So, for the fourth sit on my home place I didn't see a single deer. I'm not worried though. My cameras tell me I have a lot of deer. The movement lately has been totally at night which is normal for a full moon. It might be different if I were hunting a field edge or a food plot, but this is big woods. It'll improve.
I'm going to need a boat opening weekend if this rain doesn't quit. On the other hand, it seems all this rain has dropped the temperatures a bit, hopefully I'll have a perfect Sunday of hunting.
The temps here have dropped already. 55 degrees felt wonderful this morning. 48 tomorrow morning will feel even better. I went from four sits here at home seeing zero deer to seeing 11 this morning. The only buck was a spike but it has been a good sit so far.
I think my truck said 59 when I dropped my son off at school. The temps are dropping, tobacco barns are smoking, wife has pumpkin spice everything, smells like fall. I did a little deer tour on my harley last night, just rode around fields looking, saw 1 deer. I actually do not feel guilty about not putting cameras out, it seems like it took a little burden off my shoulders. Now it's time to do the old school on the ground scout/hunt.
Heading to the state land this morning that I saw last weekend for walk about. Should only take me an hour to go look at the area that looked good from the road. It’s about a 10 minute ride from my house. It’s called Bobell state forest if any of you guys want to check it out by map and see if anything sticks out to you I’d interested to hear. I’ll check back in later.
Let's go!!! Why the heck did they schedule a double game morning on opening day of deer season! I've almost convinced myself to skip the 9am game, but I can't get that time with my son back...so, I'll be at the soccer game rather than the woods. I'm heading out in a few hours to do the farm mowing, I am sticking around till dark to glass/scout...mainly glass since I'd probably have terrible scent control after mowing. Depending on the wind, I'll either watch the top or bottom field, wish I could see both, but I have to choose one. This weather has been great, it hasn't been this cool opening weekend in a long time, I'm ready!
Just got back. I checked 3 areas and eliminated 2 of them. 1 was a swamp edge I was surprised how little sign was there. The second was so thick there was no place to shoot and you can’t trim anything on state land for lanes. I’m going to go back maybe tomorrow and see if I can find an edge to that thick area. The 3rd spot I wanted to check was an old apple and cheery orchard and there were quite a few apples on the trees with trails going in and out again it might be a ground set up. I need to get some climbing sticks and a hang on for the trees in that area I didn’t see a good tree for my climber.
I did some scouting on the farm that I typically hunt. I wanted to check out an area that I have not hunted just due to the fact that it is the furthest spot on the farm. Well I'm glad I did, I jumped a big bodied deer, I could not see it's head through the timber and then found a few active scrapes and rubs in there. I hung a cell camera so I'm hoping to see some action on the scrape. Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk
My scout evening only lasted about 45min, wife decided to slow roll her hair appointment and didn’t home until 5:15. Oh well, I got the grass cut and checked the fields, put my eyes on 15 deer. My child has relocated my binos so I have no glass to use. Overall, just seeing deer and the killing fields really got me excited. Bring on Sunday. I might even get a quick sneak hunt mid day tomorrow, but I’ll probably just hold until Sunday.
Doe number two fell a few hours ago. I knew I would only see does so I nocked an arrow tipped with a Grim Reaper when I got set up. She made it 50 yards only because it was seriously downhill. The Whitetail Special really tore her boiler room up.
Awesome news On a side note: the beaches are fabulous but my 4 year old granddaughter is a sand castle monster Cant wait to get in a stand next week Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
All my gear is packed, broad heads are on the arrows. It always feels like I’m forgetting something, but I think I got enough to climb a tree tomorrow. It’s supposed to get down to high 40s tonight, fingers crossed it’s a great morning. Wife an I are going to the 3 doors down concert tonight, I do not intended on drinking there, so I should be good to make my 0330 wake up. We had a decent double header soccer game this morning, won the first one, lost the second one, kids were kind of worn out but they played great. My son did good in goal in the first game, let two in the second game. The second team was really good though, so not too shabby.
Weekend Update: Got out Sunday morning, used the wrong "big Tree' to enter woods to find my pre-set sticks. Got on the North side of the pond, the sticks are on the south side of the pond, took a bit longer to get in, but I did find my way. No real action, had a couple doe hit the pond which only 40 yards, but it's so thick right no I couldn't see much let alone a shot; they left without incident. Sat until 9ish when it started to get real quiet and did some scouting. Bumped into a deer, not sure buck/doe as we both were checking the same acorn tree for production. Found a ton of torn up trees, I mean, if you used the size of trees rubbed, you'd think there was a monster rolling through, so now, I kind of have a little regret not setting cameras, but I will be putting some out soon too try to find some times/patterns, I did this on purpose so I don't get stuck in pre-season patterns. I did hunt Sunday afternoon, but around 5p I got to the point were I wanted to spend time with my family before we put our son to bed; plus, I didn't want to be up until 10p processing deer. Lazy? Probably, but I have a lot of time left to hunt. As it stands, I am in the hot zone of buck sign, so hopefully I'm in the chips once the activity gets fired up. I can hunt the edges to catch a doe or a straying buck, so I may do that to keep out of the buck zone. I think I only need to get into there when the temps drop some more. Here are some pics from my scouting, I only took a few, but there are no less than 20 cedar trees these sizes all torn up, plus plenty of smaller tress whittled down.
I had a interesting week. My wife is a school teacher and the covid finally hit us. Both me and my wife are vaccinated She wasn't feeling good about a week and a half ago. I have been hunting off and on for the last few weeks. Anyway we went and got tested and she tested positive and I didn't. Thank goodness she didn't get real sick. Saturday was our last quarantine day. We did go for a drive up over the mirror lake highway last week to get her out of the house. I will post a picture of the area. Hope this is ok to share if not LittleChief I will take it down. To get back to my story. After church yesterday A buddy called me up and asked if me and the boys could help him pack out an elk. in the process of packing the elk out we came across a nice bull somebody had shot. It caught us off guard because we had just walked up this gully 45 minutes before. I took a picture of it and and marked it on base maps. As we get up to our wheelers and were loading my friends elk on our machines. Three hunters come by and asked if by any chance we saw a dead bull. Of course I told them yes and showed them were it was at. They thanked us up and down. The funny part is I jokingly told them, it was a good thing I went to church this morning. There was one hunter who was in his late 40's early 50's and looked at the two younger hunters in there 20's and said "You thought I was silly to say a prayer and ask for help". After everything was said and done everybody got there elk out.
