Hello how bunting gurus,!!! Really happy to have found this site and I hope it will be less... Argumentative than other sites. I've been bow hunting many years,but in Texas where pretty much all hunting is feeder hunting. Nothing wrong with that, but for the last 5 years I've been in central OK and not had access to any private land. The only hunting I get to do is a city owned lake park where you "draw in" to get a "zone" to hunt for 4 days. Then you have to fill in only open zones for the rest of the season. This means that EVERY Thursday these zones get trampled by hunters who have to come to scout the zones in order to pick stand placemt. I've only shot/seen does on these hunts although big bucks are definitly in these areas and there is ample big buck sign. The area has a quota of usually only 10 bucks per year, which is almost always taken prior to rut time. The organizers make no rules about maturity so hunters are shooting even yearling bucks. My buddy saw what he said was a 150"+ in one zone but it was in a different meadow. Saw him twice so moved locations and never saw him again. Anyone have suggestions for this sort of thing? Basically my strategy is to get in Thursday and try and find hot sign and setup. I can't really think of anything else. I have another question, not sure if should be in another thread or not... Sorry if it should. Just a few weeks ago I got permission to hunt an 80acre parcel. It's 50% pasture and the rest a mix of cedar/hard wood/ weed meadows. There's definitly deer here and I've seen 10 does in three hunts. Put up a trail cam and saw a prob 2 yr old decent 8 point but it was at 10:30 pm. The owner occasionally lets other friends of his hunt the property but he always sends them to one of two feeders that are on the edge of where the woods begin, leaving approximately 30 acres untouched. The north border is a fully developed neighborhood, east border is 100 acres of complete dense cover that is unhunted and the west is another property similar but only lightly hunted and south is another property mainly used for cattle. He keeps about 40 head of cattle on the place which makes finding deer sign difficult. He's given me free reign to setup stands wherever I want. But all the trails seem to be north south (we predominantly have a south wind) and there's no place to setup where there's not a high probability of deer being downwind. Again, I need help from more experienced hunters!!!
my guess would be they are bedding in that thick timber between the water and the feeders... with the pressure they won't be hitting those feeders in the daylight... move deep into the timber and look for them moving from other hunters that are moving along the edges...
The pond has little tracks, but a large rub showed up Thursday. There are a few trails in the timber but I'm scared to explore it. As luck would have it I'm away on business and the absolute PERFECT weather pattern is happening in OK right now. Next three days should be peak rut and right now a big storm system is moving through which should make tomorrow an amazing day, AND IM OUT OF TOWN ON BUSINESS!!!!
