Top_Heavy's World

Friday, the day finally ended; payroll was handed out, schedules for next week were printed, crews were organized and equiped for the weekend work and the shop lights were turned off and locked up. I finished packing and jumped in the truck about 6:00 and after fueling up I headed S then W and finally SW on a grueling 5 1/2 hour road trip to the beautiful state of Kansas. The good part of a long road trip such as this is the time available to catch up with all of my hunting buddies, and find out the details of this past seasons success and failures. I rolled into my Super 8 motel just before midnight and after checking in, I headed to Walmart in hopes of getting an antlerless doe tag. The season was for only a couple of days, so I had hoped to try some long range deer harvests, in preperation for the Iowa Late Rifle season. Nonresidents who didn't first draw a gun tag were not allowed to get a tag, so my season was already over. Oh well, I will spend a little time on the range before the late January season I guess.
Saturday morning dawned early and I met up with my friend. Our weekend plans were full, so we wasted little time in getting started. I was treated to a bobcat trapping clinic. The training was hands off as I didn't have a license, but I watched closely and took pictures of the set building and completed sets. I learned a considerable amount and hope to put the knowledge to use in the near futre. Our day moved on to midwinter food plots and spring nutrition, several ideas will be tried in Iowa next year. Land evaluation was next, Iowa hunting ideas were shared and a fresh set of eyes were requested for a couple of special locations. I traveled to the harvest location of the best deer I have seen in years, a huge 6X6 with 4 drop tines, harvested during rifle season. We scored deer, including my 08-09 buck. We got to the score a little differently, but my gross score was only 2/8" short of a true world class scorer! We talked specialty reloads, evaluated some possibilities between the 6.5/284 and the 6.5/47 and I got to look at the custom rifle assembled for me. I can't wait to pick it up, loads are almost developed and the test groups were quite fantastic, some as good as sub 3" at 800 yds. We looked at deer Sunday morning, set trail cameras and scouted some fringe areas, the main bedding areas will be left until March shedding season so as to avoid bumping bucks that haven't shed yet. I hit the road in early afternoon and after an amazingly full 2 days I am back at home. I will share more of each step this week as I learned a ton. With deer season coming to an end I need to fill a few remaining tags and will share those stories this week too.
Sorry I couldn't keep in touch over the last couple of days, but I am back and full of new stories! Thanks for being here.