30 Years of hunting Prudence Island

My god where did 30 years go??

I really shouldn't have come this year as I under went major back surgery July 27 which consisted of having  8 vertabrea fused and Titanium rods, plates, screws put in my lower back. If that wasn't bad enough, my right rotor cuff decided to give me a problem, so I'm trying to recover with one and a half arms. However, I was not about to miss my 30th straight year of hunting the disabled hunt. Pain or no pain. It may not look it in the above picture but it was basically 6:00 pm and I had been sitting up since 4:00 am, so I was in quite a lot of pain. The only thing I had seen besides this small deer was a coyote running down the road as we put me on stand that morning. When this deer stepped out and woke me up at about 5:55 pm I thought it was bigger than it actually was and decided to take it because of the way I felt and we could catch the morning ferry home. I reached for the camcorder and almost turned it on but thought against it. The damn thing chimes when you turn it on and I was afraid I would scare the deer she was so close. If I had seen her coming I would have had time to, and talk about the perfect one to film to, as she went right down. I was't happy about that but one of these days I'll get a shot on video. I'm almost convinced I need some else to take care of that and I just concentrate on shooting. Oh well.... I do have some High Quality video for those with cable or DSL to show a little bit of what it's like. I'm sorry I wasn't well enough to take more video of places on the Island. I would have liked to shown more but I just wasn't up to it. As it turned out the young Doe weighed 53 lbs and actually those are the ones that should be taken as the Island has been trying to get it's numbers back up. We've been dealing with low numbers for a few years, so, if it can't be a buck, I guess I did my part by leaving the bigger Does a lone.

Here's a few pic's of my stand and stuff I'll thumbnail so the page don't take forever to load, plus links to videos.

Was kinda thick but I had hoped to see them coming befor they reached the shooting lane

Trail was leading just to the left of me to a couple of white oaks.

Looking straight out of my blind watching a heavy used trail.

I made sure to bloody Romeoh's knife he sent me from Germany.

My .58 all set up for a nice 40ish yard shot

The following are HD video's, not for everyone I'm afraid, they are a lot of meg's. I did have several of Uncle scouting but most were of an orange hat barely seen through the brush, it's grown up so much now. So I decided not to post most of those here. The rest are just a taste of where we stay and hunt.

Unpacking the car

Ferry ride over

Arriving Monday morning

Limulus Lodge

New Blind

Scouting

Deer Down!

Shooting Lanes

Seventh Flintlock deer taken off the Island for me.

Catching the Ferry the next morning.

Well 30 years ago I shot my first deer over here and it turned out to be the smallest I've ever taken off this Island. I was a green kid and didn't know what to expect back then, so I guess it is kind of fitting to harvest a small one on this 30th anniversary. With a little luck, next year I'll be healed up and pain free so I can spend a couple of days hunting again. I need to thank my Uncle and everyone else who helped make this happen for me. Without them I never could have done it. I tip my hat.....

Tom Meade from the Providence Journal did a write up the following Sunday. It can be seen here, 30th Year hunt