Yea, central Ohio. One buck and depending on county up to 3 does I think. My county is 1:1, but I hunt 1:2 counties as well. Tonight produced 2 does, 2 bucks.... nothing worth shooting. Tried to get my grandfather his first bowkill but neither buck worked close enough to him. Made a mock scrape and set a camera on a very active buck travel corridor so hopefully when I get back there I can see what's making all the rubs and scrapes. This is a new property I picked up this past Saturday and I know nothing about it yet!
Ya I am going to go for a walk perhaps later today. See what I see. I went duck hunting today, got my 6. Can't hunt this evening, but will have time for a walk.
Whats going on! How is the hunting? Any body close this past week to punching a tag? I have been busy with the sell of my house and moving all week, but I am done now and this move will free up a lot of time for me to go hunting a lot more!
I haven't even gone in the deer stand yet. I usually don't get super excited for it until later in the year. Usually Halloween is when things heat up in my property. It's the same time every year. I try to hunt very little before. If I go up north though I'm always with my bow and sit every chance I have. I've just been on the water. Got 5 Canadians today. I feed my dog raw meat so he was super excited to have some goose rather than the usual chicken.
Hitting the woods in the morning the high is going to be 60 tomorrow so maybe maybe the deer will be moving good Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Got in the stand late this morning and got beat by what looked to be a possible shooter based off my trail cam. Pics weren't real good but he looked mid/high 30's. Another 10 has showed up that I saw opening night sparing with a buck. This is a brand new farm so I have NO history or idea what the deer are doing, just hunting based off aerials and wind. Still waiting for something BIG but will probably settle for a decent deer (mid 30's and up) so I can get out and duck hunt more with the dogs and new boat. The 10
I got out tonight for the first time since opening weekend but I didnt see anything. I forgot to bring my extra SD card so I couldnt switch out the trail cam card but judging by how much water was gone out of the barrell I am guess that there have been a lot of deer there over the last week. I will check the card tomorrow. I plan on hunting tomorrow afternoon.
Last year was the first year that I tried it. There isnt any water source near the land and I kind of figured that was why I wasnt seeing any deer on this property. A friend of mine suggested it and it has worked great. Last summer I didnt have much time so didnt check it very often, but when I filled it up in mid to late Sept they drank it dry in 3 days and i had 99 pics of deer in one week on my trail cam. The deer that I got last year 1.5 year old 7 pointer came right into the water bucket and got a drink and I shot it after it left. It works great in Sept and Oct but it is usually frozen over In Nov. It is completely legal. This summer I made sure that the barrel was always full and the camera had good batteries. Here is a pic of the deer I got last year. I will post a few more but I have having some issues with my computer right now.
So I guess its a early season thing and that's it. Cause here by mid November it would be a brick. Although I guess by then you should get it done anyways. I might try it. I went for a walk this morning and was a little disappointed. The grass and trees had so much growth its incredible. We had more snow then ever last winter, this entire summer was very wet!!! So the grass and under brush is so over grown I couldn't even go 50 yards into the trails I had previously cut. I'm having some issues and am driving myself nuts. Here take a look at the aerial of my property and let me know what you would do. I'll also give some stories and narration along the way. Here is the map. Hope you guys can offer some suggestions. Ok So you can see in the south west corner is my 4 acre lot. In that back corner which I circled in orange, is my 3/4 acre food plot. It has clovers, brassicas, beans, and piles of corn on it. This year is its last year before I completely re do it, so deer have not been on it as much. And again with all this rain I'm sure the woods are full of natural food source. You can see the one red dot on the edge of the plot. That's my elevated box blind I just built, I previously had a stand there which I have taken deer from. If you look slightly east of there, you will see another red dot. That's a stand on the edge overlooking into a deep valley. Right behind the first tree line there is a heavy slope downwards into like a hole. This hole is where I walked into today. Its cleared of some trees so plenty of shooting lanes, but now not until November when all the grass starts to fall, way to high. I set up that stand last year thinking I would see the deer in there before coming to the plot, I know they stage up in there. Last year I never really hunted my property hard as I had a different farm to hunt at. That pink line I drew is the transition between the old hard wood forest and the thick evergreen planted forest. The southern part is the thick overgrown, planted every green bush. Its planted about 35 years ago and is THICK! Those purple lines are trails I cut to the transition points. Hoping to attract deer in. Those two blue circles would be the two water sources in the area. Now this pic is out of date but if you look to the far east there looks like a square made out of a trail. That square is now a planted bush as well, super thick! I have seen does along the trail in between that small bush and the major bush. Ok that's the lay of the land. Here are my problems. The neighbour to the south east is the owner of this forest. You can see his house and barn there. I have permission to hunt the property. BUT, the neighbour to the north west is a horse farm. They have permission to ride through. Now there only trail is simple, its on that north east field you can see the trails, and it runs across the top of the map to that square bush I pointed out, and they go back. The land owner simply asked me to avoid them, because there all city slickers boarding there horse and my neighbours. And if they see me in camo with a bow they might just lose their minds. So to avoid conflict I agreed. So I can't use that north east field to get into my spots. Really my only access is my corner. Or if I go into the land owners field and go in somewhere over there. Here is a bigger issue now. I have come to the conclusion that the yellow circle I created is a bedding area. Here are some old pics showing the movement on one buck. I have more recent ones but not on my photo bucket. This camera is set up just inside the bush line behind my plot. And always early morning pics that deer travels to the left, and he has no where else to go but to bed in that corner where I made the yellow circle. Otherwise he is going into a open field with horses and barns. And night time pics he goes to the right, which would be out towards the hardwoods. I get them on the plot usually at night, but does will come out in evening or early morning. So ultimately I only hunt evenings on the plot right now as I know mornings I would spook them away. Please give me some ideas! what would you do to get another stand location, or a morning spot? This is my home property, I have been here for 4 years now. I have taken 2 does and 1 young buck. All bigger bucks have been on properties I have had permission one else where and going north to the public land. We lost our last year spot and now this year I didn't get anything, so my only local agriculture hunting is here. Hopefully I didn't blind you with all the reading
Well sorry I haven't been responding so fast. The college classes I'm taking are kicking my butt. Anyway, I will be back out in the stand tonight, hopefully can get something on the ground!
Chago- If you can hunt everything pictured, I would have a stand on the south point of that north pond. Just west of the red tree in the pic. Hunt it with any southern wind. I'd have several stands positioned for each wind honestly. I like where the pink line and purple line almost connect, deer like the path of least resistance. Also I would look at the transition between woods 20 yards offset on each side looking for parallel trails that bucks will cruise. It all boils down to access points. Some of my properties have rockin areas but you cant access them without bumping deer so you have to be cautious and sit on the outskirts. I would dive in mid Oct and FIND where they are bedding, use the wind in your face and actually bump them. Bump them softly and transition stands around those bedding areas that you can get in/out quietly. If you find a doe bedding area remember it for the rut and hunt the down wind sides of them. If your looking for buck beds think like him! More than likely your walking right past him... he's positioned himself that way so he knows when its safe to get up to feed. He usually bedded with the wind at his back and using his eyes to watch the danger area. Also where theres elevation changes, bucks like to travel 1/3 of the way down from the peak, the winds tend to swirl there and as thermals drop he can smell both sides of the hill while only traveling one and not at the peak where he can be seen. Hope some of this helps....
Rut in great tips. Unfortunately that pond is probably a no go. Believe me I have been so tempted. But that's where that horse trail goes. Ultimately later season no one is ever there. These lawyers and doctors don't want to give the butler a day off and leave there condos to come up here and ride in the cold wind and snow. So I probably could set up there. The transition is exactly where I want to be. Maybe more to the east side of it. During hunting season west and north winds are 80% of the time. Rarely will you see a east wind and usually when you do a storm is a brewing. And south wind, that only happens in a Canadian winter when we have that weird warm weather. And is usually heavy winds. Warm front meets cold front type stuff. I'm going to take your advice and try to stir things up in another week or so. Going to just March around and see what sign I find, hopefully it's more manageable by then to get thru. I've been here for a few years but besides trail cameras I really haven't out a whole lot of effort in to learnig the bush as I've had better farms every year. So this year I need to set this place up as I have no where else. And that being said every year from Halloween thru November I have 5-7 150+ deer show up on camera.
Another 50 for us! Took what I thought was a doe just before 7mm tonight, ended up being a button buck. 50 points and some tender backstraps!
I appreciate it guys. Feels good to finally get on the board. Season has been in a month and haven't had the time I would have liked to spend in the woods so far. Now that I have 1 under my belt it's time to sit back and wait for 1 of my 2 hit list bucks to come in.
Congrats! I hunted Saturday and Sunday morning. Passed up plenty of doe waiting for something with bone. I'll be back out Wednesday morning. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk
Sorry I haven't been on here in awhile. Last week was my hunting week down in Ohio and I had no service. I will tell you all about the hunt tomorrow when I have time. I'm at a star bucks on the Wisconsin border doing my grad class online at the moment. Here's what you need to know for the time being. Add 92 1/2 points to our total. I shot a nine pointer on my last evening hunt. He grossed 93 1/2 and his net by my calculation is 92 1/2.
