Sits # 29, 30, & 31 - Thanksgiving... Thank Goodness The 6x5 Is Alive!

This just in!!! After almost 5 months of complete mystery, the 6x5 showed up 5.5 miles north of where I was getting pictures of him this summer. I can't believe where he showed his face - right in the cedars!
It's either part of his excursion, or he's looking for cover from the cold temps we've been having this week. I'll come back to this.
So I sat on the 20th overlooking the spring again. I saw absolutely nothing until right at last light. I had a deer sneak up behind me and come right under my tree again. I've finally figured out that this is not a coincidence. These deer are trying to use this trail, but they're getting my scent from either where I walked in or from me directly. I'm trying for a south wind, but apparently, these deer want to come in from the north, so it's backwards. I know I need to switch trees now for sure. I need a west to a southwest wind and I need to be more to the east of the spring so the deer that keep coming underneath me don't get my wind. That should fix the problem. Anyway, the deer that I saw was either a female fawn or a doe. There was a bigger deer behind it (I could tell by the stomping that ensued), but I could never get a look. So it was either a doe and a fawn or a buck with a doe. Probably the former.
On the day after Thanksgiving, I went out with Joe and we hunted a place he had a hunch about. We didn't really have an ideal wind to sit in that spot, but we tried it anyway. It was fun to hunt together and play with all our camera gear. Zero deer. That leads me to today, the 27th of November. I tried to get out early enough to check a few cameras. I learned some things again (like I typically do every time I'm out). I pulled both cameras off of John's farm country and put one back on his farmyard. The one in the cedars north of the road had dead batteries. I did get a picture of the same two year old that visited the scrape out by the corn plot from the week before.

I moved a few cameras along the road into the woods to the north in hopes of getting some of these bucks heading out to feed in the fields. After that, I took the wheeler out and checked the shack field camera and then moved on to the camera we set east of dads stand. The shack field had 28 or so photos and the camera to the east had 65 some photos. With the fourwheeler still running, I reviewed the images. I had no plans of hunting around that area that evening so I wasn't concerned with spooking any deer. I flipped through and said to myself, "two year old, two year old, yearling, yearling...".

And then I hit the 25th and got another picture of The King (as I'm calling him). Second guessing that name now. I thought it was a really cool picture.

As I continued to scroll and noticed the date approaching the 27th, I figured that'd be about it. WRONG! The last picture taken was taken only 1 hour and 45 minutes before I got there and it was a giant!

At first, I thought, "Is that blacknose?" As I zoomed in, the dozens of trail camera pictures flashed through my head until I locked in on a buck - THE 6x5! There was no way, I thought, that he would be up here. This camera was 5.45 miles away from where I was getting pictures of him in June and once in July. As I stared at the point and shoot camera, I immediately shut the fourwheeler off. Not like that did anything. It's funny how one picture can change the focus of a whole season. Not only was the buck alive, but he was healthy. The bittersweet reality was also setting in - this was more than likely an excursion and the odds of him coming back through this way were very slim. Regardless, I quickly checked my wildview, which was dead of course, and headed back to the cabin to formulate a plan. The wind wasn't good to sit in my new stand set north of the three corner so I opted to walk past the corner and sit in dad's two man ladder stand. The wind wasn't bad, but it meant I was hoping that the buck bedded up somewhere and would be returning through the same area that evening. Dad's ladder was a good observation stand with good visibility, but I observed nothing. Zero deer, but a lot of hope and wonder. I also am now 90% sure that this buck is NOT Twigs. So that means that Twigs is (or should be) out there still. That also means that this buck isn't for sure a 5 year old. I believe that he is, but there is a small chance he could be just 4. Either way, it looks to me like he would gross in the mid 150s and net somewhere in the high 140s. If these deer have a reasonable winter and spring, this buck could be a booner next year.

My next post will be my 200th. Maybe there will be some blood involved. Hopefully a buck.

Sits # 25, 26, 27, & 28 - Downswing of the Rut

After seeing lots of deer by the spring on Sunday the 11th, I was eager to get back over there with a better wind. Unfortunately, it said that the wind was supposed to be out of the SW, so my plan was to sit NW of the bus. I was also curious to see what was on that camera that I left there for over a week. After getting lost and found again through the maze of blowdowns, I finally made it to the camera at about 3:05pm. I reviewed the pictures and was horribly disappointed to find 4 pictures of two different yearling bucks. What a waste. I pulled the camera and figured I surely wasn't going to be sitting there tonight and so I made the decision to high-tail it over to the spring. Again, on my way over there, I was going so slow and quiet in the spot where I kicked up the buck the night before. I even stopped. Sure enough, I heard a twig snap right next to me. A deer got up and walked away from about 20 yards to 40 and out of sight. I never got to see the deer's head. I proceeded to the stand and on my way up the tree, while still holding on to the tree steps, here comes a doe busting through there and I heard something coming behind her! Oh no, I thought! That would be my luck. Have a bruiser come trotting through when I've got my hands completely tied. Thankfully, it was just a yearling 6 or so. I climbed up and they both just kind of walked off. About an hour later I had two lone fawns come in, I'm thinking it was the doe from before's fawns. At about 4:30pm, I decided to rattle a bit to see if I could stir something up. About 10 minutes later I had another yearling buck, looked like a little fork, came circling in. One thing I have learned already with this stand is that you need a straight wind from the South and it needs to be kind of stiff so it doesn't swirl. The yearling buck picked me off with his nose and calmly trotted out of there. That was it for that night.
The next morning, Tuesday the 13th, I had a south southwest wind and figured I would try it again. I left the truck and it was 6 degrees and I'm sure it dropped after the sun broke the horizon. I was freezing! at about 9:10, I was about to pack it up and climb down and I finally heard a deer coming. I got ready and of course, like always, the deer hung up about 45 yards away without me being able to see it. I always imagine antlers when I can't see the deer. However this time of year, Bucks aren't really calm feeding critters. They are still on a mission. If they're on their feet, they're cruising or following a doe. Sure enough, the deer shows itself and it was a fawn. Shortly after I see its momma. They feed slowly behind me, nipping on the cedar bows. Eventually they got my wind and blew. They didn't leave, although I thought they did. About 10 minutes later, around 9:40am, a lone deer came by at about 70 yards and stopped to browse. I thought it had kept going and wanted to pick up the pace. That could have been a mistake. A) the doe and fawn from before were still downwind of me at about 30 yards and B) the new deer was still out there, she was just not moving. I picked up the rattling antlers and banged 'em together for a while. The doe behind me blew and the other doe took off too. Had I known the new lone doe was still there, I would have given her some time. Who knows what was only a few minutes behind her that eventually may have came in. I scared 'em all away.That was pretty much my morning. It was so cold. I did settle on either switching trees or making sure I have a better wind than a SSW.
Then on Friday morning, the 16th,  I got out south of the landing, thinking Pencil might move into the area sometime soon. Nope. Still haven't gotten any pictures of him worth talking about. I also didn't seen any deer while sitting that morning. However, I did take advantage of an opportunity to hang my cameras out in some farm country where the deer should be congregating a bit. The corn food plot that I figured Pencil was frequenting this fall didn't have one cob of corn left in it by the time deer season came around. Unreal. The main scrape along the wood's edge was worked up after the snow, so I figured I had nothing to lose by tying it for a few days. We'll see how that turns out. I also put a Cuddeback over on the pinch in the creek (where I got some great pictures in 2010). There are two different standing soybean food plots and that pinch in the creek is one of many travel corridors between them, but I think I should pick up a buck or two in there.
I sat this morning south of my permanent stand for the first time ever. I hung a stand in a cluster of cedars on the 17th. I had a doe and a fawn come in from the east this morning and I was ready to shoot the doe, but she never came all the way out. Eventually the wind picked up and they got my scent.
I checked the cameras near there and as of today, the majority of the deer activity has shockingly been near our rifle stands. It's starting to wind down now, but we had a few more pics of bucks during daylight and as this weather warms up, that will probably shut down until it cools off again.

I checked the camera I put back up northeast of Pete's on the logging road, but there haven't been many tracks in there. I had like three pictures in a week, so I moved that camera to where I think three bucks' ranges overlap, right near the road. Last night a friend asked me if I recognized a buck, sure enough it was Bullwinkle. I just about wrote him off as dead. He's either 7 or 8 1/2 years old. That's amazing!
He's a basic 9 point this year with long beams and a solid body. I'd love to shoot him. I'd almost want to shoot him more than some of these other young studs. What an old warrior!

That's all I know for now. I'll try to sit a few more times, but we're running out of good days to be in the woods. This

Rifle Season 2012 - Sits # 22, 23, & 24

Thursday, the 8th of November set me up in the swamp in the ground blind. I sat from about 2:30pm to dark. I haven't seen a deer in either time I've sat there. Odd. When I left I pulled my Bushnell camera and brought it further south because as you just get into the tamarack swamp, there's tons of fresh sign, so I'm thinking the bucks just aren't going that far north. Two major things have changed that has dictated a switch in doe concentrations: 1) Rice's pasture plot is now only a green grass with a hedge of corn that has long been picked over. 2) Larson's have standing soybeans to the south and they're drawing deer in from everywhere. I may leave the swamp alone until late season, or until I see that there's a good reason to be heading in there. I've only had two different two year olds pass by the west camera and before I took the east camera down, I only had Gnarly two times. Everything else was yearlings. Dad saw lots of deer that afternoon. This weather front moved in at about noon and from about 3pm on, dad saw several different bucks. One of which he could have/should have shot.

Friday, the 9th brought me south of the landing as it was supposed to be a NE wind. Once I had sat there for about 30 minutes or so, the weatherman changed his mind and sent the wind from the NNE. Not ideal for that stand. The night before it began this freezing rain episode and after I sat for an hour or two, I got down to find that my camera was not covered in a sheet of ice like another one was, thankfully. When I checked it, I found that the batteries were dead, but the photos showed that on the night of the 8th, Gnarly made it all the way over there.

I later learned after we finally checked mom and dad's camera, that he was all the way to the shack field that afternoon! That may not sound that amazing, but if you had been keeping tabs on this deer, you might be impressed to know that from July to August, Gnarly made a move of almost 2 miles up the creek to the NNW. As if that wasn't enough, after he shed his velvet, he moved another 1.75 miles to the ENE and showed up on my camera. The ironic part of Gnarly's story is that last year, in summer and early fall, he was Pencil's sidekick. So he was probably born up in the NE. More on Gnarly in a second.
So I sat until about 10am. My feet were wet and getting cold. The only explanation for wet feet was sweat that didn't dry in the boot. So I left as much in the tree as I could and walked with just my bow back to my truck. Once I got to my truck I realized that the keys were in my backpack, which was not about 600 yards away. So I texted Zach and he came and picked me up. We took his deer down and got some more pictures of it, scored it, weighed it, and basically did more of an examination of the deer. Kind of a research and educational portion of the hunt. I had a bite to eat and then headed back down to the stand and still could not get fresh batteries for the camera, because they were locked in my truck. I sat from about 1:30 until dark and saw zero deer all day long. Very few deer were seen by anyone on friday. After I got back to my truck, I got batteries and hiked all the way back in there in the dark to change them. You just can't have cameras out there that are not working perfectly.
Saturday the 10th was spent at home in the morning. I texted dad and asked if he had seen any deer. Here's the conversation:

So I texted mom:

Right after I texted her to be "On your toes.", she shot one. Gnarly.
I left home in a hurry to try to get some good photos of the buck for her before they hung it up on the meat pole. The roads were absolutely horrible because of all the freezing rain. I was driving pretty slow and when I slowed way down to turn east at the dead end corner, my truck didn't want to turn. It wanted to park in the ditch. I was able to dodge the sign, thankfully. I eventually made it up there after dad came to pull me out. We snapped some nice pictures of mom's buck and then I was off to finish my errands in town.

Steph had a "scrimmage-fest" and so I brought her money to buy lunch. I was off to the cabin again to hunt that evening. I only sat for probably two hours until dark. As I was getting set up I had yearling 6 sneak up behind me. I'm sure he heard me walk in to my stand but couldn't smell me. He eventually tore out of there. Then as I was packing things up, I had another deer slip into close range.  A little two year old 8. I'm pretty sure it was this buck:

Finally, on Sunday, the 11th of November, we were supposed to have church so we stayed in town and I woke up as normal for church. While eating my cereal, Sheldon called to say that they cancelled church. Side-note - I was trying to make up my mind whether or not to go to the cities for my licensure interview that was set up for monday morning. I would have to leave right after church and drive down.  After Sheldon called to cancel church, that basically made up my mind as to me traveling across the state. I would not be going. Then I was anxious to get up to the hill. But, as seems to happen quite often. We think of a hundred things to do before we can actually get out of the house. We finally got up the cabin and I went out to sit overlooking the spring. I hung that stand in the second half of September and hadn't been back since. I kicked up a nice buck on the way in. That was super. After I crawled in the tree, it wasn't 20 minutes when I had a doe and two fawns come in and get downwind of me. They took off. Then I had a yearling buck (the thick spork) come in and make a scrape and circle around me and I grunted at him and he just hung around. He really wanted to know what was going on.  Then near the end, I had 4 deer come right under my tree. There were 3 adult does and one yearling. I was certain there would be a buck with them. Nothing. I still have high hopes for that spot. It needs more of a south wind to be most effective. There's another tree over about 25 yards that would be another good spot with a southwest or west wind. The other tree was used a few years ago as a hunting spot and has a shooting lane or two already trimmed. Mom took a shot at a fawn at about 10 after 5 on Sunday evening. Dad also shot at a buck just before lunch that he neglected to tell me about. He said it was limping pretty bad. I might go look for birds in a couple days.

So that wraps up the 2012 Zone 2 Rifle Season. Not much to say. I think Pencil survived (as far as I know), I think PegLeg and Blacknose survived. Chippy did not. I figured out that Warren shot Chippy. It took a few minutes of staring at his buck for it to click, but it's definitely him. What a jump he made.

Pitchfork got shot, but there still should be several middle aged bucks that made it through the season. As far as we know, Crab 10 lives on.
My hunting is not over. I would like to kill something - and fairly soon. It'd be nice to just concentrate on wolf hunting.

Rifle Season 2012 - Sits # 19, 20, & 21

On Monday the 5th, I worked in the morning and headed up to the cabin after lunch. I had a SW wind and so I headed for the stand set by the softball diamond. Everything was going great, but as it got closer to primetime, so did the hunters begin to appear. I had at least three vehicles drive by and finally, the last one dropped a guy off. He sat where he was dropped off for about 10 minutes and then began walking to the gravel pit. I started to forget about him, but right at the best time (4:50pm) I heard a super loud "BANG" right next to me. I assume he just shot a doe or a fawn in the gravel pit, but I never did go check. He would have been mere feet from where my truck was parked. Aaahh. Anyway, That ended that night, but that was fine, because I really had my hopes set on the swamp for Tuesday's hunt.
Tuesday the 6th brought West - WNW winds which was perfect for the swamp. I climbed in and was completely set before legal light. I kept thinking about the camera that I had about 125 yards away right on the snowmobile trail. I wanted to know whether or not there had been any bucks cruising through the area or not. There is so much standing water on the trail, I also wondered if they'd rather cruise somewhere else. At about 8am, I climbed down to go check the camera to answer some of my questions. As I tip toed out to the trail, I peaked my head out and there was a deer coming! It looked like a big bodied deer so I quickly and as quietly as I could got back up in my stand and waited. Sure enough, about 5 minutes later, here came the deer. It was a doe followed by two fawns. I filmed them and after they walked off, I gave it some time and then climbed back down to check the camera. After checking the camera, it revealed that it had been very few deer. One deer per day, if that. Mostly does, fawns and yearling bucks. So I sat for another hour thinking over my options and climbed down. Before I left, I walked west to my other camera set up by the groundblind. I pulled that card and when I walked by the first camera, I decided to set it up somewhere else. I really need to set my cameras to find Pencil, but that's another story.
After some food, dad and I went in to vote. We got back to the cabin at about 2:00pm. I decided that I would go hang the camera and hunt NW of the bus. I haven't spent any time back there this year. I went there once to hang a camera, but after the snowstorm in early october, there were so many trees down that it looked like the deer wouldn't even want to be using that area. I left a camera up for about 5 days while we were in Texas. I came back to 2 pictures - a doe and a yearling buck, so I pulled it down. I may have missed some action, but I think I will still pick up on some rut activity up there, even if it is young bucks. I sat from about 3:00 until dark. I saw zero deer. So it seems like I'm averaging one encounter for every other sit I have. That means that I'm due for Friday morning. I have a camera on John's farmyard still that I could just as well move. I'm only getting pictures of does and yearlings there too. There have been a few bucks shot up around the area:
This one was shot within a few miles:

This one was shot way out south near the creek:

This one was shot up north on the creek:

These were shot somewhere not too far away:

I think I have pictures of the big 8:

The bucks are getting shot, but there's still no sign of PegLeg, BlackNose, or Pencil. And no sign of life from Chippy or Bullwinkle. That remains to be seen.
I did pick up a couple two year olds making scrapes by my permanent stand. I'm hoping Pencil or the Crab 10 will do the same. Steph only gets to hunt one more afternoon - Sunday. I really hope she shoots that Crab 10. I hope one of us gets a chance at Pencil. I feel like it will be in the deep woods. Hopefully there's an open shot for me.

Rifle Season 2012 - Sit # 16, 17, & 18

Well, Rifle Season 2012 is finally here!

Opening morning (3rd) brought SE winds, which is perfect for the Crazy 8 Stand. Hopefully I can call it the Pencil Stand soon. Saturday was the one and only day of rifle season before daylight savings kicked in. Legal light was 7:44am. At 8:39, I spotted some feet moving under some spruce bows. It looked to be heading towards my camera. I lost the movement for about a minute or two and rather than risk never knowing what it was, I blew the grunt call 2 times. About 30 seconds later the deer showed itself and it looked to be a buck. I got the camera on him as best as I could. Once I figured out it wasn't a shooter, I just tried to get some good footage of him. He came in to about 20, then to about 15 and circled all the way downwind of me trying to figure out what I was. After he made his first pass, he actually came in even closer to sort of grid the area. Eventually he walked off. I did recognize the buck - it was the buck that Zach had on his camera in early October that we first though was an older deer. Turns out he is just a two year old with a monster body. He had 4 inch brows and about 6 or 7 inch G2s. He will be a really nice buck in two more years.

After that, at about 11am, I had two fawns come running right to me. They kept looking back and I was looking for the doe and the likely scenario was that she was being pestered by a buck. Sure enough she showed herself and there was a buck right behind her. All very exciting, except it was the same two year old that I had just seen a couple hours earlier. I climbed down and went in for a nap in the afternoon.
Steph came up Saturday afternoon and we had a bite to eat and both headed for my permanent stand. I sat on the ground and filmed her, but we didn't see any deer. Dad saw several deer that day including a few different yearling bucks. Mom saw one.
On Sunday (4th), Steph and I were at church in the morning and needed to take care of some things after church. We got up to the hill around 3 and I wasn't sitting until about 4:15, which gave me about 1 hour. With a slight ESE wind, I headed back down to the Crazy 8 Stand. Although I swear I did hear deer on two separate occasions, I saw nothing. Steph said that at about 4:50pm, She had a deer sneak up on her out of nowhere on the front end of the east strip by my permanent stand. Dad saw a doe and two fawns. Mom said that she saw a doe that was distancing herself from her fawn and that as she heard something out her window and tried to switch windows, it took off.

Let The Games Begin! - Sit # 15

This pretty much sums up the reason people need to understand the efforts and rewards of Quality Deer Management. I hunt enormous tracts of public land, yet I still try to do my part to let these deer get some age on them. As Rifle season begins tomorrow, it will be interested to see who shoots what. I'll try to stay as up to date as possible this year with weather, wind, precipitation, hunting pressure, sightings, etc. Looking forward to it.
Last night I sat in the swamp for sit #15 of the year. I didn't see a deer. There are still reasonable amounts of deer up in there, but it's really wet after about a week of rain. Anyway, before I sat last night I changed the batteries in mom and dad's camera and on my way to it, I found a brand new rub on a good sized tree. Did Pencil make a trip by the cabin or is that 3 year old 10, that aggressive? We'll see I guess. I also pulled the card from the camera on the east side of John's farmyard. TRICK or TREAT!!!

As I was in the middle of judging costumes for our Youth Group Costume Contest at the church, PegLeg was strolling OUT of the swamp! What was he doing up there? How far did he go? I need to get more information!