Nice buck Chiro - good luck on him. OldKY...bring back a Biggun! Took my 7 yr old out for a quick hunt after school...saw 4 does and one small buck from stand...nothing close at all...still love every second taking my kids. When we left, in a couple mile stretch going down the blacktop, I'd guess we saw 50+ deer out in the fields...all were does, one small buck...I was surprised by this as I'd have thought more bucks would be around all these does. Moon is bright and out all night right now - my experience is the rut really kicks in once we get to dark nights in early Nov...new moon is Nov 12th... This weekend should allow me to get at least 2 hunts in...keep after it everyone! Feels like we are just about to break out as a team. (Heck I still need to get a doe)
That's a good lookin' buck, Chiro. Well, my buddy finally came through and we now have permission to hunt 40 acres of private land. Lots of tree lines and some of the property is leased to a farmer. The guy's crop is either corn or beans, which is awesome. My buddy is heading out tomorrow to scout it and we should be in a tree within the week. Really stoked! Hope everyone is well and wasn't affected too much by the storm.
Things are definitely heating up. From May through October I only had one buck on trail cam. I pulled the card Monday night and there are at least 4 different bucks now visiting the area and I found 3 scrapes. The big bucks still haven't come through, but I figure it's only a matter of time. There is one mediocre 7 point, but he's not big enough to take yet. I did get a great video of the 7 point and a small 6 point sparring, but I'm having trouble getting it up on youtube. I'll post a link once I get it uploaded, but right now, I'm concentrating on hunting and sleeping.
I finally got on board guys. Check the official scorecard thread for both pics. My buddy and I doubled up tonight. Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2
Update. Nothing yet. I still need to upload the video of the bucks sparring. I've seen a couple little 4 pointers, and had one good size buck come in behind me in the nearly dry creekbed, but I couldn't get a good view of him due to all the honeysuckle. He took a drink in some standing water and headed the opposite way. If he'd come in maybe 15 more yards I could have known whether or not he was a shooter. Still no shooters on camera. I've been hearing the blue jays from the same area every morning and night, but it's unfortunately across the creek and there's no real access to it. I can get over there now with a dry creekbed, but the banks are cut really steep and it would be a real pain to drag a deer back across the creek. I walked up the creek about noon today just to see what I could find and saw quite a few tracks through there. I also found a field edge scrape and a rub near a well used trail into the woods. Biggest problem is the honeysuckle bush is so thick in this area that it's tough to find any shooting lanes if I do put a stand up. But, it's a pretty good funnel spot, so I'm considering moving my stand tomorrow if I can find a good tree. Might take the machete with me to hack out some honeysuckle for a shooting lane or two, if I decide to make the move. Not sure how that would affect deer movement through there for the next few days, though.
That's a tough call, CPT. I guess if you're able to trim without any legality issues, then do it. I doubt it would make too much of a difference to the deer unless you're planning on trimming a ton of branches. Maybe moving your stand may be the simple answer but it sounds like it will be a pain dragging deer out. Good luck.
Well another dead morning, squirrels and birds were moving, there was a turf war going on between blue jays 10 yards from my stand, but nothing again, checked my cam, nothin but a really small spike on it all week, and nothing on my other cam, its like they just decided to up and disappear :-/....
I know the feeling chiro. I saw nothing yesterday. Haven't checked the cam yet to see if they're moving at night due to bright moon. I woke up this morning, got showered and dressed, started to walk out the door and discovered it was raining. Looked at weather.com to see forecast of rain all day long, with thunderstorms for a couple hours later in the morning and rain dying off later in the evening. Opted to go back to bed. Woke a couple hours later to gray skies but no more rain. Go figure, the weatherman got it wrong. I have a date tonight so decided to straighten up the house a bit just in case I can bring her back here. However, I plan to get up dark and early (good old daylight saving time change) and hit it fresh tomorrow morning. Probably should have gone out and cleared some shooting lanes in the other area this afternoon, but I think I'll wait till Tuesday afternoon to do that now. I'll be hunting all day tomorrow and Mon, then can only hunt Tues morning, won't hunt at all Wed, then will be back at it all day Thurs, with a morning hunt Fri, nothing Sat, then all day again Sun and Mon. After that, it will just be weekend and holiday hunts for the rest of the season, unless I opt to work 6 to 2:30 and get in an afternoon hunt here and there.
Took the plunge today and bought a decoy. I've seen a big buck crossing the field several times, but he won't ever come into the area where I'm sitting. He just looks over at my spot when I grunt or wheeze, but refuses to change direction. I set up a different stand on a field edge, 30 yards from a scrape and between 2 trails, but he still avoids the area. There aren't any trees where he goes in and out, just hoeysuckle bushes. I'm hoping the decoy will change his mind. Bought a buck decoy, but if that doesn't work, I'll take the antlers off so it looks like a doe. The buck I'm after should easily score 150, and I'm hoping for 170. I'll post a link to last year's youtube video when I'm home later if I can't get it to post from my phone. Edit: Here's the video from last year. I haven't gotten a video or pic of him this year, but I've seen him walking in the field. And here's another one I'd be very happy with:
Here are a couple videos from this year. Here is a closeup of the biggest buck I have on trail cam so far. However, I've seen a MUCH bigger buck out in the field. Here is the above buck sparring with a smaller buck I'll get a couple night time videos uploaded of these two checking out a scrape with a dripper over it
Here are the night time videos. The 6 pointer works over the scrape pretty hard. 7 pointer first. You can stop watching at 30 seconds. And now the 6 pointer
Good Luck Captain! Last weekend was very strange for me - hunting both mornings and only saw 2 does running full speed (obviously spooked)...in my best stand in Nov...I'm guessing bright nights still hurting morning hunts. Monday is the dark moon - rut should be full blown next week - hope to get out a couple times. I'm promise I'll get some points for our team at some point
Nice videos captain! Good luck getting one of them down. I agree with next week and the dark moon. I'll be out Friday of this week, possibly Sunday and hopefully 3 times next week. Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2
Love the videos, Cap. You've got some great deer within grasp. Well, I'm heading out tomorrow early for an all day hunt on private land. We're going to set up along the treeline facing into the corn and bean fields. Didn't have enough time to scout better, but I'll be dropping BuckBomb all over the place and hopefully the corn having just been cut and grunting will bring in a decent buck. Fingers crossed.
