Days Five and Six

Day Five
Unbelievable. So the wind switches completely opposite so Tuesday morning it's out of the northwest, which means I'm not going back the blind that gave me the encounter the night before with the big 8. I'm pretty bummed. Shaun wants me to sit in a stand that he's "... hardly seen anything in." Great. I reluctantly agree and sit find my way through the dark, only guided by oral directions from the truck a half mile back. "I'll find it.", I figured. Eventually I did. I slipped into the blind and noisily started my sit. It was going to be another all day hunt. At about 8:30 I saw two yearling does and then about ten minutes later they went back where they came from (I didn't put this together in my head until later that night). After that, I did not see one deer until four o'clock. A doe and a fawn came from my left and walked across in front of me at about 110 yards (again not piecing this together). A short while later a lone doe came from my right and walked up against the face of the hill across from me and stood there for what seemed like forever. She was staring to my left (the west) behind the brush. Then she stared into the brush, then back, then back, and again. All of a sudden I heard a loud grunt come from the brush so I reached for my rifle. With my rifle out the window, I see a doe come out of the woods going left to right on the same trail as the previous doe and fawn (110 yards). I'm watching her watching her expecting to see the buck come behind her. I raise my binoculars to look closely at the doe's tarsal glands, and when I lowered them, I saw the buck tearing up the hill towards the first doe. By the time I got him in the scope, my crosshairs couldn't catch up to him and they were gone. Dang. He was really wide, really heavy, and a definate shooter. I stayed quiet and saw a spike come out that had broken one antler off, and a button buck that was grunting, it was pretty funny. Lots of action, just within the last 40 minutes of light. I leave the blind and pack up my stuff and I get back to the road and after I cross the fence, I feel my chest and realize I dropped Shaun's cell phone. Well I figured I'd go tell the guys in the truck first before we go backtracking. As I get to the truck, still frustrated with my missed opportunity, I peek into the bed of the truck and sure enough, there's a buck... wait, two bucks in the back! I couldn't believe it. Just then Joe goes, "Check out the drops!". Double droptine 10 point (12 total). Seriously unreal. Shaun's buck was a very respectable 125-130" 8 point. So Joe's on cloud 9, as he should be, and then I tell them we nearly had a triple. My heart still drops when I picture that buck running up the hill away from me with his nose in the air. Dang, Bill. Well, the wind stayed the same, so I am determined to sit there again. We got Joe's prize all caped out, gutted, skun, and Shaun's too. To listen to Joe retell the story is priceless and so I won't cheapen it by blogging about it.
Day Six
So I wake Shaun up. Joe, of course, is sleeping in this morning. Well-deserved, I might say. I get dropped off and I hike my way to the same blind in hopes of getting another crack at this wide heavy buck. By the way, the night before we had Richard (Shaun's neighbor) cape Joe's buck. I was telling him the story of the buck I got a glimpse of and he said, "I know that deer. That's a book deer." And to hear Richard say that means that he's had several good looks at that buck. Our descriptions lined up and so my adrenaline is off the charts as I sneak into the blind. 7:08am I'm hunkered down and quiet. I saw deer every hour, making 12 before noon, including one little fork. It got slow after 1:20pm until about 3:10ish. This yound doe was walking around trying to get a drink from the frozen slough. She walked behind some trees and rubbed her hocks together and peed. She started getting figitty and she bounced down the hill towards me a bit. Sure enough, here comes a buck. My rifle is already out the window at this point (I told myself no more binoculars). Through the scope it was obvious this was not the buck from the night before, but he was nice. A big 8 point. 10-11" G2s, 9" G3s, narrow, but pretty heavy. Probably gross high 140s. I decide that there's only one day after this, so I'm gonna shoot. I bring my crosshairs to his chest and baaa so he'll stop. On a dime, he yanked his head up. Bang! He ran up the hill like he was late for a meeting. I did not feel good about that. At this point it's about 3:40pm. I've gotta go check to see if there's blood. I'm skeptical. I hike over there and sure enough I find hair. lots of short white hair. Briskut. I shot low. No blood. So I head back to the blind because I've still got an hour before dark, but I didn't see any deer. Tonight the wind has changed again, which puts me in a predicament. Back to the Dead End Blind? We'll see in the morning. Canadian weather forcasts have been worse than the U.S.'s so far, if you can believe that. I'm ticked, but at least it was a pretty clean miss. He might feel a draft.

Alberta - Day Four

Well, Shaun wanted to put me in what he calls the "Dead End Blind". So that is where I sat. All day. From dark to dark. Sun-up to sundown. I saw lots of deer (probably 15ish). The very first thing I see was a coyote. I should've shot him, but again, Shaun's pretty adiment about not shooting in areas that you're trying to hunt deer. Anyway, about a half hour later I saw a doe and two fawns, but they shortly disappeared. I saw a bunch of muley does followed by a fork. Then I saw a little 8 point whitetail working his way down the ridge across from me. To set the scene, I was on one side of this very large pond and there were hills on all sides, mostly covered with popples and willows. The pond was freshly frozen over and had a minimum of 6 muskrats milling about. Joe would've been out of ammo had he been sitting there. I had to step out of the blind to stretch and pee so I crept down behind the ridge I was sitting on and peed in a cows hoof print. The wind was strong and in my favor, so I wasnt too concerned about stinking up the place, even though Shaun insisted I bring a pee bottle. So back into the blind at about 11am. I am determined to stay vigilant. Not too long after getting settled again, I picked out the two fawns from before chewing on some saplings without their mother. After watching them for about 15 minutes, they moved behind a small hill and out of sight. about 12:10pm I saw two tails running away from me up the big hill in the woods. I quickly raised my binoculars and in runs two more deer. It's a buck and a doe. It takes a few seconds to get a good look at the buck and I realized I wanted to shoot. He was about 230 yards and in some brush. I reach to bring up my gun and as I glanced back at the deer, I saw him chase the doe up the ridge and out of sight. I didn't even get to put him in the scope. Aarrrgggh. In my binoculars I could see long G2s, really good mass, and he was chocolate. mmmm. I never saw him again for the rest of the day even though my contacts just about peeled off my eyes I was watching so intently. I saw a few other and a few of the same deer second and third times, but no new bucks. I'm going to sit there again all day in hopes of a decent shot. I know he's there. So I'll be ready. I'm rough guessing him at 145 as an 8 point, but he could have more points, I couldn't really tell. We'll find out when I blister him.

Alberta - Days Two and Three

Day Two

We woke up about 5:30 and decided to act on some advice from wise neighbor. A couple people had been seeing a 13 point in the same spot right at daybreak for a couple of days. We figured we see if he was worth shooting. So we sort of sacrificed a morning of sitting to see if Joe could get a crack at this buck. Well as luck would have it, we saw him, but at about 730 yards. A bit too far to take a shot, even for Joe. We drove off hoping that he'd continue crossing the field, maybe offering us a better shot. He didn't. Otherwise, we didn't see too much movement that morning. So we went back to the neighbors and discussed it all. That evening Shawn and Joe dropped me off where a few 'frenchmen' had seen a really big buck, but they couldn't tell if it was a muley or whitetail because they can only tell by its butt. Anyway, I sat for an hour or more before the first deer poked out. It was a young 4x5 muley. He walked down the fenceline, looking for a good place to cross. He crossed at about 175 yards. After another hour, a muley doe and fawn came out of the same side crossed the fence into stubble wheat field. Finally as light was starting to fade I caught some movement in the same area. Another muley doe squirted out of the woods with her ears back. She didn't even slow down until she was out of my sight behind the next hill. Sure enough, right behind her was a nice 5x5 buck. He was following her pretty close. He had pretty average character, with all slightly above average measurements. He would probably gross in the 170s-180"s. To end my evening, a little whitetail buck came beneath me by the fenceline, but never crossed into the field. He just sort of watched the muleys (which I couldn't see from that angle) and waited - probably until there were a few more whitetails in the field. I snuck out of there in case there were more deer I needed to get a look at that came out without me knowing. There wasn't.

Day Three

This morning we overslept a little bit. I threw together some bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches and we high-tailed it out of the house. Shaun and Joe dropped me off on this canola field that over looks a big slough. I saw lots of deer movement, but only two little yearling bucks were in range. I bet I saw over 25 deer, but most were at 1,200 yards or more. Still, it was good to see that the deer are starting to move or are moving into the morning hours a bit. The land where all these deer were meandering was private and well-known for 'no hunting'. Oh well. It looked like the deer knew that too. While I was sitting, some dohon drove his truck right through the field, parallel to where I was facing. He stopped to look over this hill and when he turned his truck off, I whistled at him. He cussed and drove over to me and apologized. I told him not to worry and off he went. As I thought Shaun and Joe were probably on their way back, I got up to leave. Here the guy came again to look for deer! What an idiot! It's not that often that I get worked up, but I was getting frustrated with this snaggle-toothed intruder. Anyway, got back to Shaun's, had some juice and a good little nap.

This evening Tyson (Shaun's friend) and I went to the other side of this monster slough in hopes of catching some of the same deer coming back up. We watched 30+ deer way across the slough and a quarter over from where I was in the morning. Unbelievable. I bet I watched four buck chasing does that were 2.5 or older. One was for sure a shooter, but again, only 1200 yards away. At dusk we saw two coyotes at 200 yards. I wanted to shoot, but I refrained. They want to do as little shooting as possible over there. Whatever. Shaun and Joe finally saw some deer tonight and got a glimpse of a borderline shooter, but he didn't present a shot for Joe. Hopefully tomorrow there will be some powder burnt.

Alberta - Day One

After all sorts of chaos early thursday morning, we finally touched down in Edmonton in anticipation of seeing and hoping to get a crack at some of the biggest whitetails Joe and I had even laid eyes on. Mrs. Blackwood picked us up and off we went, stopping at Walmart to pick up my tag. Joe needed my friend Shaun (Joe's hunter host) to be present in order to get his tag. We arrived at the farm and the wind was absolutely howling. We hopped in the farm truck and took a quick loop around the section and still managed to see a couple bucks with their noses to the ground. Oh the excitement of estrous. We laid out our stuff and set my alarm for 4:55am. Morning came fast and I woke up Shaun way too early (not wanting to be late again). We scarfed some eggs and bread and hiked into a place Shaun had been scoping out for a few days. Well, with three grown men, two of which were wearing Carhartt bibs, it was simply too much noise to sneak in. We spooked one doe and that was it. We tried rattling a bit, but to no avail. We headed into town and picked up Joe's tag and got some Subway and eventually took a few minutes to make sure the guns were on. Then we split up - Joe and Shaun and me by myself. Joe and Shaun didn't see much for deer: one little 6 point and a few does. I saw a bunch of deer: 4 or 5 different bucks (the biggest being around P&Y) and a bunch of does still with their fawns. The bucks didn't seem all that interested in the does yet. They nudged them around a bit, but it looks like we're still a good week away from the rut. But, we'll keep at it. All in all, day one was good. There are lots of bucks around and Shaun's got permission on some choice places. I can't wait to see what Joe's gonna pull the trigger on. Stay tuned for day two.

Minnesota Rifle Season

My season is cut severly short by me taking a trip to Wetaskiwin, Alberta in pursuit of a "real" buck. Never-the-less, I thought it would be beneficial to log my hours in the field for 2008.

Opening Day: Steph and I sat on top of the hill in the groundblind in hopes of seeing a doe in heat or one of the bucks for her to shoot. We sat uncomfortably until about 9:30 and headed back to the cabin. Steph sat tight and warmed up and I ventured out to my ladder stand from about 10:30 to 12:30 without seeing a deer. There was a few fresh rubs, a wolf-kill, and a couple of fresh tracks. It snowed friday. I made a loop around the strips, brought steve out to my stand, put out some molassess, moved the trail camera, put out some buck jam in the shack field, and switched the memory card in mom and dad's Cuddeback. Steph and I went back to the groundblind and sat until dark. Zero deer for opening day. Mom saw a few does and fawns and a spike, dad saw a few deer too. Steve saw nothing during his one day season.

Sunday, Nov 9: Church in the morning and then rehearsal with Bob and it was back out to the woods. We sat at the 90 back in the cedars northwest of the landing. There was a few scrapes made the week before on the south trail, but not a peep. Zero deer for day two.

Monday, Nov 10: I grabbed my groundblind and headed to the refuge. Steph walked down to the shack with dad going to his stand. After getting set up in a completely unscouted place, I rattled and grunted once at about five minutes to seven, I saw a deer crossing the canada pasture from east to west. Looked to be a doe. After her I saw a second deer that was obviously a buck. He looked pretty good. 120s-130s? He was pretty heavy and narrow. I didn't want to shoot him in Canada, so I waited to see if he'd cross the border strip. I held my scope on the strip waiting and he didn't cross when I expected him to so I looked out of my scope. I heard a loud skid and crash through the ice. Then he started blowing. I don't know if it was another deer that was blowing or if it was him. Regardless, I should've stepped out of the ground blind for the shot. I was sitting too low. The cattails were too tall and I missed my chance. Crap. I saw one doe behind me before this and then I eventually saw another doe by itself go from south to north. Then I went back to the hill and went down to get Steph out of the shack. We both went back and sat on the border in the refuge in hopes to see another buck. We did see one deer (doe) cross really quickly. We could barely see it the grass was so high.

Tuesday, Nov 11: I don't know why I had my mind so fixated on hunting that same border spot. I guess nobody was seeing many deer at all at the hill, so I wanted to find a spot that I didn't think other people would be hunting at the refuge. Anyway, I sat and saw one little buck and again, he crossed so fast, I don't think I would've been able to take a shot if I wanted to. I packed it all up and came back to the hill for a bite to eat and then I went out to my ladder. I sat from 12:30pm until dark. It was about 4 and half hours of nothing and then finally I heard a crunch over my left shoulder. I knew that I would need to stand up in order to take a shot. As I stood up I thought I spooked her cause she took off running a few more steps. I thought I blew it. Then she stopped and I heard more footsteps from the same direction and then a loud grunt. This quickly painted the picture of what was going on. Buck chasing doe. Perfect. I got my gun up immediately. I saw the doe jump through the tiniest opening, so I put my gun on the branch and tried to get the opening in my scope. I waited patiently, safety off and finger on the trigger. I wasn't going to mess this up again. The buck took a couple steps and stopped what must have been just shy of the opening. I took my eye out of the scope to look what was going on, and I saw the dirty bugger scurry across the opening. I missed my shot so I grabbed my grunt call and let 'em have it. Nothing. I was so ready for the steps to turn and come in my direction. Instead there was a sound coming from the place I first heard the deer. Coming around some brush and skirting me, I lost him. Finally, I hear a twig snap right in front of me coming close. Stopped behind a tree, I thought to myself that this was it, this was the same big buck. Nope. He moved and revealed his two year old head. 7, 8, 9, I dont know how many points he had, but he was not the buck I hoped for. So I tried to relax and take in the show. The hot doe was long gone, but this buck didn't care. He was stupid. I grunted as loud as I could at him at 15 yards, he froze and didn't move until I snort-wheezed at him. Entertaining at least.

Now, it's off to Albert - the land of giants. My hopes are through the roof. Stay tuned, I'll write in a week or less.

The Pre-Rifle Season

Well, Steph and I sat last night in the same tree I killed my buck last year. With hardly any light left we heard grunting and a few deer milling around. I grunted back at him and eventually he turned and came towards us. I could only see a silhouette it was so dark. He stopped at about 40 yards and would not come any closer. He started making a scrape and raking a branch overhead. It was pretty frustrating to be able to hear that and not even see the buck. The real bummer is that Rifle Season opens in four days and there's no chance to get back in there and hunt before the chaos unfolds. Oh well. I guess we'll have to wait.

As far as patterning deer, the day after my last post, I checked my one trail camera I put over a scrape and got some immediate results. Seven different bucks were using it. We found the scrape on the 4th of October (six days after the new moon) and at that point, it was already fairly well used. The majority of the pictures went until the 10th or so (almost two weeks after the new moon). Then there was a big lull in getting photos. The nights of the 27th, 28th, and 29th brought two of the three bigger bucks around again. The October new moon was also the 28th, so that could have something to do with it, but the other bucks did not come back through the 3rd of November when I took the camera down. I need to spend Monday over there walking and scouting for the newest sign.

Bucks were out last night nudging the does around in the fields, which means there are a few about to come into heat. The first bucks I saw nudging does was on the night of the 27th and the morning of the 28th. Both were young bucks, but it was promising that we were about two weeks away. Now, one week away in most places. November 11th is usually the peak by our hunting land, but more like the 13-16 at the refuge.

I've only seen a couple new rubs as most are made in pursuit of does not ready to be bred yet. So Im guessing they're making some right now, but this next week will be the beginning of a lot.

I need to piece together some the bucks at the hill. their range seems so irratic.

Rifle Season is at our doorstep. I'm anticpating a lot of young buck activity, but I think I can change that.