Its been such a slow day today at work. I've been going over all my gear in my head to make sure I get everything ready for tomorrow. I'm constantly refreshing the weather report and now they're saying 5 or more inches of snow by tomorrow night! I'm hoping I can get some tracking action in I'm pumped up to hunt a new spot that I'm hopeful will produce some action tomorrow, the pre-rut is getting going, its going to be cold tomorrow and I've got brand new cold/wet weather gear to try out. I'm literally sitting at my desk finding it difficult to contain my excitement for tomorrow! Who else will be battling the early snow tomorrow in the northeast!??
I'll be out there! We're looking at about 4-8" where I am. This is unheard of. We wont start seeing precipitation til about 2-5 p.m. tomorrow so I think I am just going to sit all day. I would imagine the deer will be moving quite a bit before this thing barrels into us. I feel like I am the only person anywhere in Massachusetts that is actually excited for a big october snow.
Yep. Ill be out morning and hopefully evening with maybe a short mid day break at the car. We may have fresh snow on the ground as early as 10a.
Well, I had a somewhat productive hunt on Saturday. No tags filled though. The morning started rainy and cold - the kind of rain & cold where you think it should be snowing. It had to be 32.1 degrees and raining. Before my friend and I even set off to get to our spots were were feeling drained. Luckily we had both brought all of our cold weather gear. I wound up wearing my insulated bibs and winter parka which did keep me warm and dry. I brought the wrong pair of gloves though - the ones I had were supposed to be waterproof but I feel like they were only mildly water repellant. My hands were wet before the end of the day but still mostly warm. Anyway, we left the car and walked to this new area on a hillside where some low brush and oak trees changed to a tall pine plantation. I knew there were trails all through the pines so I figured we'd setup about 150 yards apart along the pine plantation edge. We didn't have stands so we were still hunting or sitting the whole day. After sitting in the rain for about an hour and a half the sun finally came up enough to allow for still hunting. At the point it was spitting rain with a mix of huge wet snowflakes. I sent a text to my friend and we both set off through the pines slowly following some trails. We both wound up taking almost identical routes but not seeing anything. We both passed the same abandoned climbing tree stand and both walked the same fire trail back to the main road. Nothing but wind, sleet and rain and mud. I made it back to the car around 10:30a and pulled out some gear from the back, started the engine to dry my gloves and hat by the heater and got the stove out to make some coffee. We decided to take some practice shots in the snow and with the heavy gear on and then move to another spot. The second spot I knew had some good bedding areas and with the wind in our favor I figured we'd get close to the beds and sit for awhile. We now had a mix of sleet and snow and a steady wind - perfect for still hunting. We headed in about 11:45. On our way in about 300 yards from the bedding areas, (again walking the fire road) I noticed 3 deer - at least 2 good sized does - moving to our 4 o'clock direction. They were not spooked or anything but definitely on the move to another area. I quickly decided that we could try to back out and position ourselves directly in their path - knowing that they had to move towards our general location as the lake shoreline pushed them towards us. We quickly and quietly backed out and moved about 300 yards in front of them and then proceeded to cut into their expected travel path. We had almost gotten to the position that I wanted. We were moving quietly but not slowly enough. I stepped over a log and then there was an explosion of movement and white tails waving goodbye. I had stepped to within 10 yards of them. We didn't move far enough ahead of them A little more patience and we could have had one. Oh well, lesson learned on that one. We did manage to mark the trail on my GPS so at least we found a well-defined trail from a bedding area. We left that area at about 2:30p to warm up and dry off and then headed to the last spot. I stuffed my cold wet hands into my now-soaked "waterproof" gloves and we set off on the last hunt of the day - it was now about 3:15p. We walked the trail for just over a mile and didn't see anything - no tracks of any kind. It was now about 4:45p. We turned around and started to head out. As we walked, we started to talk about the day and picked up our pace - we wanted to be on the road before the slushy mess started to freeze. We rounded a bend and about 30 yards out I saw a HUGE doe literally leap across the 6-foot wide trail and into the timber. I think we both felt pretty stupid at that point - we had given up and we weren't even out of the woods yet. I walked up to where I thought the doe had crossed the trail and didn't see any tracks. My buddy however, noticed some slightly older tracks and we decided to follow them. The tracks joined up with another well-defined trail, which I marked on the GPS. We followed the trail (very carefully this time) and came to an area where a few trails joined the one we were on. There were multiple deadfalls and quite a few other sets of prints - this was obviously a funnel of some type. I can only guess the terrain and deadfalls helped to create it. We found some very fresh droppings, probably from the doe we pushed earlier and found a nice rub that I think was made that day. I marked the deer trail "hub" on the GPS and we headed back to the car. All in all it wasn't a horrible day - we got to see a few on their feet and get relatively close because of the crappy weather, and also got some scouting done for some new areas. Hopefully the best is yet to come
I went out yesterday and i didnt see a single deer. I was only able to hunt from 12 -6 so maybe that had something to do with it. i did see tracks in the snow right in front of my tree stand that had to be only a few hours old.
