rogerzz

Hello,
Well I guess you could say that have lost a step or two. If all goes according to plan I will be going on the lung transplant list in the coming year.
Even though It is more difficult for me to get around I have not given up hunting.
Last year I was lucky enough to get a deer. What an adventure that was!
It ran for about a 100yrds through some thick woods after I shot it. I'm saying all of this with a smile on my face, but it took me about 20 minutes to get to the spot where it fell. At that point I was so out of breath I wasn't able to use my cell phone to call my wife to come help me get the deer out of the woods for about 5 minutes.
My wife and her nephew come with the truck and got me and the deer out of the woods. My wife is a veterinarian, so she field dressed the deer. When she pulled out what was left of the heart she confirmed that the 12ga slug had blown the heart to bits.
Anyway. I had a great time and I looking forward to another good hunt this year.
This year I will be carrying my GP100, so If I do need to track a wounded deer I will leave my shotgun in the blind and look for it with my Ruger.

hackdaddy

I have had to change the way I hunt but am still out there. I have always been an upland hunter and spent a lot of time up and down the hills for grouse in southern Indiana. Now having gone through much surgery, chemo, bone marrow transplant, etc. I have had to slow down but have no plans on stopping. I will probably mostly waterfowl hunting this year just due to the physical challenges.

With any luck at all I'll end up dieing in a blind somewhere with a shotgun in my hand rather than in a hospital bed.

chappydave

Hi,

I am a medically Retired US Army Chaplain. (Retired Nov 2003 due to failing lungs)

UCSD did my Dbl lung transplant 2.5 years ago, and I am now feeling fit enough to give hunting a try again.

I was on 6 Ltrs of O2 setting for over 3 years prior to transplant and then had to get down to under 167 for the operation. Man that muscle tissue loss is tough to recover. Especially at 60 YOA LOL

Life is good, and getting better each day.

Who is going to list you?

God bless,

Dave Hodge
Carlsbad, NM

Mayor Al

I have a limiting feeling (or lack of feeling) in my lower legs that will shortly make it unsafe to drive (numb from the knees down). This make walking on anything but smooth pavement a real exercise in visual search prior to and during movement. That limits my ability to go bounding thru the woods after the critters I want to hunt.

So now I have the "limited handicap hunting license" that allows me to shoot from a vehicle and finds me in a blind or other sitting situation most of the time when we go out. It has worked ok so far. We'll see how the Hog and deer hunt go in Missouri in a couple of weeks.

If it is this way at age 70, I figure I'll be shooting Bambi from the Funeral Home window in a decade or two !!

rogerzz

Yup! We just have to keep plugging away.

Smithy

I'm on the bad end of 35+ years of diabetes and the complications are piling up. My biggest complaint now comes from back pain (some nerve and some bone) that keeps me with a cane and moving mighty slow. I use to live on the central coast of CA and that was hog heaven, but I never got a chance to go. I now live in the central valley and there's no hunting to speak of here. I always wanted to go hog hunting with my son, but we're now 200 miles apart with him on the hog side and I don't move worth a poop. Is there such a thing as stand hunting for hog? I don't really want to sit in a seat while others chase a hog in front of me to shoot. So I'm in a similar delima. Smithy.

Mayor Al

Smithy,
I am sure there are outfitters in Central CA who do 'Handicapped Hunts'. In the open country there ATV's would be ok, if the law permits them. We are going on a fully guided hog hunt...I will probably be in a blind or low tower, but my wife will be chasing them on foot. Both by our own choice, and with an armed guide with us.

We each get one Sow of at least 200 lbs and she will take an Axis Doe in a cull-hunt. That should give us a pretty good meat supply for awhile. Total cost about $1500 including transportation and all processing, so it is fairly reasonable. (Thats about half the cost of our Texas Hog Hunt last year of about the same duration and return (no deer in Texas for us).

Smithy

Thanks Mayor Al! I didn't even think about an ATV. That would work out great like you said, "If it's legal". Wyoming has what to Californians seems to be very loose hunting regulations. It allows hunting by car as long as you have one foot on the ground. I and a buddy of mine who'd hunted antelope in Wyoming for a number of years took me with him to get my feet wet. I was amazed when I read the regulations. And sure enough, we drove to a hillside where a bunch of antelope were down in a slight valley and I used the door jamb as a rifle rest. Took aim and one shot, one kill. It was a terrific hunt. Even that might be too much for me now, in the gathering of the game and the dress out. But with a guided hunt, maybe some of those services would be provided if needed?

How does a blind hunt for hog work? Are you perched over a known watering hole and just wait them out? Or is it like I fear, you sit in a box and a couple of guys herd a bunch of hogs in front of the blind? The last to me seems kind of like cheating and I'd rather do the former. Smithy.

Mayor Al

Smithy,
My first choice will be the way you got your antelope..using a truck or an ATV, most likely the later, on a firebreak road in brushy woods to chase a group down near a wallow or water.... Second option will be a standing blind near a waterhole, baited with some 'deer corn'. I don't do the "drive them to me' for the same reason you don't like that either.

We did the baited blind one night in Texas and a group of Buffalo and Elk came in to eat the bait corn, as we sat in the blind waiting...The hogs were smart enough to use the big game as shields to get the corn, but avoid being shot by hiding in the buffalo/elk herd. Since it was over $2000 to shoot a Buffalo, we were very careful of of pig-shots that night !

Here is my grandson talking to the buffalo as we waited for the pigs to show up in Texas.


The blind earlier, when we were unloading gear there.


My take that evening was this Hog-

Tater

Yes, you can stand hunt for hogs! Many people use ground stands and bait, sometimes at night.

Mayor Al

Plus ONE (a Big ONE) for Tater's comments. Go Get them !!

Smithy

Thanks guys for all the great tips. I'll have my son check into the guided hunts in his area (since he lives by the pig hunting area) and see what we can come up with while I'm still able to get around. I have a nice SRH 5.5" just waiting to be put into service. Smithy.

HAWKEN

I have two titanium hips and a rod in my back, but I don't consider myself handicapped or disabled. Pain, yes, but deal with it. I believe that if you quit doing things, soon you won't be able to.....Robin

JohnD13

It takes longer to get into the woods, and I hunt from a ground stand or blind now, instead of still hunting, stalking, or using a tree stand. And, like you said, a cell phone gets the help I need in to get me and my game out. If I'm lucky enough to get anything. Like Hawken said, deal with your pain, but keep doing what you can, or soon you won't be doing anything.

Tracer

Well Gents what I gave up for Uncle Sam years ago and then the diabetes working on my body day by day, not to mention the arthritis that is also made it's self known to me. It really makes it tuff to go hunting like I used to in the mountains for elk, moose and bear.

However, I have not stopped one iota because things are not as easy as they once used to be. My father once told me "Son it takes a tuff man with lots of grit to become an OLD MAN" I really never knew what that meant until I turned 60. My father made it to 86! Hell, I got a lot of hard times ahead I guess. I am not giving in to old age gents. I am 70 yrs young and plan on taking my buffalo this late fall with the Sharps come snow or high water.

Hell NO! I hunt birds off the ATV and go deer hunting with the machine too. I can't hunt by myself anymore, unless it's on my own property (in hardwoods back of the house) but I do go and plan on doing so until I can't get out of bed. One year I had to use my model 29 .44mag pistol but I still got to hunt and shot an 8 point buck that tip the scales at 182-lbs.