Hunting

Plumbrook Ohio

Ohio’s DNR holds several controlled hunts each year and I was fortunate enough to be selected to participate in one of them.  The hunt I was drawn for took place at the Plumbrook NASA facility.   I was allowed to invite a guest hunter and quickly asked fellow Ridge Runner and brother-in-law Jamie Hicks to come along.

Jamie and I reported to the facility very early in the morning of November 8th.  After a brief wait, we were checked in.  Since this is a federal site security was tight;  background checks had to be run on all hunters.  After that was completed, we sat through a debriefing session in which rules and regulations were reviewed.  Once the debriefing session was finished we were loaded into several military trucks to be taken to our assigned hunting zones.

The day proved to be an exciting one.  On the ride to our spots, bucks were seen either searching for or chasing does.  It seemed like each field we passed held deer activity. Every hunter in our tuck was grinning ear to ear with excitement.  I felt like a little kid at Christmas!  I couldn’t wait to get dropped off and start my hunt!

As luck would have it, I didn’t have to wait very long.  An hour into my hunt I had a very nice buck try to sneak behind me; fortunately for me, he wasn’t very good at sneaking!

Roo, Ohio 2014

Jamie saw several bucks throughout the day, none of which were what he was looking for.  He did take a doe towards the end of our hunt which he donated to help feed the hungry.  We had a fantastic day, lots of deer were seen (including some nice bucks) and Jamie and I enjoyed great fellowship.

I would like to thank the many people who made the hunt possible.  It was well organized and everyone was very friendly.  I am so incredibly blessed to have such an amazing family.  Jamie, Kim, and Skylar worked very hard to help butcher my deer.  Not an easy task to say the least!  We estimated live weight to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 220 lbs.

I have always said that it is not the size of the animal that is important, but rather the size of the experience.  This was definitely a great hunt.  Thanks Jamie for running some ridges with me!