Catch and Release in the Grease

March 5, 2022
Locust Fork, Warrior River

Spring time in Alabama brings about blooming flowers, cold weather and great largemouth bass fishing. I took a quick fishing trip to one of my favorite bass spawning locations on the Warrior River and landed a nice 3lb largemouth while she was protecting her newly made bed. 

The blackened dinner entrée paired well with some fresh green beans, red potatoes and chardonnay. 

Talladega National Forest

January 22, 2022

Talladega National Forest

I had ambitious plans to scout the food plots in Talladega National Forest near mount Cheaha and then hike the mountain afterwards. I spent the afternoon checking food plots for deer sign and discovered rolling swaths of burnt timber. Large parts of the Talladega National Forest are routinely burned to promote healthy tree growth. Unfortunately, this removes most of the underbrush forcing deer to leave those parts of the property. Also, this property is one of the few public lands that permit dog hunting during deer season. The burned timber and hunting pressure from dog drives makes this challenging territory for whitetail hunters. 

3-Factor Weighted Hunt Quality Index (HQI)

Birmingham, Alabama 

The hunting community has know for centuries that deer activity is influenced by the lunar cycle, mating cycle and weather conditions. I created a model to quantify the overall hunt quality which is synonymous with day-time deer activity. The index can range from 0 to 100 where 100 would represent a "trifecta" of optimal conditions including peak rut, cold weather and a new moon.

The chart indicated that January 6th and January 8th offered the best whitetail hunting conditions during the 2020-2021 Alabama whitetail hunting season. This considering the peak rut for the Jefferson county whitetail population and climate data from Birmingham, Alabama. I've also updated the 2021-2022 model to include a precipitation correction, weather forecast input (this allows for a 14 day future prediction of the HQI) and a recommendation for a morning or afternoon hunt. Of course, us dedicated hunters will always want to hunt morning and afternoon. 

Mulberry Fork Wildlife Management Area 2021 - 2022 Season

2021 - 2022 Alabama Whitetail Deer Hunting Season

Central Alabama

Mulberry Fork Wildlife Management Area 

Finally, I'm back in Sweet Home Alabama and hunting whitetails on public land. I've moved around the southeast for work and recently found my way back to Birmingham, I lived in Florida/Lower Alabama (the LA of the South), Texas, Louisiana and Georgia before returning home which the residency verification for my resident hunting license a difficult task. I spent weeks emailing and calling Alabama's Department of Conservation and Natural Resources before eventually verifying my residency and receiving the "all-clear" just before bow season. I spent most of the 2021 - 2022 deer season at Mulberry Fork Wildlife Management Area near the Black Warrior River. The Mulberry Fork hunting lease is active for 94 years and includes 33,000 acres of prime hunting land in Tuscaloosa, Walker and Jefferson counties.  

October 30th, 2021

Big Creek Trail 

This was my first scouting trip of the season and my first time on the management area in almost 10 years. I was lost for several hours before I found some of my old hunting spots. I was scouting an old road bed near Big Creek and walked past a yearling doe that looked at me like she had never seen a human being before. Unfortunately. I didn't carry my bow with me on my first trip so she evaded the freezer that day.

October 31st, 2021

Shoal Creek Deer Trail

After spotting one deer and refamiliarizing myself with the property I set our for my second trip and I brought my bow this time. I was scouting and oak flat and walking down a deer trail as slowly and as quietly as I could. Then I heard a noise about 80 yards away and I had spooked a deer off of his bed and he was moving down the trail towards me. I froze after I saw the deer stop behind a tree and his main beams were sticking out on either side. I drew my bow because he couldn't see me and he took a few more steps down the trail and started running once he saw me at 30 yards. I had one shot but it would have been an reflex so I made the ethical decision to keep my arrow and hunt they buck another day.

November 6th, 2021

Short Creek

I tried a new area of the property this afternoon and decided the sit near a food plot because I ran out of time to scout. I positioned myself on the ground and behind a pine tree so that I could peak around the tree and have visibility of the two main deer trails going into the field. I had no expectations of seeing any deer in the food plot since the acorn harvest was so good this year but a family group stepped into the field around 4pm which included a 1.5 year old spike, 1.5 year old doe and a yearling button buck. It's always fun to hunt deer on the ground with a bow like the native Americans did it!

November 20th, 2021

One Shot Trail

Dad and I finally made it to a Mulberry gun hunt! We spent some time scouting One Shot Trail before settling into what would be an unproductive afternoon hunt. The moon was almost full so the deer activity had shifted to nocturnal movement. Dad sat in some leaf litter and got bit by a brown recluse on his back. He still had a sore several weeks later but, thankfully, no major medical complications. He's fully committed to sitting in a camp chair from now on!

December 4th-5th, 2021

Short Creek

I recently bought two game cameras to help scout Mulberry's 35,000 acres. My first location was a game trail near Shoal Creek. I had several doe moving in and out of an oak bottom feeding area near daylight and dusk. I also saw a small buck feeding in #2 food plot about 30 minutes before dark. The small spike was broadside and 20 yards and would have been a nice addition to my freezer if he was a legal deer.

December 12th, 2021

Old Taylor's Ferry Road

I found several scrapes and rubs near a food plot on Big Oaks Road and it looked like there was significant buck activity in the area. I put my game camera on a scrape near a food plot and downloaded the pictures after the morning hunt. It rained most of the day on Saturday, December 11th so we expected the deer to move on Sunday morning. The deer didn't move Sunday morning but I got a picture of a great buck. The afternoon hunt proved to be one of the best hunts of the 2021-2022 season. Most of the bucks on the property checked their scrapes at 4pm and Jonathan shot a 7 point buck near the back of shoal creek. I saw this nice 8 point come check a scrape but he never left his trail which wound through a section of thick pine.

January 3rd, 2022

Shoal Creek Deer Trail 

It's not very often that you get a chance to hunt in the snow in Alabama but today was that day. I went to one of my favorite morning locations near shoal creek. It's a deer trail that runs up a ridge where three hardwood bottoms intersect. Those hardwoods bottoms are a popular spot for overnight feeding and the deer use that deer trail to filter back to their bedding area in the morning. The temperature was 33 °F just before dawn. I was fortunate that the temperature hadn't dropped any lower because there would have been ice on the roads and bridges and I wouldn't  have been able to access the management area. I slipped on my Sitka Fanatic gear and got ready for a cold morning sit. I noticed that there were icicles frozen sideways on the tree so you could almost visualize the exact direction of the north wind. I sat for a few hours and I could feel the cold creeping up my legs and down my forearms signaling the end of my hunt. I drove around the property looking for sign of any deer activity and realized that the higher elevation rides had much more snow and ice accumulation that some of the surrounding pine thickets and hardwood bottoms. I saw a few deer that day and they were all cruising pine ridges where there was no snow accumulation. The pine ridges had the appearance of being the coziest place in the woods that day.

January 30th, 2022

Theron Wilcut Road

Mulberry Fork Management Area is primarily used to harvest timber which creates a unique habitat for whitetail deer. Most of the property is clear cut, planted pines or mature timber that's waiting to be cut. This results in thousands of acres of thick river property where the deer can hide for entire seasons without needing to move more than 50 yards between feeding areas and bedding areas. This makes late season hunting especially productive because most of the natural food sources are depleted by February and the deer have to use the food plot. This doesn't mean that they have to use them during daylight hours though. I saw five deer this afternoon moving towards a food plot at 5:20pm which was 5 minutes after sunset and 25 minutes before the end of legal hunting light.

Niagara Falls

November 17, 2021

Buffalo, New York

Niagara Falls State Park

176 feet tall and 681,750 gallons per second - enough water to fill and Olympic swimming pool every second! Niagara Falls is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York. The largest of the three is Horseshoe Falls, which straddles the international border of the two countries. Formed by the Niagara River, which drains Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, the combined falls have the highest flow rate of any waterfall in North America.  Niagara Falls was formed when glaciers receded at the end of the the last ice age, and water from the newly formed Great Lakes carved a path over and through the Niagara Escarpment en route to the Atlantic Ocean.

Deer Processing 101

 November 11, 2021

Birmingham, Alabama

After watching every episode of the Netflix series "Meat Eater," I decided to begin processing my own deer meat. I bought a meat grinder from the local Bass Pro shop, high grade beef fat from the local butcher and started watching YouTube videos from prominent game processors. For my first deer, I soaked the backstrap in ice water for two days and then used the butterfly cutting technique to make nice fillet style steaks. I carefully worked my way through the front shoulders and rear hams and ground the venison into a 50/50 burger. I've made a chili and am Italian meat sauce with the burger and it couldn't taste any better! The meat had very little "game" flavor and, I think, this is mostly due to the ice bath and care used to remove all unwanted connective tissue fatty meat.

Arcole 2021

January 10-14, 2021Arcole Hunting Club
Arcole, Mississippi

Arcole Hunting Club

Mississippi Delta Zone

This hunt started out with near perfect conditions which wasn't a surprise because we've been planning this hunt since December 2019. The moon was new, the weather was cold and the deer were rutting. The first day brought sleet and rain and the following days were filled with early morning frost and endless deer activity. We spent most afternoon eating steaks and staying warm around a wood-fired stove and campfire. Our hunting group saw several rack bucks but let them all walk in hopes of that once-in-a-lifetime deer. I captured most of the deer on video including a big shooter 10 point that I decided to save for another year.

"Prime Time" written by Doug

It's 5 o'clock now, the wind has died down. The sun has said its goodbyes for it has left the blue skies. There is left but a beautiful glow with all the colors of the rainbow. It lingers long enough for you to enjoy the show. It dies away for it is the end of the day. But it's not, it's about to be the best part of a deer hunter's stay. The phone is put away for there is nothing left to say. It's just you and the deer and the hope that he'll appear. All of your senses are in tune, with your eyes enhanced by binocular zoom. Your ears listen for the sound of a hoof breaking the ground. Your eyes scan around for an unfamiliar spot of brown. It's funny how they seem to pop out of the ground. Then it appears, you can see the flickering of its ears. You look at its head looking for bone not yet shed. Your dreams are coming true for it is he that you view. You know him all too well for he is your screensaver at Shell. This is why you never give up, but a problem erupts. Your heart starts racing and your whole body begins to shake. You take off the safety and hopefully, maybe, your shot will hit its mark as the 300 barks. You didn't see him run, nor did you see him fall. There is a moment of hope but then, nope. Maybe I missed are the words that dampen your bliss. I need to go see for the wait is killing me. You try to stay cool but you take off running like a fool. He is not there and you curse the air. Please God let me find blood or a tuft of brown hair. Don't need to though, he fell further back than you know. Now you see where he lies and you break down and cry and kneel down beside the animal that died. Only a hunter understands these feelings that arise. This is your deer that you've hunted all year. Time to go drink some beer.