The Tractor Goes to the Hunt Club, Not the Boat

In short: A short film from our South Georgia hunt club. On a foggy morning the tractor rode the trailer instead of the boat, and we mowed out the shooting lanes around the deer stands before deer season. This ground was logged years ago, and the old pine stumps turned to fat lighter stick up just high enough to catch the mower deck. A bolt sheared, which is exactly what it is for: a three or four dollar shear bolt instead of a gearbox.

The tractor, not the boat

Most of our films start with a canoe on the trailer. This one started with the tractor. It was a foggy morning, and we loaded up and headed to the hunt club to do something different: mow out the lanes around the deer stands before the season gets here.

It is a short one. The job was cleaning up the hunting spots for the fall, and along the way I wanted to show why I don't leave the house without a pocketful of shear bolts.

Fat lighter in the lanes

This ground was logged years ago. The old pine stumps left behind turned to fat lighter, and they stick up in the lanes. They are not up high, but they are high enough for the blade on the mower deck to catch them.

That is why you always make sure you bring plenty of shear bolts. These woods will get them all.

The bolt shears, and that is the point

When the blade catches one of those stumps, the shear bolt shears off. That is what it is designed to do. It gives way so the gearbox and everything else behind it does not get messed up.

I will gladly replace a three or four dollar shear bolt to keep from having to replace the gearbox. I keep a handful in my pocket and change them right there in the lane when they go.

Off to the next spot

With the bolt changed, we were off to the next spot. By the middle of the day the lanes were mowed, the stands were opened up for the fall, and the tractor was back on the trailer.

Questions about this hunt

More hunting: The Blackwater Deer Hunting Guide and every hunting film.