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Monday, December 29, 2008

The FIRST Loats FAMILY HUNT!!!!!!

Jimmie Jr., Melissa, and Jimmie III (LJ) Loats

OK, I HAVE to do a posting about the BEST HUNT OF MY LIFE SO FAR!
On December, 27 2008, my wife (Melissa), my son (Jimmie III/LJ), and myself (Jimmie Jr.) went on the first Loats Family Hunt EVER!!!! My son is only 2.5 years old and the hunt lasted all of about 30 minutes, but it was a great one.

We went to 98 (about 75 yards behind my camper) and ran off a couple of turkeys, Mommy and I saw 1, but LJ was too busy looking at all the wonderful things in the woods to mess with to be bothered with looking for wildlife. Man I love this kid, he really reminded me of all the great things in the woods that we step over to go look for deer every time we go into the woods. I guess it is safe to say he even taught/reminded me of a few things!

The hunt didn't last long, once Jimmie got in the house, looked through the "noculars" as he calls them, he was ready to go back to camp and play with Jim Evans' grandkids! He tried to pick up every stick and point out every leaf and tree to me on the way. We went down to the field and looked at some turkey tracks but didn't get to see any deer tracks due to all the rain, I GUESS THAT WILL HAVE TO WAIT FOR NEXT TIME!

So it is official, my son can now say for the rest of his life that his first hunting trip was when he was 2 years old in 2008 and it happened at Fur & Feather Hunting Club. And it may not mean much to him for the next 15 years, but it sure meant the world to me. Having my wife there with me only made the entire experience better (Her first time as well). Thank You to both of you for sharing this WONDERFUL experience with an old fart like me!

12/27/2008 4 Wheelin Fur & Feather Kids

Man, I know I'm getting old when this is the highlight of my day at hunting camp! Santa Clause brought my boy a 4 wheeler that looks a lot like mine believe it or not. Well he tore up the hunting club in it two days later.

And Jim Evans had his three beautiful grandkids there as well (Kayla, Caitlyn, and Christopher) and they played with my boy Jimmie III all over the club! Great times, Great Day, and I look forward to many more just like them.

12/27/2008 Chillin at Camp

Well it was a Hot weekend after Christmas, but we were there at camp Chillin' as usual. The lie telling is never ending, no one EVER sees anything other than does and yearlings!!!



Good Times as Usual!

Piebald Deer near Birmingham, AL

Piebald Deer 1

This wasn't taken at Fur & Feather, but I work with a guy named Dan at UAB and he knows how I like to hunt. On Christmas morning, his grandkids looked out the back window and said look at that dalmation and after looking, they saw this extremely rare piebald deer in their back yard. They live in a residential area that has been extremely developed over the past 20 years and right on the other side of this ridge is a Lowes on HWY 280.

I just thought this was way to cool not to share on the blog.

Photobucket

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

2008 Season Re-Cap SO FAR!

This little slideshow is just a re-cap of mostly what I have pictures of this year at Fur & Feather. (Yes, Britt, I put the picture of you and the doe from your horrible phone camera!)

There have been quite a few more deer taken, but I just decided a couple of weeks ago to start this blog so I don't have pictures of it all. But I'm trying to get some help from others from this point forward so we can document this a little better.

Doe season is now over at our club, so any other pictures will be of Bucks so hopefully we can take some nice ones before the end of January when we have to all start waiting on next year!

2008 Jason and Christian 6 Point Slideshow

OK, a couple of weeks ago, my podna Jason took his first legal deer, and to make it better he did it with his boy with him! I already posted some pics and info earlier, but I wanted to create this slideshow that shows what happened roughly in order!



Anyway, we all know Jason and really dark don't go together. Well after he shot his 6 point he went to get his bike and it didn't start! So he proceeded to wig (we know this because his son testified!) So I got a message, "Jimmie, I think I just shot a little 6 point, now what the hell do I do?" and then another message, "Jimmie, man I shot a deer and my bike won't start we are walking back now!!!!!!!!" LOL, anyway, Chuck and Bit found him on the road with his boy walking back to the club!!!! We found his buck and Jason was a champ!

Fur & Feather tradition is first deer ever AND OR first Fur & Feather Buck, you get bloody! And first buck, well, I made him a nice little necklace for him to remember the experience by. Jason took it like a champ (which he is good at) and even gutted the deer with some instruction from Brad Savage!

GREAT DAY, THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED OUT AND THAT WAS A PART OF IT!

Oh, one more note, to be fair to my wife, Jason was one of only a few who went hunting in the rain that evening and everyone else stayed back and watched Alabama SMOKE THE HELL OUT OF AUBURN!!!!!!!!

Fullfilling my Promise! Chip and Jimmie Buck Rack Mount!

OK, well I haven't found my wood burner to etch in "The Chip and Jimmie Buck 2008" yet, but I did make the mount for my son. He thought it was REALLY COOL!


08 Chip and Jimmie Buck Mount

Monday, December 8, 2008

THE CHIP AND JIMMIE BUCK! 12.06.08

Chip and Jimmie Buck


Well, this was another good weekend at Fur & Feather (for the most part, not going to get into details on that). After we came out of the woods the other day, Chip had shot a few times at a buck in the clear cut. Well when Chip and Britt went to look the buck bedded back down about 20 yards from the shot and jumped up and took off. So they did the right thing and backed out for a few hours.


So let me back up a bit and say that the last deer that me and Chip tracked alone was a black powder doe I shot a few years ago and we came up on her and spotted her on a ridge looking at us. It is a kind of freaky thing when this happens and has only happened to me a couple of times in almost 25 years of hunting. I placed a 50 cal 245 grain between the eyes and WOW that is one we will never forget! But the experience having my hunting buddy with me there made it better for me. We don't like to wound anything and try our best for to make a good shot, BUT in hunting sometimes it just happens (especially in our club, we've got some MISSING FOLKS in our club, I can say that I am a member of this group!)


Well Chip and I went back in to go look for the buck after checking his rifle. We looked for about an hour and a half and did not find a single drop of blood. But we found some tracks that we followed but there are so many tracks in this area it was hard to know what deer we were following without blood.


So I said I was going to jump up on a hill in some thicket to see if he bedded down up there and check the next valley. Chip went back to where we started, and then it got fun!


Chip yelled, "JIMMIE!!!" and I said "Did you find him?" and Chip said, "HE IS COMING RIGHT AT YOU!"


About that time I saw the buck running in the valley I was going to look at coming my way. I yelled back to Chip "Are you clear?" and the buck stopped in some thicket and I lost him. Chip said he was clear and to shoot if I could (in the woods, I wasn't throwing any lead without knowing where my podna was, he ran behind the hill and hugged a tree!!! Smart man!) Well I eased down the hill a bit to get a better look in the bottom and saw the buck standing there not really knowing where this guy was that was doing all this yelling. It was a safe shot almost in the opposite direction of where I now knew Chip was, and I put him on down! It was nice after missing 3 times with my black powder rifle to know I still remembered how to shoot!


We were so amped up, we were high fiving and jumping up and down and freaking out like two 13 year olds because the experience was just so cool. We immediately started talking about the last time and my doe and we did it again! It was just a great day and I was grateful to be there with my friend.


Chip really did think the buck was bigger than what it turned out to be, but that is just one of those things that happens in hunting. He got a little dissappointed because he really believes in growing bigger bucks and I just reminded him of how cool this experience was for both of us and the important thing was that he did the RIGHT thing. So many of us hunters have so many stories of (If I had only... AND ME ESPECIALLY AS YOU ALL KNOW!) But when Chip jumped the buck, he patiently backed out of the woods, gave it a few hours, responsibly went and checked his rifle, and then went back in there and didn't give up! I was proud of him and proud that I got to play a role in his story.


He offered me half the meat but that was his deer in my mind and that was all there was to it. He did do one more thing that I thought was cool as hell, he gave the rack to me to give to my boy (a future Fur & Feather Hunter at 2 years old). When I showed the rack to him, he thought it was the coolest thing in the world! I'm going to make a plaque and hang it in my son's room and put on it the "The Chip and Jimmie Buck!"





Wednesday, December 3, 2008

07 Deer Slide Show

Fur And Feather 07-08 Deer Pics

Above are some pics I had from the 07-8 Season, Great Season for a lot of folks, BUT ESPECIALLY FOR BRAD SAVAGE. He took 2 REALLY nice 8 points on openning day and the last Saturday of Rifle Season.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

FIRST POST FOR FUR & FEATHER SITE!

OK, I'm new to this, but we have a great group at our hunting club and I thought we could use this site to share photos and stories with everyone.









So here we go!





This is my podna Jason's FIRST BUCK EVER from this weekend! First pick on the blog. This is also his boy, Christian, a future Fur & Feather Whitetail Slayer! We'll be working on his first deer this weekend.

(I'm the ugly guy with the "sort of" beard!)