Winchester Magnum, .375 Holland & Holland Magnum, .416 Rigby and .500 Jeffery. The two larger caliber models are fitted with a quarter rib with folding leaf Express sights. These are also available as a five rifle set to form a superb battery for world wide hunting.


Current model W.J. Jeffery rifle in .500 Jeffery complete with fitted case. (Picture courtesy customsportingarms.com).

Well, the bear are back on the move. Within the last month or so, I've had 3 people show me pictures of bear that they'd taken with their cell phones. All just single bear. Don't know of anyone seeing a sow with cubs yet.

I haven't checked my 3 mountain cameras for a while, very good chance that I'll have bear on them the next check. Never know?

Wanted to say that I spent the night up at the King's house, Tuesday night of this week. Moe and I just turned the water back on, hmmm, 2 weeks ago or so. Mowed the yard and all.

Spring Turkey season is in now, I made a couple of calls before good daylight, didn't hear anything. So I came back home, before work.

I remember that I fixed one of those (somewhat cheap) frozen pizzas in the oven that night, ate the whole thing. I had some other stuff too.

Anyway, Moe and I were out turkey hunting Thursday of this week, didn't amount to much. But we went up to the King's place for supper and spent the night. There was a big pile of bear crap in the yard. I'm positive that it wasn't there Tuesday evening, it's only 20 feet from the kitchen door. Not sure if it took a dump in the yard Tuesday night? Or when? It wasn't good daylight when I left Wednesday, so I may have missed it?

Yesterday, Friday morning, I checked the camera watching Wardney's salt lick, I had a bear picture on it April 23rd and April 25th. There is nothing at that camera other than the salt block.

I'll tell you this too. Coming down the road Wednesday morning, it was that point of the day, when you really can't tell if your headlights are on or off. Unless you go past another vehicle or a sign. Anyway, I was running the speed limit, came around a little turn and there was a bunch of junk in my lane. I could see down the road 100 yards or so, nothing coming, so I was in the left lane. I first thought that it was tree bark, then I realized it was the grill out of someone's car, then a pile of glass, on down another 40 or 50 feet there was a last year's fawn carcass in the road. Tiny little deer.

On down the road another 1/2 mile or so, there was some kind of little SUV pulled off at the next wide spot. Some guy was out with his cellphone taking pictures of his car. He seemed fine, both of his headlights were working. It still wasn't good daylight, and I didn't recognize the man. Not sure where the glass came from, maybe one of the mirrors? Or, or it might have been part of his windshield?

Knock on wood, I'm long overdue.

Reading my comment above, I forgot to tell you something.

I said that I'd baked the pizza in the oven and all. You see there are 4 or 5 cast iron skillets in the oven, I didn't take them out, just moved them around where I'd have room. All of the skillets are seasoned with bacon grease or lard.

The oven was on for 45 minutes or so. I walked outside for a minute, going back inside the house smelled like I was cooking bacon. I had one window open upstairs, and the wind was really calm that night. I about halfway think that the bacon smell lingered in the air. Very possible that that's what caused the bear visit.

There isn't anything in the woods for a bear to eat now, I'll bet they would really take a bait now.

Bears start on poplar leaves and grass here. Their poop is whitish. They will also eat winter kills if they find any. But it is mainly greenery until their plumbing starts acting normal.

Buddy that works in Maine has been seeing quite a few bears. He says their scat is now dark. Lots of winter kill moose in his area.

This pile of crap in the yard is mostly corn. There are corn fields up and downstream, maybe a mile away. There is always corn smashed down in the corners of a field or the outside rows, that just isn't harvested. Seems like the deer, coons and crows always hit the outside rows the hardest. Sometimes it's just not worthwhile for a farmer to even mess with, so they might leave 2 or 3 rows standing.

It's still early and it's going to be a while before there is much in the woods for bear to eat. If I'm not mistaken, bear will start working ant hills before long. Breeding season isn't long off.

Talking about winterkill and all. Years ago I was talking to a biologist about winterkill deer. I always figured that would happen during January, Feburary and maybe March. He told me that you can still have winterkill up through April and even May. Just one of those things, too little too late.

A man stopped by the other day and told me that he did see a sow bear with 4 cubs.

Years ago when the DNR had tracking collars on some of our female bear, they averaged a little bit more than 2 cubs per litter. If I'm not mistaken it was 2.3 cubs per litter, but that was a small sample of bear too. I think they only had 15 or 20 animals collared.

Sunday morning, 5/22/22 I checked my lured rock camera, forget exactly how long it had been since the last check? I'm thinking 6, maybe 8 weeks? The only thing that I had on camera was a mangy coyote and a medium sized bobcat. Zero deer. Zero bear.

One bad thing about waiting so long between checks, I've got a birch twig out 10 feet from the camera, as the leaves are filling out, it's pulled the twig down setting off the camera every time the wind blows.

Charlie, one of the owners of the mountain property and I were talking a while back, he asked what I thought could be done to improve things for the game. He was looking for something quick and easy. The entire property is all woods, no fields, the only clearing is a log landing. Otherwise there is nothing but the road.

Long story short, about a month ago I went up with a rake and a broadcast seeder. I've been raking the leaves from the high side of the road, in places where I think seeds might grow. The first day I put out 10 or 12 pounds of red clover seed. It's starting to come up. I'm not sure if it's going to get enough sunlight or not? Once the timber fills out, it'll be lucky to get more than 2 or 3 hours of sun per day.

I've got some alfalfa that I'm going to sow the next trip up.

The areas that i hunt have lost most of the ash trees! The loggers still take the standing dead ones.But it sure open up the woods and it is getting thick. The deer will have lots of budding spots this coming winter.I have seen 3 fawns so far,but a lot of single doe standing in fields by themselves,that probably are going to or already did have fawns.

All of our bigger ash trees are dead, I don't know of a healthy ash around here bigger than six inches at the stump.

Not sure how ash trees are doing in other areas, but it seems the stump of our trees are still alive, growing sprouts. They'll be more like a bush in another 5 years, unless they die too. On the mountain where I have my cameras, ash sprouts are coming up by the hundreds, I guess from the roots of the dead top big trees? I first noticed the sprouts 2 or 3 years ago. Most of them are less than 3 feet tall now.

One thing that I have noticed, in different areas, we've got a good many young oak tree sprouts coming up. Little trees, 5, 6 or 8 inches tall, with only 2 or 3 leaves. Chestnut oaks are pretty easy to ID because of their leaves. When that mountain was timbered the last time, 25 years ago, they took about all of the oak trees. What oak trees that are there, are pretty much a chestunt oak or black oak. I don't know timber as well as I should, but there are no white oaks on that property.

A man did tell me that he'd seen 2 fawns the other day, but he was in PA. I guess PA's turkey season just ended?

Moe and I were out turkey hunting the other week, we were up around 2,600 to 2,800 feet in elevation, and I noticed the oak trees seemed to have a heavy bloom The jack-oak brush too.

Talking about turkey hunting and all, I'll tell you this and I agree. Big Donnie's Dad (Glenny) told me years ago that a turkey, at a range of 300 yards knew within 30 feet of exactly where the calls were coming from.

Think about it, you'll be out and hear a rife shot, you have an idea where it came from. Give me 2 shots, I'm getting closer to your location. Give me 3 shots and I've pretty much got you pinpointed. Same way with a turkey call. Screach, screach, screach, he's got you.

Above I mentioned Big D's dad Glenny, I forget the details, but he was either on Round Knob or up in the Square Woods, and called a gobbler off of Coal Mountain. That's a pretty good stretch across there, Glenny killed the longbeard in the air. I forget how far he said the bird hit the ground from where he was sitting? It was close. But that turkey zeroed in on him.

Talking about Big D. and his father Glenn, it wouldn't be proper if I didn't tell you. Glenny had a stroke and died 2 or 3 weeks ago, he was 79. Lifetime family friends, his wife Cookie is a sweetheart, Big D. and I have been best friends forever. I've been keeping an eye on them, so far everyone is doing ok. You hate to see them go, but we all know that we can't keep them forever.

Lots and lots of fond memories with Glen! You know? It's like I told Donnie, we've been fortunate to have had him as long as we have.

Sorry for the loss of your friend.

Ash trees are still fine here. I have a wack of black ash on my woodlots.

Spoke to a guy that hunts turkeys. He says that he can't call them more than 300 yards or so if they are with females. He compared them to moose. When the males have company, they stay put unless it is to fight off another males.

It's always sad to loose good friends.
We have one more day of turkey hunting this season,
My son and i had a good season but no shots fired.
A little story, about 20 years ago i tore my hand up @ work(mason)
anyway i was off work because of my hand and decided to spend the
season turkey hunting.It took me 16 days of hard and early mornings
of hunting to shoot a jake,that was my best season of turkey hunting.Them dang things get under my skin!!!!!!!!!!

Search: Bear family shimmies down tree.

Or go to the hompage of ABC news, in the bottom left corner they always have short video clips. I just checked, it's still there. I think the video was taken in North Carolina, nice big sow with her cubs.

Turkeys are fun to play with and they can get to a feller, if you let them.

Talking about killing a jake turkey, there's nothing at all wrong with that. We're all looking for a 20 pound bird with a 10 inch beard, sometimes you do, sometimes you don't.

My opinion people walk away from a lot of gobblers that are on the way. It does take a lot of patience to sit there and watch when you can't hear or see anything.

Anyone that's ever turkey hunted much, can relate to this. You'll be sitting there working a bird and it'll just shut up. After 20 minutes or a half hour and a couple more calls, you still don't hear anything. You've got a woodtick crawling up your neck, it's getting hot and getting late, you'll stand up and take 2 steps and see it run off or flush. If you'd have sit there another 10 minutes, you'd have killed that bird.

But when you know he's out there, just out of sight, he's hunting for you then and it does get pretty intense. But, that's what makes it fun.

I've watched gobblers out in fields and powerlines with hens, fluff up and sturt around, and you know darn well that it can hear my calls and not make a peep.

Jared, one of the guys that hunts on the mountain where I have my cameras, he got a picture of a fisher the other day.

I checked the "lured rock" camera yesterday and chopped off the tree limb that was setting off the camera. In 2 weeks I only had a picture of a coon. A daytime picture of the coon and it was 75*. That's kind of odd.

Moe gave me a bucket of fish heads and trimmings, I dumped them off, back 40 feet or so behind the camera, 2 weeks agao. If you put stuff like that in front of the camera you'll end up with 100's of buzzard pics.

Above we were talking about winter-kill deer and all. I'll tell you about those fish. Moe and Donald caught the fish on a Saturday, cleaned them up and I got the stinking mess the next morning. I took them straight to the mountain. I had my dog with me and was out fooling around with her for 45 minutes or so? The fish were sitting on the back of the truck, in the shade yet. When I picked up that bucket, I'll bet there were 50 blow flies that boiled up. The flies had already started laying eggs.

It'd be the same with a deer carcass. After a week or 10 days, about the only thing that would be left is the hide and bones.

Talked to a man that lives about 5 miles east of town, he's got a mangy bear hanging around. He's to give me a call if he sees it again, I'll take my big dog out there and see what she'll do.

Moe is getting pictures of a buck deer now, it's horns are about 6 inches long now. Lots of time for them to grow yet.

Above I was telling you about seeding the road banks with clover, I could find more yesterday than I did 2 weeks ago, but it's not doing much! It's been 5 or 6 weeks now and we've had some nice rains too. Never know, it might take off?

Guys, if you remember I was looking for a big bear last winter, never did get him behind the crosshair, but I had fun looking for him.

I think about last season and one thing still makes me wonder. Since season went out and all, I've found out that there were more bear hounds on the mountain that I first knew about.

Not sure how many days total that I hunted on the mountain last season, but I do remember seeing a total of 19 deer. With 13 of them being the last day. Three fawns, 2 bucks and 8 doe. (That 6 point that I scoped over that day, he'll be nice this season.)

I understand that a pack of bear hounds will bunch up the deer, but I'm still curious as to what it was that spooked those 8 deer and ran them past me. We'll never know, that's just part of hunting.

Anyway, I hadn't been on the mountain since May or so? About 3 weeks ago I went up and started cutting out the road. It was a mess, took me half a day to get out to my second camera. On my first camera I had a bear and a bobcat picture. Two pictures of deer, and that's about it, a couple of coon pictures. On that camera that makes a total of 4 deer pictures in almost a year.

On the #2 camera, I had more coyote pictures than anything else. Several deer pictures, I had a salt block just up the hill. I need to replace it, next trip up. No bear or bobcats or fox.

I have a picture of 4 coyote pups, looks like they are running wide-open. And we're not sure, but it almost looks like the one pup has a coon tail in it's mouth. It could be just the way the sun is hitting it? But it does look like a coon tail in a way.

Several pictures of the pups, I guess their den was there someplace. That picture was taken in August, they were about the size of a fox at the time.

Well, I told you what I had on the first 2 cameras, I didn't have time that day to walk up and check the spring camera. A week later I went back to the mountain, there were 3 more trees across the road. At least they were small trees. I'll tell you the wind really hits the west side of the mountain.

Anyway, I carried my grubbin hoe up to the spring, figured I'd scratch out the mudhole a little bit more. I spent about 20 minutes cleaning out the lower puddle, the upper puddle looked good. The water was clear and about 4 inches deep, plenty for game to drink from.

I went to check my camera, the squirrels have just about destroyed the machine. They have holes gnawed into 3 corners, about an inch of the door is complety gone. You can look inside that one hole and see wires and some kind of little circuit board thing. I picked it up and water ran out. I figured, that camera is trash, so I took it off of the tree and brought it home.

You know, that camera is still working. I don't remember how many years it's been in service?

I really didn't have much game on the spring camera, but I do have at least 2 different bear, and one nice buck. Not sure if the buck is an 8 or 9 or 10 point? It's somewhere in the 16 to 18 inch wide range?

But that one bear is a nice one!

I walked back up the other day and replaced the camera, I have it mounted on a different tree.

I'll add more in a little bit.

Sorry, I didn't mean for that little bit to take so long. (my work computer doesn't belong to me, but you'll start to do something, and the screen will just go blank. I'll call about that later today)

Above I was telling you about the big bear that I have on the spring camera. A bear's weight is very hard to guess, especially in the summer. I have several pictures of it. It's long and tall. I've posted pictures from my spring camera before, if you remember there is a log laying across the spring. I've posted pictures of bear, bobcats and coyotes walking on the log.

Anyway, the log is 12 or 14 inches thick. But I have pictures of the biggest bear, out 15 feet or so beyond the log, and the bear's head is just about even with the log.

I sent that picture to one the landowners. Their comment back was: "WOW, it's huge"

Maybe it's the same bear that I was looking for last season?

But I wanted to tell you about 2 other pictures from the spring camera. They are pictures of this biggest bear and a coyote. The bear is pretty much broadside to the camera and the coyote is broadside to the bear. They are within 30 feet of each other, maybe 20 feet?

But in the second picture, the bear has all 4 feet, kind of bunched up, like it's hunkered down. It'll remind you of a cat ready to pounce. The bear is uphill and the coyote is just below.

I've never heard of a bear killing a coyote, but I'd love to know what happened after that picture.

Statewide, West Virginia's 2021 bear harvest was down about 20%, compared to the year before. In this part of the state the DNR shortened our rifle bear season by 3 weeks.

But it isn't long till season starts, then we can all get out there and chase them around again.