ARKANSAS SPORTSMAN : Deer season has taken heavy toll on hunter’s gear
Posted on Sunday, November 30, 2008
Deer hunting can be expensive, but this season has been more expensive than most because of all the stuff I’ve broken.
It started during muzzleloader season, when I reverted to using a game cart instead of a four-wheeler. The game cart is a greener, more environmentally friendly way to access the woods and facilitates my “leave no trace” ethic. And it’s really easy to pull with my Birkenstock hunting sandals.
Actually, I switched to the game cart because I got tired of spending so much extra gas money pulling a heavy all-terrain vehicle and its heavy trailer all over creation. I can just throw the game cart in the back of my pickup and travel. Also, a noisy ATV alerts deer and can spoil a hunt. Since I don’t need an ATV to reach my best stands, I use a game cart to transport my gear quietly to my spots.
I discovered the virtues of the game cart during my years of deer hunting on public ground in Missouri. I discovered that most hunters on Missouri’s public areas didn’t stray far from roads and parking areas. I could strap all my gear to a game cart and wheel it quietly into remote areas where hunting was superb. When I killed a deer, I just pushed it onto the cart, strapped it and my gear to the frame and rolled it out like a basket full of groceries.
One day in October, I positioned my game cart sideways in the bed of my pickup to keep it from rolling. Driving over rutted rural roads and some of the pathetic paved roads we have in rural Hot Spring County caused the game cart to bounce until it worked its way north-south. I was unaware of this until I hit my brakes, and the game cart smashed through the back sliding glass window. Suddenly the game cart didn’t seem like such a great idea. I’ve never had an ATV smash through the back glass. Now I just transport it upside down.
The next episode occurred during the first week of modern gun season. After climbing onto my Millenium hanging stand, I used a rope to hoist a backpack and rifle up to the stand. The rifle was a Marlin 336 leveraction rifle chambered in. 35 Remington. It was unloaded in a padded case. Its buttstock was made of the prettiest piece of American walnut I’ve ever seen on a levergun, and though I’ve had it for about six years, that was the first time I ever took it afield.
There’s not much room on the platform, so when I unclipped the rope from the pack and rifle case, the case rolled forward and fell. Limber branches slowed its descent, and it landed in pine straw. I climbed down, reattached the rope and hoisted the case back up. When I unzipped the case, I was heartbroken to find that beautiful stock snapped like a toothpick. It broke cleanly along a stripe of wood grain, leaving only a very sharp splinter of wood attached to the gun. Firing it would impale my shoulder, although I briefly considered it rather than spoil a promising hunt. Now, I carry a spare rifle.
SWEDISH MAUSER Last summer, I bought a Ruger M 77 rifle chambered in 6. 5 x 55 Swedish from Don’s Weaponry in North Little Rock. It was a forlorn shelf queen that languished for years until Mr. Don persuaded me to take it home. I also bought two boxes of Remington ammunition tipped with 140-grain Core-Lokt bullets and topped the gun with an old Redfield WideView 3-9 x scope. The 6. 5 x 55 is an oddball caliber for these parts, but I believe I’ve lucked into the ultimate Dixie deer rifle. My first trip to the range required 14 shots for zero. I put the last two through the same hole, and a third touching, 1 inch high at 100 yards. Since then, I’ve fired it three times at deer, and all three have fallen in their tracks. One of those deer was a very large, mature buck in rut. The entry holes were large, as were the exit holes. None of the shots fragmented.
I’ve got mixed feelings about all this. First, it has shaken my loyalty to the. 308 Winchester, and it’s shaken the high esteem I have for my custom, handloaded ammo. Now, I get benchrest performance with factory ammo and an unmodified rifle in a caliber that has no Southern tradition.
Ruger no longer chambers guns in 6. 5 x 55 Swedish, but Tikka does. Howard Robinson, of Mansfield, is one of the finest riflemen I know, and Tikka is the only gun he uses. Howard recommends the gun. I recommend the round.
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online
