We inadvertently inflated some deer hunting statistics exponentially in Sunday's feature, "Deer forecast good."
We mistakenly referred to deer kills per acre instead of deer kills per square mile in several counties. One was Union County, where we reported that hunters killed 6.1 deer per acre.
Donny Harris, former chief of wildlife management for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said by text, "If there are roughly 675,000 acres in Union County, then that harvest alone would be over 4 million deer."
We also reported rates of 8.1 deer per acre in Bradley and Cleveland counties.
"Given that, Cleveland and Bradley counties would have deer blood several feet deep in the ditches," Harris wrote.
Again, the rate should have reflected deer kills per square mile. Chagrined as we were by the error, we loved Harris' creative rebuke. We knew it would be good when he introduced himself as, "What's left of Donny Harris."
I am way behind in my deer hunting preparations. Usually by this time I will have tested and dialed in several new loads for several different rifles. Deep standing water in the target area of my rifle range delayed that for much of the summer. I have developed two decent loads for a Winchester rifle in 7mm-08 and two new loads for a Ruger Model 77 in 6.5x55 Swedish.
One Swede load that excites me features 120-grain Barnes Triple Shocks, an all-copper bullet. Getting that rifle to group those loads was simply a matter of seating the bullet farther out than I do with heavier lead bullets.
That rifle performs best with factory Remington ammo with Core-Lokt bullets. I am so impressed with the Core-Lokt's fantastic performance that I bought a box of 100 loose 140-grain Core-Lokt bullets for reloading. In the factory cartridges, the bullets are seated to the cannelure, a textured ring indented into the bullet's exterior. Duplicating the factory overall cartridge length should be easy. Just seat the bullet to the cannelure.
Nothing I do is ever easy.
The loose bullets have two cannelures. Neither is in the same position as the cannelure on the bullets in the factory cartridges. I seated the bullets to the same length as those in the factory cartridges, but no cannelure is visible.
At deer camp, I need to repair my main stand. The door and door panels are about rotted away. I cut new doors and panels last spring. All I need is some hardware and a little time to make it as good as new.
I need to deploy several new cameras. I bought them last Christmas, but they are still in their boxes. Existing cameras need new batteries and memory cards re-installed.
Deer feeders need to be serviced. One must be careful when servicing feeders that have been inactive since December because there's a good chance red wasps have taken up residence. I approach slowly, brandishing a fresh can of long-distance wasp spray. I remove the lid and wait for wasps to swarm out. If no wasps emerge, I gently tilt the feeder to peer inside. Wraparound sunglasses protect my eyes from a sudden wasp attack. If a nest is present, I hose it down with wasp spray. It's also wise to carry a fog-type sprayer for airborne wasp defense.
Wasps and yellow jackets frequently colonize tower stands. Wasp nests inside the cupola are easy to vanquish, but be prepared to suffer a sting or two. If that happens, don't panic. Descend calmly from the stand. Keep both hands on the rails so you don't fall.
Nests built inside the steel tubing are the ones that will surprise you. You won't know about them until opening day of muzzleloader season. Everything will be fine in the cool of morning, but as the day heats up the tubing, wasps will materialize and buzz around menacingly.
Surprisingly, I have never been stung while sitting in a stand among swarming wasps, but they make for a tense co-occupation. A spray treatment usually takes care of the problem, but it's best to do that now so that the scent of wasp spray doesn't spook deer and spoil a hunt.
I need to trim some shooting lanes around a stand that forest has enclosed, and I need to establish lanes around a stand that has been rejuvenated from a timber thinning.
Time is short and October's calendar is already full, so I need to get busy.
Sports on 09/26/2019