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watertight

It’s “field testing”, kind of. Okay, okay, it’s in the backyard, but it’s a BIG backyard.  I have to walk a ways and stuff.  Listen, I learned a valuable lesson early on when testing out new gear. The place to do it is close to another place where you can regroup when things go bad, as they often do. Not ten miles into the Everglades like when I was a younger and more reckless man.

In this case, I’m fairly new to the whole hammock camping deal.  I bought a cheap one a couple of years ago and found it wanting.  It was too small.  I would lay down in it and before long feel like a banana.  The next day I would get up hunched over like an old man.  Alright and OLDER man than I am! Jeez…

Anyway, I have a buddy who is a big time experienced camper and he suggested a Hennesy hammock.  I didn’t want to spend money on it at first, but when the company changed styles from the underneath access to the side zipper (frankly I’m not sure why) the old style came down in price quite a bit.  I jumped on the opportunity.   Hammock camping is very lightweight and very effective, if you know what you are doing.   I don’t, thus the backyard field testing.

showing how to get in and showing off my "Charlie Harper" shoes

I learned a few things right off the bat as the summer rains came to my area of Florida.  First, the issued rainfly keeps you dry, if the hammock is set up right and the rain isn’t being blown around by a strong wind.  If it is or you don’t get it set up right, you might get wet.  Hennsey has a larger hex style rainfly for about sixty dollars extra or as a free upgrade with the new style.  I would suggest you get it.  However, if you as thrifty…okay CHEAP as me, you’ll use what you already have.  Now mind you, I’m not going to do any serious ultralight camping right now, so a few extra pounds isn’t a deal breaker for me.  In fact, I’m that guy who likes to pack a few extra things just in case.  My kids complain I pack way too much when we go hunting or camping, as do my friends.  But sooner or later I hear, “Uh buddy, do you have an extra…?”  “Yes, why yes I do.”

I had bought some Walmart tarps which worked well in our initial adventures.  To test the theory that a second tarp above the first would keep the whole thing bone dry, I rigged up what you see.  The theory is sound.  Ugly maybe, but sound.

I spent about four nights in the hammock under different conditions; cool weather, windy, hot and still.  I learned that much like tents, hot weather sucks for sleeping.  But the upside of a hammock like the Hennesy is you can make some adjustments and manage the heat somewhat. The other night I went in around eleven p.m. and by three or four the hammock got comfortable.  By five the ambient temperature was perfect.  I could have made some adjustments, but that required getting up and frankly the hammock is very comfortable once you get in and get settled.

Things I learned?  Pads are a pain.  Not sure how to fix that without buying an expensive version- again that cheap thing in me.  I’ll figure it out.  Set up is critical if the weather is going to be a problem.  But if you set up right, you’ll be fine inside.  Outside?  Well, Youtube has tons of videos showing more experienced hammock campers explaining better setups than I have.  I’d direct you that way for help.

For me, I’m just having fun learning and practicing.  Soon, bow season will be here in Florida (it starts in AUGUST@!!!) and I’ll have a chance to really get the stuff out and put it to the test.   Kaley, my daughter, is pretty good on her setup.  Me, I like tinkering and fine tuning. Any new idea I get I call it my “new new evil master plan” and my kids know to head for the exits until they see how it worked out.   On that note, if I can figure out how to trick my boy into hauling a deep cycle battery and a fan into the woods, I think I’ll have that heat problem solved.  “Hey, Junior, come over here.  Dad’s got a plan!”

plenty of leg room and air flow.

Mentally working on my next evil master plan. Tshirt courtesy of my dad's twisted sense of humor

I think we’ve got it!  Now I say we because as I was discussing it with my daughter, Kaley-Ann, she brought up a simple solution to the problem of pot stability.  We were working on a 4H project and used several cheap tie beam parts you can get at Home Depot that were shaped in the form of a “U”.   I got a set and put them on the top of the windscreen using a dremel to cut through the metal wall.   So, with that done, let me show you how we created a very effective dual purpose windscreen/wood stove unit for a homemade alcohol burner or a Trangia.

First I searched for a lightweight tube that could stand the heat, the weight of the pot and was wide enough to hold a small alcohol burner. I settled on what is called a “bathroom vent” from Home Depot. The cost of the vent, along with a white plastic top, is about five dollars.  The tube measures four inches by four inches and is made up of what appears to be aluminum.

vent tube

Then all you have to do is drill a series of holes around the base, I used a pretty big bit, ending up with a double row.  Then take a Dremel with a cutting wheel, if you have it, or a hacksaw, and cut a “V” in the top of the tube big enough to allow you to stick wood into the tube when it is burning.  I went about two inches down or so.   The first windscreen/stove I made I cut small grooves in the top where I could place a cross of two old hacksaw blades (both cut with slits so that they slipped into the cross shape) on the top.  That way a pretty large frying pan could be used with some stability.

The problem was you had to put the hacksaw blades in some aluminum foil or another carrier so you woudn’t loose them.  I usually stuck that folded aluminum into the tube along with a homemade burner made out of a large sterno can. It worked fine, but was a little clunky.

adding the pot stabilizing "U" ties

Then my daughter pointed out the “U” shaped ties and said, “Why not attach them just above the tube?”   Why not?  Better, why not cut a small slot along the top and set them in the tube.  I did, setting the slot one inch below the top which gave about a half inch of gap above the top.   This way the alcohol burner not only hits the bottom with a flame but can lick up the sides a little, like the Trangia does with its provided windscreen.  In addition, the gap allows for a wood fire to get enough air and basically do the same thing.  The ties cost eight-two cents a piece and three is all you can fit on the tube.

I cut the slots along three sides trying to eyeball the distance. I did okay, but don’t hire me to build something important, like a skyscraper or a road!  I set the “U” ties from the inside out and bent the tip of the edge that went through the tube so that you can push them back into the center and not have them fall out.

Now for the test.  What we did learn was that to be efficient the Trangia stove has to be about an inch or so below the pot.  With the tube being four inches long and a half inch of gap, it was way too high.  So how to fix it?  Remember the windscreen doubles as a small woodstove.   Height is important to build a wood fire.  So, the obvious answer was to raise the stove.  The way we did it was put another empty can under it.   We also used rocks or dirt to do the same thing.  Anything would work, as long as the “V” vent is open enough to get air.

Once in place the stove boiled water and fried an egg perfectly.  The “U” ties could be slid in for small pots and out for bigger pans.  It worked great!

Now we had to try to use my homemade alcohol burner. Not as efficient as the Trangia, it still boiled water quick enough.  (I’m working on how to modify the stove to match the design of the Trangia, but that is a work in progress.)

Will it work with wood?  Yes, and quite well. All I suggest is to cover your pots with foil to avoid the wood staining the pots or pans.  Outside of that, the thing cooks and heats very well for something so small.  I wouldn’t try to cook a steak, but bacon and eggs, absolutely.

One of the cool things we discovered as we could push in the tabs and rotate them down into the center of the tube creating a base.  A quick twist of a bread tie or piece of wire and the base is solid.  Flip the tube over and you can stick the burner and aluminum foil or something else inside the tube for storage.   I usually wrap the whole thing in a couple of handi-wipe towels.  They hold everything together and can be used for cleaning later.

Need a smaller pan. Oh well, back to the store!

The windscreen works really well in heavy wind.  I was impressed with the ability for it to protect the flame from the wind.  Add some foil as an addition screen and you’ll be sitting pretty. It is far better than the one provided by Trangia or some other companies.  I did some field tests and attached a couple of photos for review.  It worked fine as a wood stove.   My advice though is to gather a lot of little twigs and sticks.  The smaller diameter wood burns quickly and you can go through a lot more than you think.  I also found you can put larger pieces in, once the coal base is established and get a steady flame for a good while by adding a little here and there as needed.

Here are the field test photos.

getting the fire started. The only "footprint" left by the stove is four inches in diameter.

A good burn going. Aluminum foil helps keep the soot down.

Success! One egg down. You could cook for as long as you wanted just keeping the fire going!

When I was a kid I used to play around with rockets with my dad. It was a lot of fun.  The 4H group we joined had Kaley and Jake build their own rockets from thick construction paper kits.  I didn’t think they would fly at all.  Boy was I wrong.

building paper rockets

During one sitting they cut the outlines, used glue and tape and constructed the rockets.  I wasn’t sure if they flew where they would go.  But as the instructor said, “Straight fins means a straight flight.”  He was very right.

On Saturday, we went out to a windy, cold open field where the rocketry group had assembled their launch pads and we began to send rockets into the sky.  But before we did, I told the kids of how I used to stick all kinds of critters into the capsules of the rocket to see how the G-forces would affect them. I sent up frogs and crickets and worms into the sky and hustled to the returning rocket to see if they had survived the high G force acceleration.

On the day before the rocket shots we managed to get a small cricket to use.  On Saturday we found another bigger one in the field next to the launch area so Jake could send one up in his.  The man in charge of putting the rocket engines in the rockets was a little put back by our experiment, saying we should take the critters out.  To that we said, “No science is ever advanced by being cautious.  Besides, these are Russian crickets and well able to handle the stress.  We named the two crickets  Ivan Crickovich of the Union of Soviet Cricket Republic and Boris Brouski of the same.

getting set up with rocket engines

Off they go!

When we retrieved the two rockets we saw Kaley’s rocket had accordioned almost like it was part of the Wiley E Coyote cartoon!  Jake’s came back unharmed.  We opened the capsule of Kaley’s and found, to our great dismay, that Ivan didn’t make it.  It seems that the G-force going up wasn’t the problem, but the very straight and hard landing, followed by the rest of the ship imploding behind him, caused is demise.  On the other hand, Boris was no worse for the wear, if only a little disorientated.  Imagine spinning upward from zero to about fifty miles an hour then falling in another slow spin to the earth, all in about fifteen seconds. Talk about a mind-bending roller coaster ride.

core sample rocket!

Rest in peace comrade

Boris, a national Soviet Cricket land hero!

kids with rockets. A good day had by all- expect Ivan

Kaley-Ann and I were hunting in the Yucca Pen when we saw a group of vulture feasting on something in the tall grass along the edge of a slough.  We walked over to see what the big deal was and realized they were eating what was left of a very large, better than four feet, eastern diamondback rattler.

Kaley-Ann took a stick and started poking the now almost skeletal remains and found something inside where the stomach would have been.   Upon closer inspection she found what she thought was a bird’s head, half digested.  She showed it to me and unless the bird had teeth, it wasn’t a bird’s head.  It was a rabbit’s head.  A full grown rabbit’s head.  Kaley-Ann looked at the snake again and realized she could see fur mashed down into the interior of what was decayed guts.

We figured it went like this- The rabbit was minding its own business when the hungry rattlesnake struck it.  The snake trailed the dying rabbit to its final resting place and starting to eat it.  Either the snake bit off more than it could chew and died because it couldn’t digest the rabbit, or while it was lying helpless digesting the rabbit something came along killed the resting snake.  Either way, the predator that did its job became the prey to something else and then dinner for five big vultures.

Not exactly the way Disney would have portrayed it, but it is life.

Boy, I hate snakes!

Even in death, he's mean looking. Snake boots are my new best friend!

Not much to look at now. But was a deadly predator at one time.

Nine rattlers

Last week Kaley-Ann and I went hunting for three days in SW Florida’s Yucca Pen WMA.  We were able to get a hold of two old style

Red neck waders! Laugh if you want, we stayed dry!

muzzleloaders.  However, one- my .54 Caliber Renegade- had a lock/hammer problem and hit the percussion caps off-center.   That caused a few misfires, actually more than a few.  The other old rifle is a  .50 caliber TC Hawkins my dad lent me.   Very accurate, easy to shoot but somehow it printed tight groups five inches high at 30 yrds and fourteen inches high at 50!  It was like shooting a mortar round!!  I figured it would probably come back down around two hundred yards or better.

Kaley-Ann on the canal road

The first two days, Friday and Saturday, we concentrated on hunting in the afternoon.  We had hiked the area we wanted to hunt last May and had already picked out a few places where hogs had been moving.  It didn’t take long to see that the pigs were still there as we found hog wallows and fresh track everywhere.

On Friday we walked along an old road bed along the north perimeter next to a cow pasture and then we circled back and walked along the road looking for movement.  The coolest thing was that the redneck waders did the trick.  We were able to get across the canal without getting wet once.

On Saturday Kaley-Ann had to work so we grabbed up the climber and set her up in a small tree along the fence line. I set up next to an old dug out pond that had oaks growing around it. It sat in the field fifty yard north of the canal road and thirty yards south of a large palmetto thicket.  There was a big game trail running between the thicket and the north side of the pond, a natural pinch point.  The oak limbs were thick and grew to the ground, which provided a natural blind.  It was a sweet set up.   We waited until dark and even though we saw a lot of critters, none were pigs or deer.

Yucca pen canal road

Sunday was different.  On Saturday, Kaley-Ann told me she wanted to take a walk to the northwest corner of the property, over a mile and a half away, so she could “do a little scouting.”  I remember being her age and wanting to just take off and chart a new course.  So I agreed.  We got to the woods on Sunday with plans and gear to stay all day.  We brought our hammocks, some Raman noodles, canned food, water and my ultra-light cooking gear.  I even grabbed up a camp chair.  The south canal road ran along a canal that had a pretty steep bank in places.  We found a good crossing point near where we were hunting, cutting off a quarter mile of walking from the last crossing point, and started a slow still hunt north along the perimeter of the WMA.  It was a long walk that was educational, but didn’t give us much to work with.  When we circled back, Kaley wanted to take off to the new area.  So after a short rest, one I needed because being fifty-three to her fifteen, we started along the north side of the canal and hiked west.  It wasn’t three hundred yards before I saw something dart across the road.  I glanced at my watch, it was just after 10am.  I knew from experience, if the moon was up at dark and the game moved late, they would get back up and move in the late morning.  I pointed to the road to let

Kaley with the shoat. He had no fear

Kaley-Ann know I saw something move up ahead and she said she saw it too.   The dark object shot back across the sand road and into the thicket on the other side once again.  It was a small black pig, probably no more than twenty or so pounds. What we call a shoat.  I tried to circle but the we were dead upwind and there was no way to get around.  So we doubled back and dropped down along the canal, hoping that the wind would carry our scent out over the water.  It turned out I didn’t need to do anything.  Less than a minute after we came back up on the road I saw something walking up the edge of the canal.  It was the pig and he couldn’t have cared less about us.  He walked right up to our feet, downwind and just stood there, waiting for us to get out of his way!  Kaley-Ann crept around one side of a palmetto bush as I walked slowly away and recording her and the pig looking at each other.

After the encounter we continued west along the canal and after about a mile we turned north and ran into a large slough in the middle of the huge palmetto fields.  Kaley-Ann could smell pigs. I could see where they were coming out of the slough and rubbing tree trunks along the slough edge.   We worked the area, but although we knew they were there, we couldn’t kick them up.   We hiked back to the camp area and set up the hammocks and ate lunch.  Kaley-Ann told me she said didn’t trust my dad’s old fifty because it shot high, so we switched out on Sunday, which turned out to be a good thing.

A quick camp set up makes for good napping!

On Sunday afternoon, we gathered up our gear, grabbed up a game cart and headed back to the northwest edge.  I had decided to take the cart to save the time if we did get something and I had to go back and get it.  We walked ahead, me dragging the cart and Kaley-Ann leading the way.  We came to the area we wanted to hunt, an oak edged slough and dropped off the cart.  I walked the oak hammock with no luck. Then we circled across the open palmetto field and back to the slough we had found that morning.  The wind was whipping across the slough from the east, so we set up on the downwind side and just stood by some young pine trees.

We stood there watching the slough, which was about seven acres across, looking for movement.  I kept hearing what sounded like splashing coming from the center of the slough.  It was hard to hear clearly because of the wind, but it sounded like it was anywhere from fifty to seventy yards in front of me.  I motioned to Kaley-Ann and she nodded.  I had her come over to me and she said she had been hearing the same thing.  As I turned around to say something to her, she saw a nice black pig come walking out of the slough and into the palmetto thicket along the edge. I had her slip out to the road, which was about twenty yards off the edge and look to see if the pig had come out onto it.  She shook her head no, but then pointed to the inside edge of the thicket and made a motion she saw movement. I heard something coming, working its way along the edge.  Now I was standing in about thigh high wire grass, pressed up against a small pine.  I could hear it clearly now, the “splish-splash” of hooves.  Kaley had her gun up and was pointing to the edge of the thicket fifteen yards in front of her.  The pig would either turn her way or mine.  Less than a minute later I saw a black body rooting along the edge of some bushes about six yards in front of me.  The grass was so high and thick that I could see the pig from about half way up.  I realized if the pig kept going it would literally walk right by me!  I raised my dad’s Hawkins and took aim. Do I try to shoot her in the head, or do I wait?  Is it going to shoot high or at the pig, it was only about ten feet away at most.  I figured nothing could rise that fast and pointed the rifle at the shoulder I could see.  “BOOM!’   The white smoke boiled out of the barrel, the pig screamed and wheeled towards me.  It bolted across the short distance, right at my legs. I jumped to one side and did what anyone who isn’t used to shooting a muzzleloader does, I tried to pull the trigger again.   The black pig, which was about eighty or ninety pounds blew by my left leg, missing it by inches.   The pig then ran headlong down a cattle path and into the green palmetto thickets.   Kaley-Ann came up and told me she thought she heard the pig crash somewhere behind us.

I reloaded my rifle and took up the track.  The cattle path ran through about six hundred acres of palmettos.  I had no real idea where I hit the pig.  It was moving, covered up by grass and I was trying to see down an old set of sights on a gun that shot like a mortar tube.   I knew which path it took so I just started tracking the footprints the running pig left behind.  Kaley-Ann said she saw the rest of the group, a bunch of small pigs, heading the other way.  So I told her to take a look that way as I tried to track down my pig.  The track was solid, I could see where the pig tore up the sand as it was running.  What was missing was blood.  I had noticed when the pig was running by me that the side which should have had an exit wound seemed untouched.  A high hit with no exit with a lead round ball on a pig is a recipe for a long and difficult tracking job.

I bent over and started slowly working the trail.  About thirty or more yards into the track I saw my first blood, a small drop on a leaf.  A few steps farther I saw what appeared to be a small piece of lung material hanging off a blade of grass.  I kept going down the trail and soon realized I had lost any blood or track.  I backtracked and went to the the place where the blood was seen.  I grid searched to the left, as there was a small opening into a large palmetto clump.  I went about ten feet and saw another drop of blood, I was back on the trail!  It led into a five foot gap in the thicket.  On top of one dead brown palmetto frond which was under some green ones I saw my first real  blood sign and it was huge.  The blood was bright red and showed signs of being blown out over the frond.  I knew what that meant.  The shot was high and downward.  The blood was building up inside the pig as it ran, the blowout onto the frond was from the pig coughing and spitting it out.  I was convinced now the pig was close by.  I got Kaley-Ann’s attention and she started over.  I wanted her near me  in case the pig was not dead.  There is nothing worse than crawling into a chest high palmetto thicket containing an injured pig and having only one shot.  Kaley-Ann headed around to the opposite side and set up.  I slowly eased my

Killed by a thirty year old gun that sat in a safe for twenty years!

Our neighbor and a good reason to hustle across the canal!

way into the bushes.  The blood trail was pretty steady.  I took about another twelve steps and looked to my right.  Laying on her side was a nice black sow, deader than a stump.  The old .50 had laid her out but good.  The total distance from shot to recovery was a total of eighty yards or less.

We gutted the pig, went and grabbed the cart and loaded the pig up. I pulled it out of the woods about a mile or so back to the canal.  It was dark by the time we got there and we put on our redneck waders and shuffled across.   Now, on a side note, we were sharing the canal with a very, VERY big alligator that liked to hang out downstream several hundred yards away.  As I drug the pig carcass across the canal, in the dark, I realized I may have screwed up.  I did it before we had all the rest of the gear across and we had already unloaded our guns.  The thought occurred to me that if the blood got down to the gator before we got out of there, we might find ourselves shuffling in a black bag across a bloody stream, in the dark, with no guns and a hungry gator easing up the canal looking for dinner.  I held that thought close as I grabbed the cart and decided to simply run across the canal with without the bag and up over the berm as fast as I could.  I didn’t know Kaley-Ann had to go back across to get some more gear.  I didn’t have the heart to tell her what I was worried about, since that would have certainly left the gear abandoned on the other side.  Kaley-Ann made it fine.  We loaded up our stuff and headed home.  We cleaned the pig at the house and after a late night, finished up with some photos and some hugs.

It was a good time had by all.  It should be noted that the 175 grain lead ball that the .50 shot did a number on the pig’s shoulder and liver.   The angle was down and back. It took out the liver and some lung before stopping somewhere on the opposite side of the sow.  I have no doubt it would handle anything up to and including a large deer.  Heck, if Jeremiah Johnson can kill grizz with it, I guess I can handle anything Florida can offer.

Representing three generations of Wishers, my Dad's gun, me and my son- who I think would rather be playing his PS3! No mosquitos bite you in Call to Duty!

On a side note, I should let you all know about the Thompson Centerfire people. I called them today and told them the problem with the rifle, that it shot high and the side screw on the nipple holder was frozen closed.  The representative told me that since my dad was the original owner just to send the rifle to them and they would correct the problem, apparently they are very serious about a LIFETIME warranty.  Even though the gun was purchased in the late seventies or earlier, they stand by their product.   I’ll be sending the old girl off for a face lift.  Maybe they’ll even put in a new firing system.  Percussion caps are fun, but unreliable.    It was worth mentioning.  A thirty year old virtual handshake on a deal is something not heard of lately.   Congrats to them.

Okay, as some of you know, I’m a bit cheap.  Mostly because money doesn’t grow on trees.  Kaley-Ann and I are going to hunt a WMA area that is cut in half by a shallow canal.  The place we found to cross is about crotch deep.  Instead of buying and hassling with waders, I figured we needed to stay dry for about eight feet of deep water and then we’d be fine.  In my twisted imagination I thought if I could just put garbage bags over my legs until I got to the other side I would keep my boots and legs dry.  Well, it works.  But the canal is a little deeper than last spring so I had to “up the ante” in garbage bags.  I went to Walmart and bought the fifty-five gallon construction bags. I put one inside the other and stepped inside. Darned if they don’t come up just high enough.

Now of course you know I will have to shuffle like a man in a potato sack race, but it’s only eight or so feet, maybe ten.  The only other consideration is I have to do it when no one is looking, because much like riding a moped, it’s fun until your friends see you on it!

As long as nobody's looking it'll do the trick!

Jeremiah Johnson’s movie has the part where he acquires the Hawkins from another frozen Mountain Man.  I told my daughter that my dad had one of those “Hawkins” types that must be better than thirty years old.  In fact, it had been stored for almost twenty before I called him up and asked him to part with the old gun for this year’s Florida black powder season.

The good news is the gun fired fine and was very accurate.  The bad news was the gun fired high- and I mean real high- five inches at thirty yards.  I checked the sights and found that Dad had already clamped the sights down as far as possible.  So I told Kaley-Ann that she had better decide to shoot low, using the bottom line of the underbelly as the aim point.    We’ll run a round through it at fifty yards when we go out and see how bad it is at that distance.  I wonder if another type of bullet other than a lead round ball would shoot lower.  Maybe after the hunt we’ll be able to go out and check, but our ability to get to a range and mess around is limited in our area.  You either fight the crowds at the one local free range or beg a friend who has access to a private range to take you along.  My friend Dave let me tag along with the kids and took some photos.  One of my daughter shooting the Hawkins and another of my son shooting my Renegade, also almost thirty years old.

Jake and the Renegade- dead on perfect

Pulling the trigger on history

Sadly, this year, because of personal reasons, my chance to take myself and my kids to Alabama to hunt will not happen.  However, I was smart enough to apply for some WMA permits in Florida.  I grew up and live in Florida and have hunted here all my life.  My dad taught me how to hunt in the Everglades and I’ve hunted mostly areas south of Orlando.  After discovering Alabama and its fantastic hunting opportunities, not to mention the great people and wonderful countryside, I pretty much gave up hunting in Florida.  It’s kind of like dating big girls for years, thinking that was all there was, and discovering Hefner’s grotto, it is hard to go back!

Last year I did some hunting in the WMA of the Yuccapen in SW Florida.  I was pleasantly surprised how easy the folks at FWC made the experience and I was even more impressed with the amount of game I saw in the three days I was able to hunt.  Kaley-Ann was able to kill a nice hog with her 260 after missing one the day before.  The only drawback was that the WMA demands you “carry” out your game.  Trust me, carting out a hog, through the Florida swamps, is not an easy task.  It almost killed me!

This year I decided to try some other areas and was able to snag an archery hunt in the Spirit of the Wild WMA south of Labelle Florida.  I’ve hunted areas like the SOTW many times before.   It was a ranch/farm area at one time, consisting of seventy-four hundred acres of old pasture, swamps, oak hammocks and small pine trees/palmetto scrub patches.   Kaley-Ann and I were pumped to get out and put some miles under our snake boot, especially after being pretty much cooped up for months and months.  She was looking forward to trying out her handmade longbow that she crafted from a blank produced by Rudderbows.  The owner of this company is a great guy and the bows he produces and the kits he makes for people to tiller their own bows are top notch.  I’ve made three bows, one from myself, one for my father-in-law and helped Kaley-Ann make hers.  All the bows shoot great.

However, as my luck continues to spiral down at times, just as we were packing to head out to the hunt my longbow broke.  I had it in the truck strung and ready to go, I walked inside and when we got back out five minutes later, I noticed the bow had snapped at the tip.  It simply died!  The timing!!

broken tip, broken heart!

taking a break

Lucky for me I had brought my Mahaska recurve and I was able to switch out before we hit the road.  It took about fifty minutes to get there and sign in.  We drove the property and noticed just how open it was.  It was probably seventy-five percent open land with acres upon acres of tall and THICK grass.  It was like walking through knee high thickets for miles.  Add to that the rains had left standing water everywhere, the temperature was around ninety and the hogs were less than cooperative and you had a challenging first day.

We had only one encounter and that hog was buried four feet into a huge palmetto thicket and had no intention of coming out.  He knew we were there and he was content to stay where he was.  After that we took a break inside the thicket and talked about the experiences we were having, including the oncoming heat stroke and the chances that we would see some game moving. The moon had been full the week before and the guy at the check station said most of the game was moving at night.

Dad with the Mahaska

We walked through some planted pines and palmettos, dodged some rain and lightening and decided to call it a day. On the way out we saw two deer, a spike and a doe near the dove field and decided to try it again the next day, but this time only show up around 4pm to avoid the heat.

knee deep grass in a slough

One of the many fields in the SOTW

The next day, we both suited up, put on some camo paint and struck out, hoping that the later afternoon hunt would give us a better chance at a hog.  Sadly, it was just more of the same.  We decided to walk around the edge of the dove field and while we found a ton of tracks and wallows, we didn’t see or hear the first deer or hog, which was quite striking.   I walked with Kaley-Ann into an area that looked good from a distance, a large oak hammock, and found it was full of canals, DEEP canals, and thick ground cover.  You could have hid a full sized elephant AND his girlfriend in there and we would have walked right by them!   By the time we had managed to work our way back out, Kaley-Ann and I were about done in.  We made it back to the truck where she promptly jumped in and turned on the A/C full blast.   We waited until about dark and made one more pass around the outside of the dove field, this time on the east side and found some high ground.  Unfortunately, it was about dark and we had to turn around to go back.  It was a good time overall, but I was decidedly disappointed about the lack of game.  There was hogs and deer there, but not in the numbers you would expect on a piece of property like the Spirit of the Wild.

Oh, on a side note, I should tell you the closest we got to killing a big pig were the two black boars we almost hit with my truck in downtown Alva on the way back to Fort Myers.   Kaley-Ann saw them just as I started to swerve away from the two as they attempted to cross SR80 around eight pm.  Trust me, I thought for just a second about nicking one across the face with my bumper, but the damage would not offset the hog, because both of them were pushing 200lbs!

Kaley Ann loving the A/C

I’m up here in Alabama around Auburn doing some job hunting and some camping.  Here is the story I posted at my other site about my attempted ultra-light camping trip.

I’ve not had a chance to do much as I am in Alabama looking for some employment opportunities and trying to re-connect to the outdoors.

This post is cross posted by a outdoor site as well.  However, I where I am staying has no cable TV.  I have watched the local news over and over.  I understand now why people are horribly uninformed in many parts of this nation.   If you did not have the Internet or cable you really would have very little national information available.  It is quite amazing how local stations simply refuse to cover news outside their local market.  A station like FOX that is over the air would make some serious cash.

Here is the story I sent my daughter about the attempted camping trip I made the other night.

—

Girl,

You would not believe the night I had at Trimbles.  It was full of rain, no wind, spiders, locusts and SPIDERS.  Did I mention spiders?

I’m sitting by a small fire, it’s nice.  There is a little wind and plenty of firewood at hand.  I’m cooking some tomato soup on my cooker while sitting in one of the green chairs.  Life’s good.

I need some bigger pieces of wood so I get up and walk down to the creek.  My headlamp picks up the far bank and I see dozens and dozens of little green dots glowing in the light scattered all over the leaves on the ground and on the trunks of the trees.  I look up and down the bank and as far as the light can go green dots are reflecting back at me.  I turn my headlamp off, thinking the bugs were fireflies.  But the green dots disappear.   I turn the light back on and the bright green dots are back.  Hmm….

Now I figure if they are on the far side of the creek, they have to be on the near side.  So, I turn around and start scanning the leaves around me.  Sure enough, there are ten or so little green dots on my side.  I figure they have to be bugs of some kind, maybe ants to be so many.  So I walk over to one of the dots, which doesn’t not attempt to scurry away at all, rather it boldly stands its ground.  I bend over, adjust my light and glasses so I can see and look down at what is giving off all of those pretty green lights.  It wasn’t ants.  It was spiders.  Hundreds and hundreds of little brown, unafraid green eyed spiders, just staring up at me like I was lunch!

I would be lying if I didn’t have a flash of that movie Arachnophobia!  All those hungry little green eyes glowing up at me “Go to sleep Ray.  Go to sleep.”   Yeah, and wake up in a cocoon hung from a tree?  Don’t think so.  I had brought a rake to clean out the area where I was going to set up camp.  I grabbed the rake and furiously raked the area around the camp, making the site larger by double.  No spider was going to use the leaves as a way to get to me.  I made sure I sprayed bug repellent all around the key areas.

I finally got the hammock up and running, slightly out of line because of the slant of the ground.  It is a lot harder than you think if you are a nubie.   Somehow I had managed not to pack one half of the hammock’s rope system and had to make do with another rope, one I knew had a recorded breakage limit of a hundred and twenty five pounds.  I doubled it up and wrapped it tight mentally calculating what twice that weight would be verses my fat rear end.  As an added safety precaution I also set it so it would be close to the ground.

I climbed in wondering if this was a good idea.  There was a slight rain falling but little wind.  It was hot muggy and frankly a little uncomfortable.  I squirmed around doing my best to get situated.  The rain increased so I got up and made sure all of the gear was secure under the tarp.  I checked the leaves.  Yep, sure enough, green eyes everywhere and they seemed to be closer.   As I stepped out from under the tarp something huge landed on my neck.  I swept my hand across my back and a spider the size of my fist, a brown long legged critter, flew off.  It landed on the ground and then scurried into my hat, which was on top of the pile of gear.  That would not do!  I grabbed my hat and beat it like an ugly step-child knocking the four inch spider back out.   It was extinguished with a quick stomp of my shoe.

As I turned to get back into the hammock, a little shaken to be sure, I was hit in the headlamp by a flying locust.  It bounced off the lamp, my glasses, my nose and into my open mouth.   Of course I spit it back out immediately, cussing the whole situation at the same time.  I got back into my hammock, settled in and then felt something like a prickly stick in my mouth.  I spit it out, it was a locus leg!

YUCK!!!

So there I laid, wondering what the nutritional value of a locus body part was, listening to the night, the coyotes and sweltering under the tarp that was protecting me from the light rain.  I remember a hundred yards up the hill to my truck, a short seven mile ride back to the trailer was an air conditioned room with an air mattress covered with a soft foam pad- like the astronauts use (according to the commercial anyhow).  I was stinking with sweat, which also reminded me of the fact the trailer had a hot shower.  I’m fifty-two.  I’m alone, not trying to impress anyone.  No kids, no women, no buddies. No reason to suffer!

It took me fifteen minutes to break the camp down; ten to walk up the hill and load up; fifteen to get home and another hour to clean up and get to bed.

Best camping trip I’ve had in a while.

I’m trying to learn how to ultralight backpack, sleep in hammocks and learn to carry the lightest stuff that can get the job done.   My daughter and I went out to the WMA area and did a prep hike, carrying our gear and testing our legs.  Here are some of the photos.

Dad all geared out with beat up snake boots and homemade knife.

Kaley-Ann and her gear.

The total pack with hammocks and food/water/tarp first aid  etc.  came to around seventeen pounds.  Certainly not “ultra” light backpacking but not bad. In the above photos I’ve already gotten past the “I think I might stroke out!” moment when I first started out.  Hey, I’m over fifty and hiking in warm weather with twenty five pounds of boots and gear is a little much.  However, the worry past as I humped out pretty good for, as my kids call me, “an old man.”

Kaley-Ann took some great photos on the trip. She will post most of them on her Kaley’s World site, but here are some she took that I liked.

a pretty bird, no idea what kind!

A yellow and purple wasp feeding off a purple flower

Kaley-Ann and I walked to the end of the WMA and found a cute little picnic table set up by the WMA people.  It overlooked a slough and flag pond.  Nice setup.  Then we crossed the creek and after drying off our boots, went for a walkabout on the north side of the WMA.  There was plenty of sign.  We found a small pond which was home for a nice sized alligator.  On the way back we crossed the canal again, but in a denser area.  Kaley-Ann was not too happy about walking in swampy water.  It may have been something to do with the “old man” telling tales of hunting in the Everglades during the spring/summer and having to wade swamps then take the time to pick off the leeches!   I think she added blood sucking leeches to her “Things I hate that make me queasy” list.

After we crossed and made sure we didn’t pick up any hitchhikers we worked our way back down the road.  Suddenly a small furry animal jumped up onto the dirt trail and sat upright like a meerkat.    It took off with Kaley-Ann in hot pursuit trying to get some photos.  We figured out is was a Marten.   While she was sneaking along she heard something along the canal bank and took a peek over the top.  She signaled to me and mouthed “hogs”  holding up two fingers at the same time.  I joined her on top and sure enough here came two hogs rooting along the canal bank. No more than sixty pounds a piece they were totally unaware of our presence

A clueless pig and his buddy, out of season of course!

The old longbow shooting archer in me was wishing this was archery season. It was maybe eight yards and neither pig had a clue!  Even I could have made this shot, nerves and all.  But we took photos instead and while setting up another shot we spooked both of them.

Kaley-Ann in camp. Quick meal and a quick nap. All went well.

After the hogs we made it back to the truck and set up a quick day camp.  A small homemade cook stove for boiling water and we had lunch.  Kaley-Ann and I took a nap in the hammocks.  Now she went right to sleep, but I had trouble drifting off.  Two problems. One- I’m not much for closing my eyes when out somewhere when I’m not sure people won’t sneak up.  Two- the trip was supposed to be a shake-out cruise of my hammock camping and I learned a lesson about not finding trees close enough or too far away.  My hammock had me slung like a banana!

Still it was a good time, with my daughter loving every minute, which makes it all worthwhile to me.  Of course, a hour in a banana hammock (and yes I get the joke, my hammock is slung like  banana hammock, I’m IN the hammock so that makes me a five foot ten inch…) and a four to five mile hike with gear was not without penalty.  The day AFTER the day after the hike my muscles reminded me although my heart and mind may be twenty-five, my knees and hips, legs and back are not!   It was a couple of days before all that went away, thanks to BC powder (great stuff).    The best part of the walk was that after all the planning, I’m pretty comfortable we could load out about everything we need except for water and food for a two day camp for under fifteen pounds.  That includes pillows, hammocks, tarps, rope, stakes, stoves and fuel.   My buddy says to get a water filtration system and we could cut a couple of more pounds out.  I’m a little unsure of that whole filtering swamp water deal.  I’m sure the technology is sound, it is just that it makes me a little, as my daughter says, queasy.