If we are considering the months of October and November the early season, then that is what I will be referencing. For some reason I have been really hard on myself this year in terms of me thinking I am haven't been more succesful. I worked hard in the off-season and set out with a plan in mind this year and stuck to it. But when I really look back on it, the "early" season was a success. I killed my first 3.5 year old buck and 4 does. I saw 3, 3.5 year old bucks, one at 40 yards and out of range on November 5th, another I shot and did not recover on November 7th, and one I killed on November 9th. So I saw three 3.5 year old bucks in 3 different counties. Crazy. I hunted in a very methodical way through the entire early season. I only wasted one hunt and that was on Halloween morning because it was pouring rain, dark, and I could not for the life of me find my way in to a thicket I wanted to hunt. Other than that, all my hunts were planned out based on the wind, time of year, and terrain. I saw around 15-17 bucks, 3-3.5 year olds, 3-2.5 year olds, and the rest 1.5 year olds. The way I will attack the late season will be much like the early season to me. I am hunting terrain combined with late season bedding areas and the changing food sources. I wil always hunt the wind and will get aggressive in my approach to my set-ups. That being said, my hunting time is dwindling due to life in general and the responsiblities I have. GOOD luck everyone.
I had a great early season with sightings of lots of does and nice bucks.I was only hunting several bucks of interest and on halloween day at 130 in afternoon this 19 point monster came up a draw into a saddle ,just like I saw him do two times last year from a stand 100 yards away.I put a new stand up there in july and was waiting for him on that rainy october day. http://forums.bowhunting.com/gallery/files/2/0/7/2/gedc0377.jpg
According to the dates of your early season, that would be my whole season. But it went really good for my first season. I learned a bunch, some of which was the hard way which took some time to get over. But in the end I shot my first buck, who was a nice sized 4 point (8 point to some of you). Just after that I was lucky enough to have a monster of a 4 point walk under my stand. He was led by a doe, he stopped to eat branches litterally 5 feet bellow my stand and played around by me for a little bit. I got to hear him doing his little grunting sounds as he was following her. He was than followed by a little spiker and a smaller 4 point. I also got to watch that little spiker chase a doe around the side of a hill and through a valley for about a hour one morning. I saw a couple of other bucks that I would have concidered shooters. My dad ended up getting that big 4 pointer that walked under me. My brother was a little picky early season and passed on a couple decent bucks and never did get his shot he was looking for. But after reading a bunch of threads on here, I relised that I somewhat got lucky as I never put in any off season time out there. I just sat where my brother had stands and hunted from there. We had limited stands setup so I wasn't really able to play the wind and never really figured out where there bedding areas were and food spots. I just knew that they usually came across the open fields around sunrise and sunset and moved between treed areas. Next year I'm hoping to be alot more prepared and hoping to have alot more knowledge on the area and behavior of the deer.
Missed a stud opening day; Sept 6th, shot right over him, shot a big bodied 4x4 buck in Oct and then a pretty good 4x4 with a few stickers in Nov. Working on one more here in Dec.
early archery went ok..I deem early archery Oct 3 to Nov 1st...mid season..Nov 2-Nov 30 and late season Dec 1 to jan 2....so far I killed 6 deer in the early season...1 in the mid and zero in late..
I've killed 2 doe and a decent 9pt (Oct 28th), I can't complain about the early Pa archrery season at all. I still have 2 antlerless tags, so I'll be giving it hell in the late season when I'll have ALL of the woods to myself. lol
Best season in 6 yrs, and I tagged a buck the earliest into the season ever. Shot my buck on the 20th of October, and he was the 6th buck I saw. The season before, I had only seen two up to that point.
The month of October I saw mostly does and small bucks, especially a bunch of spikes and forkies. I had 3 forkies under me at one time in October. Most sightings were in the evening, with very few morning deer sightings during October. The biggest buck I saw was a six pointer on the morning of the 17th. No shooter bucks sighted in the month of October. Being this is the second year of hunting my new property I expected much more. Last year I saw a shooter 10 point the second weekend of the season and saw 4 different shooter bucks in the month of October. One 3 different times from my stands. What a difference a year makes. A lot of guys I know that hunt the area have similar stories.
