Well another PA archery season has come and gone and for the second year in a row my buck tagged remains unfilled. I spent over 100 hrs on stand and really never got close to taking a mature PA buck. The frustrating part, was that for the first time ever that we have hunted this property (over 20 yrs) we had 3 mature bucks, that we KNEW called this place home. They were seen over the summer, and during the season(not by me). I had 2 "glimpses" of likely looking shooters and that was it. There is more big buck sign on the property than I have ever seen in one place, EVER. Rub after rub on trees bigger than my arm. And I couldn't even manage to see one. The place wasn't over hunted, (not all my hours were here). My Dad saw all 3 bucks, and had chances to kill 2 of them, but he botched both, never even getting shots off. He's old and doesn't like to any farther from the cars than he has to. And hardly ever gets up a tree anymore. I think I may have to step back and completely re-evaluate things. This has left me rather frustrated.
I know exactly what you mean Ryan, this season was just tough. Mine was a bit different in that I didn't see many good bucks in my pre-season scouting but I did see three different 8 points that were 3.5 years old, even had one at 30 yards but just couldn't seal the deal. I did find a couple new spots for treestands for next season. This year finally helped me figure out where and why the deers patterns in these woods have entirely changed since 2006. Atleast you can look on the bright side, you smoked a brute out in Ohio. P.S. Send me a message when you are taking him to Ron's if you havn't already, I wanna stop over and check him out!
I Agree that dad probably isn't doing you any favors but I highly doubt he is the reason you didn't get a sniff.......sometimes the deer win. You drilled a beauty in Ohio and have had some pretty sweet success in PA recently as well........I wouldn't go re-inventing the wheel just yet
I don't think ol Dad did anything to hurt my chances. He maybe hunted all of 5-6 times and like I said, sat in the EASIEST places to get to right near the road. Yet he was the one to see the bucks. Go figure. I guess I just feel I was handed a golden opportunity with good bucks on my home turf and did NOTHING with it. I don't care that I didn't kill one of them, I care that I didn't at least see them.
You and me both! I have three KILLER spots for next year, from observations on stand this year....definately getting the travel routes down pat for this place. Of course, I still have 2 full months to go, so I am still in the green as far as a chance at a buck goes.:d
WOW, you have one short season... Or does MN have a really long one? We can still hunt till the end of the year.
Exactly Ryan! Just because your mature buck sightings were down doesn't always mean It's you. These mature bucks are tough to hunt period!! They win out allot more then we do. Go get him next year!!
