Bow Season Concludes

Bow season concluded Friday, and much like the two previous bow seasons (four if you include my time in Washington hunting elk), I've come up empty handed. That's not entirely unexpected. I knew going into the season that my time would be limited, and you have to put the hours in to have a reasonable chance of getting something. So expectations were low, at least for the archery season.

But once I saw the amount of deer on that tract of private land, my hopes suddenly skyrocketed though it was late in the season. I got that feeling in my stomach that tells me something is about to happen. And it almost did.

First two deer

 On Thursday, I took up my stand in the Southeast corner just before daybreak. Not twenty minutes later I spotted two deer forty yards away moving through the overgrown field adjacent to the property. Although they weren't going to come my direction, I consider any deer movement a good sign, especially when they don't bust you. 

Injured buck and a doe

 About an hour later, an eight point walked into the adjacent cornfield about 150 yards off. I thought he would eventually head my way, but he had a bad limp to him and was laboring hard just to walk. He lay in the field for about twenty minutes, getting up every five minutes or so to walk a couple yards before bedding down again. I thought maybe he was recently shot him and was going to die right there in the field. Eventually, a doe appeared near him and it was apparent from their actions that they were paired up and the doe was in heat. 

My best chance

About half an hour after the buck and doe left the field, I turned to see a four point about ten yards off and a doe about fifteen yards off. Even with my movement, they didn't spook. So long as the buck kept ambling about, he was bound to walk through one of my shooting lanes. Then both deer suddenly jerked their heads to the direction of the field. I couldn't move my head to see what they were looking at, but I suspected it to be another hunter, possibly trailing what I thought was that wounded buck. When I finally got my head turned, I saw that another doe had entered the field exactly where the previous buck and doe had lingered. 

Well, the excitement of another doe proved too much for the four point. In two quick jumps he cleared the woods  and made a straight line for that doe, who quickly scattered into the other woods at the sight of the buck. The other doe headed back from the direction she came. And that was that. 

The four point returns

An hour and a half later, I turned to my backside and there was that four point again standing ten yards off. He had snuck in from the other direction. I needed to get my bow and body square to the buck, which required a near 180-degree maneuver.  I waited for him to go behind a tree and then I made a quick attempt at facing him. He never directly caught the movement or pegged me, but he knew something wasn't right. He made two quick leaps away before walking off slowly. 

Almosts and the pair

And that was that. I almost called in another doe and the wounded buck and doe would reappear again in the same spot at 2PM and 4PM. Apparently, the buck was not fatally injured. 

On Friday, I switched stands, but nothing walked by. Other appointments called to me, and bow season was over at noon Friday. 

Next year, I suppose. 

Hunt Results 11/13/2012

In short, I saw over fourteen deer yesterday. That's an astronomical figure in my book, and the hope is that seeing that many deer would actually equate to taking at least one of them. But no. Didn't even manage a shot. 

Here's what happened:

- Winded by about ten deer that were feeding in a field and working their way towards me. No big surprise here. The wind and my scent were blowing right in their face. See what I learned for further explanation.

- Busted by four deer due to movement, sort of. The first three deer literally busted out of some cover. By the time I noticed them, they were five yards from me. That's too late when you're on the ground, and I was never able to turn for a shot. They got nervous but never winded me or spotted me. They were at five yards for about ten minutes. 

- Once they busted, I decided to re-position myself in the stand. Apparently, another deer had moved in on my other side when the three deer were five yards from me. As soon as I moved, it busted me and took off. 

Here's my thoughts (i.e. lame excuses) on those shortcomings:

- Some shortcomings are inevitable when you switch to a spot mid-season where you have not previously scouted or set stands. That's just the reality of the situation. It's a situation that is still better than hunting public land, but it takes a while to figure a place out. 

- It is infinitely harder to take a deer with a longbow than it is to take one with a compound. At this point, I'm willing to admit that I grossly underestimated just how much more difficult using a longbow would make it. If nothing falls this year, I have to consider switching to a compound. Ugh. It hurts to write that. Forget that thought.

- Hunting from the ground is exponentially harder than hunting from a treestand. Hunting from a treestand negates (for the most part) wind and movement. Make no mistakes about it, something would have hit the ground yesterday if I was hunting from a tree stand. No matter what happens this year, I will seriously consider hunting from a tree stand next year. 

What I Learned:

Yesterday did afford me some valuable insights into how the deer move through that property, and I pretty much have them patterned. There is essentially two groups of deer on the property. One utilizes a bedding area that lies in the middle of the property. My hunch is that they utilize a food source that is off the property, meaning they arrive to the bedding area late in the day (it seems midday). They also just mill around the bedding area and eat from the fields that surround it. But for whatever reason, they don't seem to be there until midday. But I could be wrong on that.

The second group beds off the property and only visits to feed. This group dwells in the far Southwest corner and utilizes a different area than the first (although I'm sure there's some overlap). This is the group of ten that winded me yesterday. I originally thought they were coming from the Southeast, so I set my stand for a Northwest wind. That means when they approached from the Southwest, my scent was directly in their path. I readjusted the stand, but I need a rare eastern, southern, or northeast wind for the set to work. Good thing the wind is predicted to blow from the East this Thursday. I know where I'll be. 

Also, I forgot my camera again. So no pictures. But I'll try to post a aerial of the site as soon as I get the landowners' permission. 



  

430 AM

Skipping classes today and hitting the woods. I probably only have one or two more days to bowhunt before gun season kicks in this Saturday. After that first day of gun season, it becomes exponentially more difficult to take a deer, so I prefer to just get a deer with my bow this week. It would also relieve some pressure and allow me to focus on my studies in the upcoming weeks. 

I plan to pull out all the stops, bringing along the some scents and a pair of rattling antlers, all of which I rarely tinker with. So hopefully today is the day. 

Private Land

(Note: there are no pictures in this post due to a really big buck tricking me into leaving my camera on my truck seat. Yes, they have that effect. I'll try to post pictures later this week).

About a month ago, a very generous friend offered me access to her land. I've been itching to hunt private land since moving to NY three years ago. Still, the timing of the offer was off. School was ramping up, deer season was well underway, and any time spent scouting a new spot and setting stands meant less time hunting the Remote 40 spot I had worked so hard to find over the summer. 

But I'm not dumb. Obtaining permission to private land is probably the single greatest thing you can do to ensure a full freezer. So, in mid-October we did a walk around the property. It's about seventy acres, but only about eight acres are wooded. The rest is agriculture fields, save about five acres of abandoned & overgrown field. The ag fields were harvested, but the farmer had applied a clover cover crop. 

As any hunter worth their salt will tell you, where there is clover there is deer. On the walk around, there was plenty signs of deer, but most of the rubs were a year old and the main trails were in wet areas, which makes it difficult to tell just how much the deer are actually using them. Plus, the land surrounding the property was almost entirely cornfields and they had already been harvested. 

Here was my initial thought process:

1) Clover = Deer
2) No cover (due to harvested cornfields) = Nocturnal Deer
3) Damn. Life story. Day late and a dollar short. No point hunting nocturnal deer. 

Well, I returned today (as should be readily apparent from the lack of posts, school has won the annual college vs. hunting bout, as it usually does). Not that I'm still not buried in work, but I had an itch to go hunting.

Here's a timeline of today's events:

2:00 -  Arrive

2:02 -  Huge buck standing 150 yards from the house. He's either a really big eight point, or       a big ten or twelve pointer. Big-bodied deer. I decide to try an circle out ahead of him.

2:15 - Forty yards from truck, kick up doe.

2:30 - Decide its best to leave the buck alone and get my stands set. Best not to spook him in some stupid attempt to stalk him. 

2:45 - Reach the back woodlot. It's loaded with about 15 scrapes and countless rubs. Some of the rubs are on trees larger than I can get my hands around. They're high on the tree too. The scrapes are bare of leaves but look a little old. Maybe the rut has passed?

3:00 - Spot deer in field. Move to get a closer look and wind in face.

3:20 - Deer hundred yards off. Wind in face.

3:22 - 3 more deer in field. All does. Decide four pairs of eyes are too much to stalk.

3:45 - Deer leave field. 

3:50 - Another deer appears about 150 yards off. Doe. It leaves within 5 minutes.

4:00 - Set stands at field edge where deer were. More scrapes and rubs. 

4:01 - Kick self for not hunting here all season. Not that I could have due to school work, but what a missed opportunity.

Anyway, now I got a really bad itch to go hunting. Like a drop out of school itch. Due to a design competition and general lackadaisical approach to the semester, I'm behind in just about all my work. 

But here's what they say in the hunting world: You can't eat horns (delete "you" and say it with a country twang for the full effect). 

And here's my rendition:  Can't eat grades. Let's hunt!