Deer Season

By my calculations, the deer season in Louisiana begins in something like 15 weeks. Just barely enough time to get ready. It'll be here before we know it. I live and hunt in Area 2, so the primitive season begins on October 24th, which will limit me to my .45-70. The general gun season starts on October 31 and runs until January 17th. Then we'll have one more week of primitive weapon hunting and the season will close on January 24th. That's over 90 days of deer hunting. We're extremely lucky in Louisiana to have such generous seasons.

Still, it's time to get ready. I'll go to the range tomorrow and do a little shooting with my primary deer rifle, the Savage 110 in .30-06.



It's not a stock Savage any more. You may recall that I dropped this rifle out of my deer stand last year and broke the stock. It's now got a new walnut stock and it's been bedded and floated to the barrel nut. I've done a fair amount of load development and know that the rifle is capable of good accuracy. But, I haven't fired the rifle in several months and it's time to start practice. Especially with that all-important cold barrel shot.

It doesn't matter so much where the rifle shoots with a warm barrel. I need to know that the first shot is going where I want it to go.

It'll be August in a couple of weeks and toward the first weeks of September, I'll need to have my feeders installed and the shooting lanes cleared. My stand needs some maintenance. I'm toying with the idea of installing a box blind over a known deer trail. Then there's scouting and hiking and learning about movement and herd size.

In short, there's lots to do. It's time to start getting ready.