A couple from todays pull. That 8 is so nice and symmetrical and the other one looks like the velvet is melting off of him.
Not much to report on my end. I got out twice, one morning and one evening. The morning hunt was a bust. The evening hunt was much better. I ended up seeing about a dozen deer. the only ones that got in bow range was 3 young bucks. One walked up to me at 4:00 while I was setting up. The other 2 came out on different trails heading to a bean field. No mature bucks sited yet. I plan to get a hunt in tomorrow, looking for a doe!
well, I got a bit of bad hunting-related news. The public land 160 acre main area that I (most of my hunting party - me, my cousin, uncle, and occasionally his buddy) usually hunt is about 2/3 hardwoods and 1/3 CRP. Or was. This year the state of MI decided to take about 10 acres of the CRP and turn it into corn. Why is the creation of a deer magnet a bad thing? Because it is also turning out to be a hunter magnet. In any given season, there are rarely more than 2-3 other hunters other than our party that used this area. But when I went out last weekend, I found 6 different cameras in a remote 10 acre area that I always kind of considered "mine." Yeah, it's public land and it's not "mine" but it's quite a hike through thick stuff to get to so it's always been pretty quiet back there. Those 6 cams belong to at least 3 different hunters as 2 of them were not locked and have different names on them; and a 3rd was locked with no name. Those are just the ones I found. So I do have some alternate parcels in the vicinity of our camp, one of which I saw the biggest public land buck I've ever seen chase a doe across the road into last year and it just so happens that area is even closer to camp. That happened when I was driving back to camp about 2 hours after I killed my buck last year in "my" area. After seeing that buck, I hunted there just off the south road of that area the rest of the season and stuck a little oak tree instead of a nice 8 point about 2-3 days later. So they say necessity is the mother of innovation. After finding all those cams, I went deep into to that alternate area and got muddy. And wet. And a little lost for a few minutes. Turns out I sloughed my way through a mini-swamp and ended up on the north end of the area which ended up being pretty close to the north road and not too hard to get to from that side...and I found a a deer superhighway intersection. Trails intersecting from every which way just beat down into the dirt. Even found a small shed right there so I doubt anyone has been scouting in the area yet. So I hung me 2 cameras to catch them coming from multiple directions and IDd a couple nice trees to hang my stands. So long story short- bad news is my go-to spot where I have shot a deer every year for the past 4 seasons is probably going to be crawling with hunters. Good news is I might have found myself a new public land mini-honey hole. I'm going to try and head back up in 2 weeks to pull my cards and I'll let you all know what I find.
As some of you are aware Eastern KY is being devastated by EHD this year, while I live in eastern KY I normally don't hunt there. I hunt mainly in the bow only counties of southern WV, mainly right across the KY/WV border which is the Tug River. I had hoped that EHD would not migrate to the hunting areas that I frequent but I have heard of 2 bucks within the last week that people have found on the WV side that have succumbed to EHD so it has migrated over. I am hoping for an early frost to kill the flies off to put an end to this outbreak.
well, no relief in sight weather-wise. I feel for you on the EHD we had it bad in MI (actually all over the midwest) in '12. I found 3 nice bucks dead and I wasn't even looking. Smell of death hung in the air everywhere until mid-October. Speaking of weather, the WI opener is looking HOT. I'll be in shorts in the afternoon. But a cold front/rain system is moving in Saturday night/Sunday AM so hopefully that gets them up on their feet. I'll be in the stand Sat-Monday AM. I don't know how it is every year that it seems Opening day in WI is at least 10* hotter than the week before, but so it goes. I'd love to stick one up there opening weekend and then be done and able to focus on MI.
Dnoodles just walk in front of ever camera you find, let the other hunters know you are there also and they may move on. Just think how you may get upset if you had a camera deep in public and you get another hunter on it, it works both ways. I wouldn't give up on the area. If your able to hunt during the week, that will knock down on alot of pressure.
Also a reminder to the team. Make sure you get 2 pics with you, deer and your bow. Just saw that someone already post there 2 pics with no weapon from another team.
