wasting a couple hours on a deer hunt in mid florida

Grumpy

The Grumpy Grease Monkey mechanical engineer.
Staff member
I sure don,t consider myself as being either an exceptional shot or a rifle snob, ,
I value, over all quality of machine work, fit & finish, durability, consistency and accuracy and dependability as the more important factors when selecting a rifle.
Yes its true Id prefer to use a rifle that might provide some advantage in range, power or accuracy and don,t mind spending a bit more to get what I want,
rather than just shop based mostly on price, and having a rather extensive engineering back ground, I appreciate skillful machine work more than some people do.
I was recently invited to go on a deer & hog hunt here in florida, at a guys ranch in mid florida south of orlando, mid state, and when I got to camp I opened my rifle case and pulled out a ruger #1,
with a custom 28" barrel I had SHILLEN install decades ago in caliber 257 weatherby mag. with a baush & lomb 4x-12x scope, the rifle and scope are both well over 35 years old
I was repeatedly asked why anyone in his right mind would spend over $1200 eon a rifle and then have over $400 more in custom barrel work done to a single shot rifle???
from the comments you heard,from all the younger crowd you would think it was a pre-civil war musket ,and I don,t think anyone considered a single shot rifle a good choice.
and because it weights about 11 lbs with its 27 inch harris bi-pod, I had several people comment rather negatively on its weight and length and obviously its lack of fast repeat fire potential,
now this is not my rifle below but its a rather similar picture I found posted on line.
I also took some verbal kidding about the climbing tree stand I brought with me
(no thats not me but its a TREE LOUNGE tree stand and yeah Im an old geezer too!)
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anyway after all the younger guys got through telling me that we would be driving around on those 4 wheel motor cycles,
and I should have brought a pump 12 ga, as shots were mostly at running deer and hogs at under 40 yards and I was hopelessly old and ill equipped,
I let them get on with their plans . the ranch owner was a lady about my age (70 plus) who enjoys having the grand kids hunt the property
(I got the feeling its the only reason they visit her now that he husband had recently passed on,)
well about 4 pm after watching and hearing the guys randomly drive all over the ranch for hours one guy stops to chat as they had seen nothing all day,
Id seen several does and a dozen hogs but not a thing worth shooting as we talked,
I mentioned the fact that the guys were spending all day driving around and no one seemed interested in actually hunting.
the guy I was talking too asked me if I could see any game, when I answered Id seen about a dozen hogs trot by in a clearing, when he asked where I pointed it out
(remember Im 30 feet up in a tall strait jack pine and can see far better than he can at ground level ) he doubting me asked for directions to where I saw the hogs
(obviously to see if there were tracks to verify my sighting) as I described the area in plain sight he said that clearing about a 1/4 mile away..... (my range finder said 340 yards)
I watched him drive over to the clearing , look around and then he placed an empty beer bottle on a fallen tree , he drives back and says I suppose you saw me place that beer bottle do you think you could hit it?
well it was almost dark, and not much else going on, so for grins & giggles .. why not, I put the cross hairs on the bottle , with the extended bi-pod feet on the stands foot rest , judged the breeze as inconsequential, and slowly squeezed off the shot.. yeah I hit the bottle and absolutely vaporized it with a 120 grain bullet
https://www.speer-ammo.com/products/bullets/rifle-bullets/boat-tail-rifle-bullet/1410
(not exactly a huge challenge.. Hitting a bottle from a solid rest from mid 340 yard range ) but it seemed to amaze this guy and I got a whole lot of verbal brownie points that evening in camp, after he drove out to what he swore was a 1/4 mile out and found a vaporized bottle.
we may not have seen anything worth shooting this weekend but I got a couple younger guys thinking about rifle options
(btw the rifles sighted in the way I sight all my big game rifles in, 3.5" high at 100 yards and I aimed so the horizontal cross hair was about 1" over the standing bottle)
since I was up in a tree stand I probably hit the neck of the bottle)
257wbyu.png

BTW once you hit 66 years old in florida a resident with a florida drivers licence no longer needs to purchase a hunting licence!

http://myfwc.com/license/recreational/do-i-need-a-license/

ranges tend to be short in florida brush
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Aren’t the deer there the size of Dobermans? o_O

I can hunt from toilet at my house and bag a few 8 to 10 pointers! Not bragging, they just infest my yard and ruin my trees and bushes. A few years ago I spent real money planting 42 Blue Hollys, last year they ate every leaf off those shrubs now I don’t think they’ll survive another winter. I really hate driving after sunset here, it’s a constant game of where not when will they pop out.
 
while its true many florida deer are a bit smaller than average , 120 lb-140 lbs live weight for a buck is rather common which may be small by northern standards but not by as much as you may imagine.
now key deer are protected sub species and those are in the 60-100 lb class
 
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I know, it wasn’t fair play about the petite size. For years I vacationed in the Keys and driving through Big Pine Key the speed limit drops and even further when the deer are crossing the main highway early evening and early mornings. I sware those deer know they are the center of attention.
 
Rich you need to send some of the deer out my way we had the worst year ever at the farm. I'm the only one that saw deer and got my 7 point at quitting time and it really sucks cleaning and dragging a deer after dark. I saw a total of 10 deer the day I hunted the other 3 guys I was with saw 1 deer apiece in 3 days and the weather was terrible rain/snow and cold and windy makes me wonder why I sat in a tree for 11 hours freezing my nuts off but lord willin I'll be in the same tree next year
 
It’s shameful but laughable at the same time. There’s a farmer up the lane, everyone likes him so he has permission to hunt on their property except one big wig politician neighbor, he has security and nobody can hunt anywhere near his property, even has drones checking things out.

Instead of hunting everywhere or different places, the farmer has instead chose to hunt on a particular portion of my property. He actually cultivates 5 to 7 acres of my open pasture throughout the year growing everything a deer would love to eat. He doesn’t harvest anything, just lets the deer have at it all. Nearby there’s a small spring fed pond at the edge of the woods and behind it, a well traveled path. He uses old Christmas trees to help block off some paths running off the main. You would think all this would keep deer away from my house, nope, they hang out next to the house and crap up a storm. I actually beaned a deer on the head with a full bottle of water from my porch after catching them munching on my landscape and tearing up all my small treess. At night its a real pita since they are so close they agitate the dog. I think it’s a doe that screams so loudly right outside my windows.
 
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I don,t think a few of us rifle looneys spend all that much time and effort worrying about what something costs,
now don,t get me wrong, very few of us have cash to throw away and it might take us several months, or almost a year in many cases,
to save up to pay for what we want,
personally I used too just throw a $20, to $50 in a 50 cal ammo can every week when I was working full time, or if I get some over time, or sell a previous project.
Ive been known to work extra overtime on occasion , to finance a project.
if your into hot rods and muscle cars , or deep sea fishing trips, you should recognize the parts accumulation process.
and the process of collecting the required associated quality component parts and gun-smithing, but theres a great deal of satisfaction, for some people,
in knowing you own something rather unique and exceptionally well made.and yeah that results in most of us purchasing far fewer rifles or handguns than we would like to own,
now I sure can,t speak for anyone else but its frequently taken me over a year to figure out the details and save up for what we want to build, and its not unusual for plans to change over the planing phase.
but as a result , its not all that rare to find you have over decades accumulated some rather nice and rare firearms.
the down side is the non-rifle looney types see no value, nor do they appreciate the quality,
and when I pass on, the people that inherit those rifles will probably sell them off for pennies on the dollar
I used to deal with one rather patient and skilled, gunsmith almost exclusively, and we became rather good friends over time.
I wish I could find any auto machine shop machinist with 10% of that gunsmiths skills and knowledge and patients..
and finding someone who takes 5% of his pride in workmanship would be almost un-heard of.
 
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I bought a Mauser a few years back to use as a donor gun to build something different but the more people that saw it said that I would be crazy to tear up a Mauser in that good of shape so the Mauser is in the safe and the search starts over
 
I don,t think a few of us rifle looneys spend all that much time and effort worrying about what something costs,
now don,t get me wrong, very few of us have cash to throw away and it might take us several months, or almost a year in many cases,
to save up to pay for what we want,
personally I used too just throw a $20, to $50 in a 50 cal ammo can every week when I was working full time, or if I get some over time, or sell a previous project.
Ive been known to work extra overtime on occasion , to finance a project.
if your into hot rods and muscle cars , or deep sea fishing trips, you should recognize the parts accumulation process.
and the process of collecting the required associated quality component parts and gun-smithing, but theres a great deal of satisfaction, for some people,
in knowing you own something rather unique and exceptionally well made.and yeah that results in most of us purchasing far fewer rifles or handguns than we would like to own,
now I sure can,t speak for anyone else but its frequently taken me over a year to figure out the details and save up for what we want to build, and its not unusual for plans to change over the planing phase.
but as a result , its not all that rare to find you have over decades accumulated some rather nice and rare firearms.
the down side is the non-rifle looney types see no value, nor do they appreciate the quality,
and when I pass on, the people that inherit those rifles will probably sell them off for pennies on the dollar
I used to deal with one rather patient and skilled, gunsmith almost exclusively, and we became rather good friends over time.
I wish I could find any auto machine shop machinist with 10% of that gunsmiths skills and knowledge and patients..
and finding someone who takes 5% of his pride in workmanship would be almost un-heard of.
I know of just one left here Grumpy.
My friend Steve with his diesel auto machine shop near me.
No Dyno though.
That is Ok.
Test on the Street.
 
Guys, I had a glitch in the software my IPad uses. It really screwed up everything I was writing, chopping up sentences and scrambling words. I just noticed post entry #6 I wrote yesterday made no sense - much worse then usual so I fixed it. Glad nobody questioned if I was having a stroke o_O
 
well, I guess we either didn,t notice,
or very few people question what you posted...
or no one really wanted to question what you wrote.:D
or perhaps were all getting older and it all made sense :rolleyes:
 
I have noticed most threads that contain more then one or two questions rarely receive back more then the first question answered. To be clear it’s that way on any forum I’ve been on. It’s been awhile but I’ve read this observation from others occasionally.…
 
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