I don't post a bunch anymore but thought I would come here and share a bit of a story and something I think I've learned this year. I've focused a lot of public land this season again, trying to find a big buck to hunt, etc. I found one, but the area he was in, I knew of an older guy who also was watching him and he hunted that area a lot. I wasn't going to move in on him and mess his hunting up. Just not worth it, even though he really didn't care if I hunted the area. I have access to a small piece of private ground right across the road from my house. Last winter, I cut some huge tracks in the snow that really stood out and decided to hang some cams. I got pics of a great 130 class ten pointer that made it through season. Great... I have a deer to look for next fall. Fast forward to late summer of this year and he was popping up in the bean field. I watched him several times in the evenings. He exploed in growth. Easy 150s deer. I put 5 cameras on the property i have access to in hopes of catching him and putting a plan together to hunt him. This property is crazy thick as it was logged 20 some years ago and has grown up with autumn olive to the point where its really hard to hunt from a treestand in there in most of it. I found myself picking my spots based on visibility a lot, which killed me. From the beginning of september until November 18, I got exactly 0 pictures of this deer. However, an older smaller 8 point was on every camera, early and often. As the rut progressed throug october, every time I got a new picture of him, he was missing something on his rack. He was a fighter, a mean deer evidentially. I passed on him twice over the course of late october, early november. I was beginning to thing my big ten got shot, poached or hit by a car at this point. Then low and behold, I get a single picture of this deer. Unfortuntaly, he has broken off two tines on his left side by this point, but he's alive and well. This deer flat out turned into a ghost for me on this property and got me thinking. While I know I always have to give it a chance because you just don't know, I feel like having a limited amount of space to hunt him in this case took me completely out of the game. If that deer was on a huge tract of public, I would have been able to move around a lot until I found him as obviously his fall shift was not where I was able to hunt. I also feel like I waisted quite a bit of time this fall looking for this deer, despite the sheer lack of sign he was even using the property. Lesson for me, if the sign is not there or I have reason to believe he's using a small piece of ground, don't get hung up with hunting hope. Hunting public, I'm having a terrible time of not being aggressive enough. I'm more of a grinder and will hunt my brains out for a buck until it happens or it doesn't. Also, just because you have a sweet looking piece of private to hunt, it can limit you. This deer obviously moved to a different place on this mountain after summer. I have no access to any of it. Instead, i beat a dead horse and came up empty. One more thing. I firmly believe that sometimes you get a buck that just mean and fights with everyone. These bucks can and will run much larger racked deer out. Older bucks know the risks involved in fighting. They could get killed or severely injured so they often avoid it. Younger bucks, like this one I saw over and over again, who I believe was a 4 year old, had that disposition of fighter. I wonder if he was a big reason the buck I was after avoided the area. Anyway, sorry for the long winded read. Hope you found it interesting.
Never worry about what others are doing on public. People cant claim areas. But i get what your saying, you wanted that guy to have a fare shot at getting that buck, with out adding pressure. Most definitely can have a smaller buck be more aggressive and push other deer out. Ive ran into this before. One story i have was a particular deer i was after. I decided it was him or nothing. Well during rut a 145" 8pt, complete tank of a buck moved in. My deer was gone. He was more of a wallflower, even though he the biggest rack of any buck within 10 square miles. That didn't matter, was just this bucks personality. That huge 8 pt ran all over. I even had him under me one day for a hour with a doe. Such a test to not shoot him. But i didn't. Luckily later that same evening he got shot. It wasn't a day or 2 before, and my buck moved back in. Sounds like might be time to thin the herd and get your bully out. Then hopefully your target moves in for next year. The toughest buck will get the best bedding.
I have a similar story on public land. During the summer, roughly the end of August, I got several really good videos on my cam of an awesome 8pt. He was real wide and pretty tall, no doubt a PY minimum buck. Actually, the best buck I've ever gotten on cam in 20 years of putting them out. I got weekly videos, sometimes a couple in a week, through Sept. Then, when Oct. rolled around another real nice 8pt, but a bit smaller, showed up and I never saw the real big one again. I wondered if this smaller 8pt bullied that bigger one out of the area? I continued getting pics of the smaller one, even seeing him make a scrape. He stayed in the area until the middle of Nov, then I never saw him again. As you mentioned, I wonderd if the real big one just didn't want to be bothered/hasseled by the slightly smaller 8pt? Here's a pic of the smaller one which I posted before, so you can get an idea of how big the original buck was. Deer are very tough to figure out a lot of the time. Any guesses what this one would score? I just added a pic of the original bigger buck that disappeared, which I got from video. G2's are nice.
I'd say he's high 120's.to low 130's. Great buck with nice mass for our PA deer. Looks mature and a shooter for sure. I think it old mature deer getting pushed out by younger and meaner bucks happens more often that we think. I always think about turkeys. In the spring, we've had years where we had a bumper crop of jakes. Jakes run in gangs a lot and harrass old toms. The toms quiet down and don't do a lot of gobbling so as to not attract the attention of the jakes. They don't want to fight either.
This is the buck I hunted all season.... Notice he's broke now on the left. I would have left him go late season after that if he actually makes it and i had a better feeling he would be huntable on the piece I'm allowed on.
Yeah, that particular situation was on some public miles from this buck I hunted across the road from my house. I get it, and that old fella sure didn't care if someone hunted the same deer he was watching. Just a respect thing for him I guess. Have at it ol timer... lol.
In truth you highlighted why some really truly struggle with the different approaches you often times have to have for hunting public land and private - especially when the private is of smaller size. Honestly, I've met hunters that could NEVER enjoy being restricted to hunting small pieces of private as I do...and likewise I know many that are not going to enjoy public at all. I've hunted some public in the past and keep trying to make a plan to go explore it out of state some, but family life takes priority...but someday I really want to loosen up expectations of having to shoot a biggun and go see public in Missouri or Ohio since close to me, but would really love to go hunt Montana or North Dakota as well for whitetails on public. Lot more chance of people but I think public hunting might be where I choose to see if I can find a love and desire for gun hunting. I so sparingly ever have a gun with me anymore and think it would be fun to cut my teeth on public while also revisiting those fangled things that go boom lol
I hunt both. This particular private piece is only 175 acres and to me, you're at the mercy of whether a deer uses it frequently or not. If not, you are out of the game and can't go "hunting him down". Interestingly, when I found him last winter, he was there quite a bit so I'm wondering if its more his wintering area and he never used it much during the fall with the exception of roaming a bit during the rut. One big tracts of public, you at least have the ability to look for him. Public land is interesting. It used to be here, that any state land was pounded to death with hunters and honestly, sometimes borderline unsafe in the gun seasons. Not the case anymore. Hunter numbers have fallen significantly and its not terrible at all. A public area I have hunted some is 40K acres of mixed mountain ground. You can spend all season in archery especially and rarely run into another hunter. I'm not sure where you're located but rifle hunting public is actually a good way to learn areas here. With mountains of steep thick, you can hunt it like you hunt western states for mule deer. Kinda cool as its a true wilderness/back country type experience if you want it to be. I don't gun hunt much anymore, but I do actually enjoy it a little when I go "walk about" in these places.
Talking to a guy who owns 23 and only had permission ever on more than 100 acres of private once...well twice on that trip to Iowa one season LOL Yeah I'm thinking if I really want to I have a contact (namesake actually) that is from Wyoming and used to even guide, he's got the knowledge of the region and such enough to point in a direction...or the massive swaths of Montana intrigue me as well. Something about the scattered wide open terrain that many mule deer call home intrigues me and is likely direction I'm leaning but we shall see.
Ha, I get it. This is 175 acres of roughly 3000 acres of surrounding private. One thing about mountain deer, they typically aren't home bodies and make use of all 3K acres.
Just an update. I ran into a guy who hunts on a property next to where I am able to. He said he heard of a three smaller 8 points taken but nothing huge. So... there is hope. Not saying he's still alive, but I'm hoping that since he made it this long, he has a pretty good hidey hole some place he gets to when pressure ramps up. Interestingly, I had to pick up my son and his "girlfriend" from their christmas dance at the high school. It was 11 at night, but I noticed a lone, big deer in a field right down the road from my house. I had binos with me but couldn't make out what it was, but figured it as a buck since it was big and all alone. I spent Sunday hanging a few cameras over there in hopes of getting an idea of what made it. Ready for Dec 26th to get here!
This year I’m really gonna focus on finding that one deer to follow and hunt. I’m more committed this year to some area that produces really good deer. So that’s my main focus..
I figure I would update this post a bit since season is all but over for me here in PA. But its been an interesting, sorta, late season. The day after our annual rifle season ended, I spent a day hanging some cameras in hopes of seeing the giant 10 thats been the focus all season. I have yet to check any of the cameras I placed except for two, that are close to fields that only get middle of the night pics, but are easy to access without trudging through the woods. No big 10 on these two, but I have been getting pics of another familiar face, actually two bucks. Buck one, whom I nicknamed Balboa. I gave him that name because well, he's a narly, old, beat up looking deer, kinda ugly to be honest. I probably have upwards of 50-75 pics of him since late October. He was everywhere. I passed on him one evening in November. His rack isn't anything special, but his body size is incredible. This buck, each time I got a pic of him in the fall, seemed to have something new broken or chipped off. First a brow tine, then his tines were getting the tips chipped off. I often wonder if he was the reason the giant ten disappeared. He was the bully. Buck two, I had a few pics of him during early season, but he disapeared after that. He is pretty recognizable with a little split on his left g3. I decided that if I had an opportunity to shoot the big old 8 named Balboa, I would. I have a goal in the back of my head to shoot a nice buck in late season and think he'd be a good one because of his age. The hard part about most of late season here was weather. Its been brutally windy for weeks. Cold too, but with 40mph wind gusts being the norm since January rolled around, its been darn near impossible to hunt much. I had to pick and choose and be able to hunt at the drop of a hat if the weather would cooperate enough in the afternoons. I bounced around on three different hunts, trying to locate this buck or hopefully get a glimpse of the giant 10. The last hunt, I ran into Balboa finally. He gave me a chip shot at 25 or so yards. Only issue, he lost his left side! I left him walk that night, a bit frustrated, but also a bit humbled. Despite him being so active and present in this area, I ran into him in person exactly two times. So with that, my 2024 season is a wrap. Weather is not going to give me a chance to sit anymore as season comes to a close this Saturday. I learned a ton this year and am eagerly waiting for shed hunting season to come around. Biggest thing I did this year and really forced myself to do is not hunt the same spot twice or at the least, not the same tree in a spot. Doing this, I saw a lot of bucks, nothing I wanted to shoot, but I saw a good many. The times I did go back to a spot, I was able to adjust my setup better the second time and make notes on this for next year. Hunting out of a saddle really shines when you hunt like this. I also paid very close attention, almost to the point of being neurotic, on thermals and wind of course. This was very interesting to me and I could probably start a new thread on things I learned and the screw ups along the way. In a nutshell, in the mountains, the forecast wind is almost never what the wind direction is at a given spot. The way the mountains lay here, the only time it was really consistent was on a southwest, blowing parallel to the mountain face. Anything else, it did odd stuff throughout the afternoons. But, as soon as the sun set below the mountains and it was primetime, the wind died and thermals took over, so you have to plan for that. Bucks in particular I watched using these thermals as he traveled along. Fascinating stuff.
My season wrapped up Jan 4th. Now I’m just waiting on spring gobbler. Hope 2025 season goes great for you !
This is the time of year when the racks are dropping like rocks. This polar vortex running across the continent should remove almost all of any remaining. I think the cold really accelerates the process. Those antlers must transfer off the heat causing great discomfort. My experience has been that a long very cold spell causes the drop more than the date once we get into December or later.
Thats interesting. I haven't seen a great deal of difference in when they drop around my area. We have quite a few does and the more yearlings that we have, the longer into the winter they hold their horns. I love shed hunting darn near as much I do hunting and I don't get too excited about it until mid-late February. But... I've also seen plenty of bucks holding on well into March and even April.
Great post! My biggest takeaways from it were the importance of not hunting the same spot twice. I hunted the exact same spot all season, because I was limited to a single natural ground blind. I did see a fair number of deer, relatively speaking, but I did spook deer that I only heard blow, without actually ever seeing them. So, they were winding me! This is likely why I only saw my target 8pt on one occasion, when he was tending a doe out of range on Halloween. Also, since I was hunting very uneven topography, the "predicted" wind direction almost never followed the script, with erratic shifts that made me even more apt to get busted being on the ground. Next season I'm going to try using my LW climber again, and swithching trees a bit, since I'm not hunting as deep in as I used to.
