Mossy Oak TreeStand Camouflage Photos Archery Elk Hunting
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- Category: General Hunting and Shooting
- Created on Wednesday, 21 September 2011 03:30
- Written by The DIY Hunter
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Doing my best impression of a quaking aspen with Mossy Oak Treestand camouflage. |
Here are a few more photos of Mossy Oak Treestand camouflage while I was out archery elk hunting in September of 2011. Most of what I have been wearing lately is Mossy Oak Treestand camo. I think it gives me one of the most versatile camo patterns for various high altitude terrains that I primarily hunt in Utah.
All of these photos are taken within about a half mile area that I like to hunt elk in Northern Utah. An area like much of the west with widely diverse colors of vegetation and terrain. Step over the ridge and I step out of heavy pines and into sage brush then swing around onto the east facing slopes and I find myself in mixed quaking aspens and maple trees.
As you will see in many of the photos I have started wearing shorts for easy access to adjust my knee braces. My compression fit undergarment pants and shirt are the notoriously dark Mossy Oak New Break-Up.
You can read more on my thoughts on camouflage patterns effectiveness in my Camouflage Comparison Article.
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Here I am in the pines, some variety of fir. Again you will notice the Treestand shorts and t-shirt and the darker New Break-Up sleeves, legs, bow and backpack. |
Mossy Oak Treestand in mixed short sage brush and granite rock. |
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| My arm in Mossy Oak Treestand camo on a granite boulder where I was taking a mid-day nap. | Mossy Oak Treestand camo in quaking aspens mixed with maple trees. |
Fourth Knee Surgery - Hunting with the help of DonJoy Defiance Knee Braces
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- Category: General Hunting and Shooting
- Created on Sunday, 04 September 2011 00:03
- Written by The DIY Hunter
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A must have with wearing my DonJoy Defiance knee braces is a pair of lightweight compression fit pants like the Browning NTS pants I'm wearing. When hiking all day, compression spandex undergarments help keep the friction of the knee brace straps from causing horrible scabby sores on the back of my legs. When hunting this year, as the weather permits, I have started wearing shorts for easy access to adjust my knee braces. |
I have a bum wheel so to speak, that being my right knee. I know it may be hard to believe my knee is bad from the style of hunting I enjoy doing — that is backpacking in, boning out the deer or elk and then hauling them off the mountain on my back.
This year I had my fourth surgery on my right knee. This time it had almost been 5 years since my last surgery when I was just about to sit down for lunch and my knee just locked up.. felt like a piston seized up or I wrench was stuck in the middle of my knee. Well for the couple weeks before I could get in to see a doctor my knee just had very poor range of motion... from near straight to about 45 degrees and that was it. My knee was locking up, swelling up and just plain non-functional.
Come to find out an X-ray clearly showed loose bodies floating around in the middle of my knee, and apparently one just happened to move into the wrong spot that day at lunch time. The x-ray also showed bone spurs and arthritis all over the place... it just didn't look pretty at all. :(
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| Loose bodies removed from my right knee in February of 2011. |
Dr. Harrison, my doctor removed five loose bodies that where floating around in the joint. Not sure how they got there but some of them were fairly large... to me they appeared to be around marble size. He also cleaned up some rough cartilage and bone spurs etc. As we could see in the x-rays of the knee the ACL was completely incased with arthritis and during the surgery Dr. Harrison also found that the ACL is partially torn!?!... how that happened I have no idea. I haven't played any sports really since I was 22 years old when I wrecked on the motorcycle that tore my ACL to start the down hill tumble of my right knee. Now four surgeries later on this knee I am still milking the clock before I get a total knee replacement.
My right knee may be the craps but one thing that I will never stop doing is backpacking into rugged country and hauling deer and elk out on my back. My wife thinks I am totally crazy and I just agree with her. I tease that I will crawl in or have a wooden stump for a leg if I have too, but I am going to hunt where I like to hunt leg or not. The point is I'm not going to stop doing what I can do, while I can still do it. So while I still can I am going to be as crazy as I can with where I hunt.
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| The 90 degree hyperflex prevention keys (top set) are the greatest amount of flexion that came with my DonJoy Difiance knee braces. 90 degrees is just not enough range of motion to hike and climb well, so I took a file and shaved down a set of 45 degree keys (bottom set) that I now get 105 degrees of flexion before the keys block motion protecting me from hyperflexing my knee too far and injuring it on the mountain when I am hiking and hunting. |
With my right knee going south I have been using a DonJoy Defiance knee brace system. I use it to protect my fragile ACL and with the straps really tight I feel it helps balance some of the weight across the brace and not through my knee helping with my arthritic problems I have in my right knee. I also alter a set of hyperflex keys to stop the brace at about 105 degrees. I do this because I have been known to slip in the loose ground and steep terrain and fall on my leg bending it too far back. My knees just don't like being bent that far. The brace now prevents my knee from flexing too far and messing up my right knee...
While out camping this summer I had this very hyperflexion problem mess up my "good" left knee. It happened by slipping on the steep hillside while setting up milk jugs to shoot with a 243 WSSM. It didn't take long for the knee to swell up and motion in the knee to come to a near halt. Now my "good" knee was locking up with some cartilage catching in the center of this knee. I trip back to Dr. Harrison, some fluid drained, a cortisone shot and taking it very easy I have gotten my good knee back feeling near 100% but every so often it will catch a little... I will most likely need surgery to clean it up but I wasn't about to have that surgery two weeks before the archery elk opener. So to keep my "good" left knee from getting hyperflexed again I now have a second knee brace. I now am hiking and hunting with double DonJoy CI Defiance knee braces. Both braces are set to flex from Zero to around 105 degrees to protect my knees in case I slip and fall, especially when I have a 100 lbs on my back carrying a boned out deer or elk off the mountain.
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| Here is a modified hyperflex prevention key installed in the DonJoy Difiance knee brace. This modified key protects my knee from getting hyperflexed too far yet gives me the ability to still be mobile by bending my knee to 105 degrees. |
I turned 40 this year and the doc is hopeful I can make it into my 50's before I need the replacement knee. I already feel a great deal of burning in my knee during and several days after I do any hiking with a real heavy pack (80+ pounds or so). We will see how long I can go before the replacement. But arthritic burning pain or not I'm still going hunting in the rough mountains that I like to hunt. I may have to alter some of my hunting plans to areas that I can at least use my ultra-lightweight packable game cart. At least with the cart I can get the deer and elk off the mountain without all the weight being on my back and knees.
After the surgery this past spring the doc also highly advised that I stop jogging all together... I think it was more of "absolutly no more jogging" now that I think about it. Biking was now going to be my best and only real exercising option to stay in shape. I have had an old 1989 Specialized Rockhopper that I have just rode the heck out of. It has been a good bike for me but it was time to put it out to pasture. It was time to get a new bike and a 29er to boot would be nice especially with me being tall. Getting a bike big enough to fit me was going to be a little difficult. Few manufactures make a 23" frame for a 29er. I will have to write in another entry about my quest to find an large enough bike to fit my 6 foot 7 inch frame.
At the Bench Preparing for the Utah Muzzleloader Mule Deer Season
- Details
- Category: General Hunting and Shooting
- Created on Wednesday, 03 August 2011 13:50
- Written by The DIY Hunter
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| This is the 295g Powerbelt bullet that I am going to be hunting with for the 2011 Utah mule deer season. You can also see my Nikon Buckmaster 1x20 muzzleloader scope. I really like having this scope as compared to open sights, mainly because with open sights the target is completely covered from view by the rifle at targets much past 50 yards, where as with the scope I can have a clear view all around the deer when shooting. |
For the 2011 deer season I have a muzzleloader tag in my pocket so I wanted to break out the muzzleloader early and make sure what bullet I was going to use.
When I first started muzzleloader deer hunting back in the 80's I used a round ball and patch. Sometime during the 90's I switched over to a plastic sabot with a 44 caliber pistol bullet. I used this sabot bullet combo to take my last muzzleloader deer in 2007, my largest to date, a 31" wide mule deer.
A trip down the muzzleloader isle at Sportsmans Warehouse I found that there are many different options for bullets now days as compared to my early muzzleloading hunting days of the past. I decided to go with the mid-weight Powerbelt 50 caliber 295 Grain Hollow Point bullet. I have read online of great accuracy and I have also heard that the bullet can come apart in deer at high velocities. With the mid-weight bullet (this bullet is offered in 245, 295 and 348 grains with or without an Aerotip) and only 100 grains of Hodgdon's pyrodex pellets I am hopeful the bullet will have just the right weight and speed to offer good expansion but not completely disintegrate when hitting a deer. And also have enough speed for a decent trajectory and energy.
My muzzleloading rifle is a CVA Firebolt in 50 caliber. It is the same muzzleloader I used to take my 31" mule deer in 2007 with the exception that this year I now have a Nikon Buckmaster 1x20 scope on top. I really like the scope compared to iron sights.
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| Here is my 2 1/2 inch three shot group at 100 yards with my CVA Firebolt with Nikon Buckmaster 1x20 muzzleloader scope shooting 295g Powerbelt bullets. The shot low is my first shot, a fouling shot where I had a bunch of Bore Butter left in the barrel from storing the muzzleloader. The next three shots are my 2 1/2 inch three shot group all inside the blue circle. |
I was very pleased with how well it shot. I got a two and a half inch three shot group at 100 yards with a one power scope. The best I have ever been able to produce. Not bad for no optical power with the scope and a very moderatly priced muzzleloader (ok, an inexpensive muzzleloader). It has been over a year ago since I last shot my muzzleloader and when I put the muzzleloader in the safe I placed heavy amounts of bore butter inside the barrel. Understandably my first shot was a little low compared to the rest of my shots. I'm clearly calling that a fouling shot.
After I made this group at 100 yards I took the target out to 200 yards and shot a couple of shots that went into the dirt to see how far the drop was. Then I held for this drop and placed a bullet right through the six inch circle I had drawn on the paper. For a 200 yard shot, the hold is in the middle of the fine portion of the wire between the center of the crosshairs (the +) and where the duplex wire transitions from fine to heavy.
For fun and also just in case I ever had to take a shot at a wounded animal I placed the target out at 300 yards. It took me using my HS20exr camera to video the shots and then I would review the video on the lcd screen to see where I was hitting. After four or five shots I figured out the hold and placed two shots within a six inch circle. If I had a variable power or just any magnification 300 yards probably could be a lot more possible. For now I am only comfortable with this far of a shot if I had a wounded animal I needed to put down.
In the future I might look into setting and marking the scope elevation adjustment dial for various ranges. Then I could just range the shot adjust the scope and hold dead on, but for now I'm plenty comfortable out to 200 yards with just holding over.
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