Love it when a plan comes together!

[SAVIOUR68]

So someone cut there finger while widdling with there pocket knife, after all accidents happen.

[Cyclic-Rivers]

Maybe you can get a riser made from that pretty red wood?

Charlie, Something in my head said to reach out to you today.  If only I listened to those little voices more often??

     

[bowhunterfrompast]

   

[Tim]

Looking forward to the story.......whatever it was it didn't go too far with the sign on that tree ....   :D

[Charlie Lamb]

I know some of you were hoping I'd get around to this little story tomorrow morning but I'm afraid I have to tell it now or I'll burst. Sorry to disappoint but I have to.
   

[John Krause]

I'm not posting until he tells the story...  

[Knawbone]

Looks like dark blood Charlie, was it a liver shot?I was going to make a crack about blood wood, but Killdeer beat me to it!  

[Charlie Lamb]

I've got this little acreage that I hunt near home. It's 5 minutes from walking out the back door of my house to slipping into my pack and easing the door shut on my truck.

Like some of my other favorite spots permission to hunt the farm came out of the blue.
I was visiting with some of my friends after church one day when a fellow I had just gotten to know walked over to say hi.

We are about the same age and shared a common ground in that we are both veterans of the Viet Nam era. He having been aboard ship in the Navy and me a leg Marine grunt.
Opposite ends of the military spectrum in the eyes of some, but brothers none the less.

At one point he blurted out, "I hear you like to bowhunt?" Nobody has to know me very long before they find that out about me. The bowhunting addiction seeps through my skin like a tattoo on my forehead.

"I sure do", was my modest reply. I didn't expect the conversation to go much further.
Without any beating around the bush he said, "you can come and hunt my property if you want."
You could have pushed me over with a feather.

With professional cool I replied,"uh, wha, oh, why, I uh, REALLY? And that was the beginning.

I would find out that I wasn't alone on the property, but I might as well could have been. The other two hunters only showed up on the occasional weekend and maybe a couple of days during the last week of the archery season before firearms season started.

[Cyclic-Rivers]

   

[Doc Nock]

And he's still finger peck typing the rest...    :eek:

[BrushWolf]

[kennym]

Looks good buddy, if you don't finish by the Oct hunt, I'll let ya tell me the rest.....  :D    :p

[Charlie Lamb]

I've been hunting it about 3 years now if my memory serves... that's always in question.
Since the season was under way when I was asked I wasted no time in getting to know the property.

Ed took me on a little tour by four wheeler. Having grown up on the property he was pointing here and gesturing there all the while giving a running commentary of who'd killed what and where and what were favored spots.

I tried to take it all in but knew it would be impossible to remember everything. Every hunt has a beginning and that's what this was.
I'd accumulate personal knowledge as the days, weeks and years passed. I had no doubt about that.

I shot a nice fat doe the first year under a huge old white oak. Two more came the next year and sightings increased until I became very comfortable in my knowledge of "my area".

You see I'd made a point of finding out where the other two guys liked to hunt after meeting them and promised them that I'd stay away from those places.
 
Even though I could be hunting anywhere on the property and not bother them, I'm just more comfortable keeping my distance.  There were two big "hollers" that encompassed quite a lot of ground on a side of the farm that they didn't seem interested in. I made my intentions to only hunt there, known.

To have done anything else would have made me feel greedy and that's not something I'd tolerate from myself.
Besides, from the sign I'd seen in my hollers there would be plenty of action for me.

With the hunting I do in other parts of the state I've been keeping my freezer full. I've seen a few bucks on the place, but nothing super duper. I knew there must be some good ones around. The country around the farm is known for good bucks.

[Josh Perdue]

Getting good

[Sam McMichael]

Charlie, when you shot that tree, how far did you have to track it? Did it leave a continuous blood trail?

[Charlie Lamb]

My most favorite spot was a triple trunk tree along the edge of a small woods clearing. I'd spotted it from a stand I'd set up about a hundred yards away.
I was seeing the occasional deer from that stand, but I was seeing even more that were moving just out of range.  

The interesting part of that was the fact that most every deer I was seeing would move right past that old triple trunk.
It turned out that there was an old overgrown logging trail that ran down the bottom of the holler and it passed the triple trunk. Scrapes and rubs appeared along it and in the edges of the clearing each year.

Often I'd seen deer duck into the brush almost directly under old triple and shortly reappear at the same spot and go on there way. Hmmmm!

Checking it out I found the attraction. At some point in time there had been a fourth trunk, but it had fallen away from the group and had turned to dirt long before I showed up.
It had left a hollow in the trunk two feet off the ground and this held water even when other sources of the precious liquid had dried up. Bingo!

I put up a ladder stand there and it's provided me with a lot of entertainment and a steady supply of venison. It's a focal point for most everything passing through with at least 5 different trails terminating right there.

[iohkus]

What a great place to find .... and it's all yours. Congratulations, and good hunting the rest of the season!

[BDann]

 Getting good!

[gregg dudley]

Should have known that 4 pages was not nearly enough to get the story told with Charlie Lamb at the helm.     :D

Waiting eagerly with the rest of the masses.    

[Charlie Lamb]

I'm thinking now that I've been hunting that farm for four years...maybe even five. I can think of 3 deer I've taken from old triple trunk.

Anyway, fast forward to this year.

The season opener is on September 15 now after years of October 1st openers. I'm always excited to start the season, but quite honestly it's a bit warm in September to suit my tastes.

I guess that was affecting me this year. Or maybe it was the ever increasing pain in my old knees which made the trip down into and back out of the holler a study in discomfort.
Whatever the reason I wasn't real anxious to get started. I got out the opening evening and hobbled to a spot on the ridge above the holler and old triple trunk. Nothing but squirrels and skeeters that first time.

All week I kept telling myself I should be going out and all week long I kept finding other things to do. Canning veggies from the garden, cutting grass. That kind of exciting crap.

Then last Thursday I made a scheduled appointment with an Orthopedic doctor to look at my knees. I wasn't real excited about the appointment as I fully expected bad news. I guess you get what you ask for sometimes.

Xrays showed near bone on bone contact in my old knees. Hence the constant knee pain. A short consultation with the Dr. came down to this. Before too long... as in a year (give or take a few months)from now I'm going to need to have my knees replaced. That's sobering stuff right there.
The thing is that the pain had gotten to the point that I'm more than ready for a change.

In the short term he suggested that I could get some relief from a steroid injection. Hell, I wasn't wild about the sound of that either.
It was possible that I'd get some relief from the injections so I told the Doc to go for it.

What I expected would be an excruciating experience turned out to be a piece of cake. Within minutes I was feeling better.

The next day I was tickled pink. My knees didn't hurt... at all. Wow! I felt like going hunting. Bring on that deep ass holler.