Rut Wrap Up

With the onslaught of more and more snow, we saw a little more cruising activity (whether the scent of a hot doe gets slightly covered with a fresh snow or the bucks wanted to cut fresh tracks) on the cameras. Still mostly young bucks, but that brings hopes for the next couple years if we can keep the deer close this winter. As soon as I could get a camera out there after the rifle season, I wanted to see if Twigs was still alive. Sure enough, the day after I hung the camera, I got some pictures of him, along with a beautiful two year old buck.

I have been hunting Twigs fairly hard, but we just have not been able to cross paths yet. The first few sits, he seemed to be moving only at night, but in the last few days, I've caught him a couple times during daylight. I think as his attention is drawn away from breeding and chasing and more into a time of rest and recuperation, he will begin to move in a more confined uniform pattern. Hopefully I can figure out where that is and make my move. I guess I could hang a camera in a second location in hopes of finding out more information on his pattern.
Muzzleloader season is now in and I am trying to be very cautious about how much hunting/driving I do during this time as to not give anyone any hints where there might be a big deer.
Pencil hasn't shown his face since the scrape video, with the exception of one more appearance out at a neighbor's food plot. I shouldn't be surprised by his traveling out there. He's fully mature, and it's the best food source around.
We are on the front edge of a pretty large storm thats supposed to bring between 6 and 10 inches of snow. I'm hoping for maybe 2 or 3. We don't need more snow, we just need some to cover up the old sign.
On a new endeavor, dad and I have been checking traps in my inaugural trapping season. We both were drawn for timber wolf trapping tags and have two bait sites set up in hopes to capitalize on the roaming canus lupus. So far no activity. But this storm should cover all our tracks and leave the sites looking like they should.

2013 MN Rifle Season

Saturday, November 9th - I headed out to the stand that recently hung south of the west end of the little hill. It was snowing a heavy wet snow and on my way in I crossed my own track... TWICE! I finally decided to just wait until it got a little more light out in order to find the stand. I sat quietly and then heard a shot at about 8:25am. I texted dad asking him whereabout the shot was. He said that it was mom! Not long after that, mom texted me that she shot Worthless - a four year old that was desperately needing to get killed. So mission accomplished.

I gladly climbed down to get some good photos for her and help dad. My gloves and gear were soaked anyway. I am super happy for mom. She hunts very hard with the time that she has and she has been rewarded three years in a row! There were very similar characteristics of her three bucks too. Splitbrow on November 11, 2011, Gnarly on November 10, 2012, and now Worthless on November 9, 2013. So 11th, 10th, and 9th. Those are definitely some good days to be sitting. That evening, I chose to sit in Steve's stand just to see if anything was moving around there. I think I saw 5 or 6 deer, 1 was a yearling buck.
Sunday, November 10th - I chose to sit in the Fleet Farm Stand, which is north of the road between John's and Pete's. I don't think I saw a single deer, but the wind was howling at about 20 mph.
Monday, November 11th - My single most favorite day to be in the woods, this year we had a westerly wind and I chose to sit in the ladder stand that is straight south of the corner. I knew that deer choose to skirt the corner  and I was hoping to catch one doing just that coming off the ridge. It was also pretty bitter that morning. I think I only lasted until about 9am. I warmed up a bit and then sat in dad's permanent stand for the evening and saw about 4 deer two times each, including one spork. Nothing too exciting. As the season was just beginning, it was becoming apparent that the deer were really only using the south end of the property. There is probably a band about 200 yards wide that deer were spending the most time and that was south of steve's stand and hooking to the west around the old cutover. This is all logic because of the crop rotation. I can't wait until there's beans to the north again!
Tuesday, November 12th - I was only able to sit the morning and so I chose to sit over the Spring. I believe I had a SW wind. It was a good practice sit since moving the stand from one tree to another a few weeks ago. I had a doe and two fawns work their way behind me in the cedars. It wasn't until afterwards that I figured out why they were skirting behind me - There was a fresh scrape directly under my tree! The doe was coming to check it out and maybe make a deposit. That was it, but luckily I brought a camera with me that morning, so I set up my Bushnell over the scrape. The next day, I had Pencil under my stand at about 7 yards!! Too bad that was a Wednesday and I didn't take a vacation day. 3:06 in the afternoon!! Sick.
Skip a few days.
I drove up thursday night for friday.
Friday, November 15th - I hiked down SE of the landing to the Crazy 8 stand as I'm calling it. I sat until about noon and saw one spike buck. Things were fairly uneventful for me on stand. We plastered our main hunting areas with cameras and we were picking up lots of young bucks and even a few decent 3 year olds, but nothing exciting. So far it looks like a rebuilding year. Friday morning was another frigid one. I think it was an overnight of about 15 degrees. Saturday, however, was worse.
Saturday, November 16th - I wanted to give the new stand some more attention and so I walked a little slower, dressed a little lighter and made my way out there again SSW of the little hill. I thought I heard a deer coming my way right at first light but as the sound got to about 60 yards, it just stopped and I never saw or heard anything more. Then at about 7:30, I heard one lone shot south of me - it sounded like it was from the road or Rice's thicket. I tried to shrug it off and go about my morning sitting there. At about 10am, I heard voices out on the road. Over the next hour the voices were getting louder and more and more clear. Finally I heard a snapped log. There were people coming through the jungle and they were headed right for me! I was trying to make out what they were saying, but I really couldn't.
They got to within about 200 yards. I couldn't take it anymore. I has sat for 5.5 hours, not seen a deer, and now I had yahoos mixing things up for me. I climbed down. I pulled my Bushnell off the scrape by my stand by the spring. I figured that it was a shot in the dark placement for a camera and it could be more productive somewhere else. Boy I was mistaken. On wednesday at 3:06pm (while I was at the church) Pencil decided to freshen up some scrapes and walked right under my stand! AAAGGHHH!

I finished the day off in dad's stand. I saw a lone spike that wasn't even legal. Sad. It was tempting not to shoot him. We need meat, wolf bait, and we have extra tags.
Sunday, November 17th - Saturday evening, Zach and I drove to Kofstad's cabin to shoot the breeze. On our drive home, we decided to take the scenic route and hopefully spot some deer. Sure enough, in the headlights we saw a buck with a doe and we debated on whether or not to pursue them the next morning. We decided to give it a shot since we weren't really seeing many deer in our other spots. We had a NNW wind and it was spitting heavy snow. We parked on the crossing closest to where we saw the deer the night before and just waiting for it to break day enough to see through our scopes. At about 7:15, we started walking. I had Zach walk north up the east side of the 40 where the grass had been mowed incase they took off running ENE, which I figured they might. I didn't make it 150 yards from the truck when my daydream was broken into by the sight of two deer making their way quickly out of some cattails headed NNE.  Zach was already about 200 yards from me so I didn't really have time to yell anything so I decided to take some shots. The deer on the right was going to disappear first as they were sort of trotting. That was the doe. I picked up the buck in the scope and put my crosshairs a tiny bit above the top of his shoulders. I ended up shooting four times and hitting him once. Zach threw one bullet out there in that time. As I was switching clips, I lost sight of the deer. Zach headed over to me and we decided to just walk slowly up to where we thought we saw them last to hopefully cut a track. Right as we got near the area where we should've seen a track, I looked up and only about 60 yards away was the buck who stood up out of his bed all hunched over. He was in pretty rough shape. "Take him!" I told Zach.  He dropped to one knee and finished off the buck. We high-fived and walked right up to him. Admittedly, there was a little ground shrinkage from the mental images the night before, but it was still a really cool story - to be able to put together a plan and actually have it work out. The deer looked to be a three year old 6 point (no brows). He'll score right around 100". It filled a tag for meat and also provided some wolf bait for dad and I. Mission accomplished.

That evening, I climbed a tree north of Pete's to look over the open area in the north end of the red willows. I saw a lone fawn and a doe right at dark. That wrapped up the western rifle season. Overall a decent season. We still have some deer on the loose.

Pre-Rut Wrap Up

Before I get too far behind, I better get caught up to speed on the deer activity lately. I sat a few times in hope to get on a big buck before all the pumpkins took over the world. Here were my last sits before the 2013 Rifle Season:
Friday, November 1 (Morning - Sit #20) - Zach and I sat in the Refuge in the stand I left hanging there for a few weeks, which reminds me, I should go check on it. We definitely heard one deer that skirted us to the west and headed into the Carlson slough. That was it.
Friday, November 1 (Evening - Sit #21) - Zach and I split up to hunt two opposite corners of a standing corn field. I saw just a couple deer at last light and he had a doe and two fawns come under his tree. There was a bunch of fresh sign on the south edge of the corn, which tells us at least one relatively mature buck strolled through the area, probably at about 1 am.
Monday, November 4 (Evening - Sit #22) - I loaded up a canoe and launched it into the River in hopes of sneaking in on the 6x5. There's no doubt that this was the most work I've ever put into a buck before. It actually worked out pretty easy except for the 20+mph cross wind on the highway. The canoe was sliding all over the place! After about 8.5 miles, I had the canoe in the water. I walked it down the bank and tied it up so that I could just get ready and hop in and paddle straight across the river to my stand. It was a killer set up. The first evening (4th), I didn't see any deer.
Tuesday, November 5 (Evening - Sit #23) - The wind was still out of the west/southwest so I hopped in the canoe again and tried my luck again. This was an even quieter process. I did see that same 2.5 year old 8 point that evening. He came by at 25 yards and worked two scrapes for me. Pretty neat.
Wednesday, November 6 (Evening - Sit #24) - I don't think I've bowhunted on a Wednesday evening in the 6.5 years that I've been back in Roseau. It just so worked that since the daylight savings change and us having a bonfire that night, I didn't have anything to prep so I figured I'd press my luck another time for the 6x5. Wouldn't you know it, I saw the same two year old 8 and he worked the same two scrapes! That was it. Deer were moving and they were using the river bank, just not the right deer.
Friday, November 8 (Morning - Sit #25) - I had a perfect SE wind so since I already had a stand up, I thought I would kill two birds with one stone (or maybe one bird and one deer) by hunting for Pencil and checking the camera that had been there for about two weeks. there was one mature buck that came through on the 1st, but his head was cut off. Hopefully I can figure out if was Pencil or not. I had a doe and two fawns come in to about 10 yards until they finally winded my track.
It really was an eventful week, but the maturity level of the bucks is down on average. The areas that hold the best bucks are overrun with blaze orange right now, so I'm buying my time hunting Pencil and the off-chance that Blacknose or Bullwinkle are alive and show themselves. Come Monday/Tuesday (18thish), I will be back in the prime spots to see if I can get on these deer. I want HighRise to show up too. Here's the pre-rut pictures that came about:

Does A Late Lull Mean A Late Rut?

Research and history would suggest that more or less, the whitetail rut will fall within the same timeframe year after year. The only interruptions seem to be weather (heat), herd ratio, age structure, and possibly hunting pressure. So I'm struggling to explain how the mature buck activity has seemed to stop after the 19th of October. Possibly even more bizarre, is how I'm not even getting nighttime pictures over scrapes or anything. Either the deer are really laying low in anticipation of the energy about to be exhausted on chasing does, or they've left the area.
Since my last post, I've sat three times:
Friday, October 20 Evening (sit #17) - I sat in the stand I put up on the east side of the area where I had been getting pictures of the 6x5 most recently. I saw two lone does that evening. The first one walked behind me at 75 yards through the slough grass and the other was the huge doe and she was out at about 150-175 yards feeding on field grass. Nothing too exciting.
Thursday, October 26 Evening (Sit #18) - After getting sort of frustrated about the sign I was seeing and the lack of pictures on the cameras, I decided to move in a little closer to where I thought the 6x5 had to be living (if in fact he was even still in the area). I had a wind that was switching to the SW which would be perfect to come down the river bank straight into the wind. I told myself that I would only go in there until I found some fresh sign. I found about 6 rubs or so and a couple scrapes and I was only about 200-250 yards from where I thought he was hiding out, so I looked for a set up with good back-cover and shoot-ability and I think I found a great spot. I was right on the bank of the river and I had one trail coming straight at me and a second trail coming by at about 20 yards. I figured that this must be one of the few travel routes he would be taking when he leaves his bedding area. Honestly, if this buck has been living in a 20-30 acre block of mature popples for three weeks, I will be shocked, but a lot wiser for the wear. This buck is old and this buck is smart. This would be a perfect case study for how small a buck's core area can become (if my theory is true). As October has approached its end, I know he must be getting restless in that small of an area and if he is confined to that small of a space, it must be absolutely TORE UP! I need to slip in there will a camera to see if he's moving along that river bank and look for updated sign. I only have a little over a week to kill him before the rut takes him across the township.
Saturday, October 28 (Sit #19) - I finally got a North Northwest wind so I could sit closer to where I had been getting pictures of the 6x5 earlier this fall. As I was getting settled in, I had a doe sneak past me at 12 yards. Too bad I didn't have a bonus tag. No other deer. Again, the 28th being historic scrape day, I did not find any indication that bucks had been any more active than the previous two weeks. I feel like in the next three days, everything has to change and it will change suddenly.
The only interesting things in the last week or two is that they left some beans standing west of the Tweeten woods,

I was able to hang two stands on Steph's birthday, and I've gotten crap for pictures up by Pete's. I pulled the camera I hung NW of Pete's back up by the dozed willows. I had a bunch of young bucks, but nothing exciting. One nice wide two year old:

This little two year old 8 moved into the 6x5 area:

Pencil is just south of the cabin by all guesses, so it should make this rut kickoff pretty interesting.

NW Winds For Two Weeks!!

Last post was about all the fiascos in ND and catching up on what really hadn't been happening back home. Well, finally, things are picking up here. The weatherman is calling for some type of west wind for the next two weeks. At its furthest, it comes from the SW, and up to a straight N with most days being a straight WNW - NW wind. This is perfect for a stand I just set up on the east side of where the 6x5 has been hiding out. The question is - Will he move east into the oak island to work scrapes/check does soon?
I was able to get some sweet flash pictures of 6x5 before the batteries died in the Cuddeback. He cam in on the 9th, 10th, & 11th. He came in on the 9th with a doe, which would make sense if she was super healthy. She could've been in heat. Regardless, he looks good - a nice blonde rack as I suspected.

After switching the batteries out on the 14th, I was surprised to see another old friend spend some time in the same area - Twigs! He made a little trek over to there. Where he was in between, I can only guess. He's looking as good as ever. No broken points yet, which should be interesting if these two mature studs rub shoulders in the next few days. They both have big bodies, but there's no way Twigs' rack will hold up to the 6x5's mass. Hopefully I can kill one of them to keep them from fighting.

In addition to these beauties, I picked up a few pictures of Pencil that show he's fattening up nicely, too.  So that's three different 6 year olds that were moving in the same week. I think things are about to get interesting!

Recently, the bowhunting has been pretty slow. Since the 8th of October, I've sat 3 times:

Thursday, October 10th Afternoon (Sit #14): I sat in hopes of seeing Twigs and saw nothing but a lone grouse and a young timberwolf, which was kind of interesting.

Monday, October 14th Morning (Sit #15): I sat the same spot believing that it was a matter of time for Twigs to come back through the ridge between the swamps. He did not show, but the grouse with 9 lives came back for round 2. I missed again. Depressing.

Thursady, October 17th Afternoon (Sit #16): I sat east of where 6x5 has been spending a lot of time. The day before I was able to hang a stand in the rain. The wind wasn't great, but it allowed me to slip in and out quietly and hopefully my scent was washed away for the most part. I sat that Thursday more or less as an observation sit. There were two does that came out, one downwind and the other about 200 yards away. The farther doe was a horse of a doe. I'm sure it was the doe that made the scrape and was in the camera with 6x5, she was huge - at least 140. When her head was down, I thought it was going to be the 6x5! I was able to move a bunch of cameras into the area that the 6x5 has been visiting in hopes of putting together some more pins in the map and know how much to press my luck with new stands, etc. I need to move in on him while I have a consistent wind. However, I know that as we approach the end of the month, he will get restless and begin looking for does. I need to capitalize on his hormones. Sounds like a plan.

Octoberfest - ND & MN

I've been pretty poor at keeping this log going lately. Life's been a little hectic. So to catch up, I'll need to back up. There hasn't been many things that have been earth shattering lately. I'm beginning the camera migration from the remote locations to the big woods to help mom and dad mentally prepare themselves for rifle season. It's only a month away! So here's where I've been sitting lately:
September 30th - Morning and Evening (Sit # 7 & 8): I spent the afternoon of Sunday with Steph lounging and relaxing and headed to Grand Forks to hunt the next day in the morning. I tried pretty hard to figure out spots to hunt he SSW - SW winds of Monday the 30th. I decided to get down into the  river bottom in the morning and hopefully catch deer coming back to bed, which I did - just a yearling buck. I left the stand up because I liked the spot and the wind was basically supposed to be the same the next day. That evening I set up the Muddy ladder stand on the edge of a standing soybean field, which they started cutting while I was sitting. I managed to see around 6 or 7 deer including a couple bucks, but they were all about 200-300 yards away. In between monday's sits, I set up my two cameras knowing I'd pull them down the next day. I managed to get lucky and catch quite a few of the deer I have been seeing earlier this summer. I found a scrape along the edge of the bean field and picked up a nice two year old buck working the scrape right at last light.

My Cuddeback Seen got set up in river bottom on one of the main trails that seemed to funnel deer a bit.
October 1st - Morning (Sit # 9): I crawled back up into the same Muddy Bloodsport down in the river bottom with really high hopes of seeing something. I did not see a single deer. I grabbed my camera, tore my stand down and hiked back up the hill. I didn't even bother reviewing the images/videos that the camera captured, and to be honest, I didn't think there was any. To my surprise, when I got home, I saw that there was multiple bucks that walked that very trail the night before, right up until 6:09am! I was in the tree by about 6:20am! I probably bumped the bucks a little further. But, I did learn that I really liked that spot in case I go back out there.

The downfalls of the trip: One of the farm's employees was getting very territorial and without saying it, tried to kick me out of the area. Also, one of the two cameras I left out there got picked off! STOLEN! So that sucked. Not that I was expecting a bunch of awesome pictures, but it sure hurts the pocketbook!
October 4th - Evening (Sit # 10): Zach and I tried to sneak into the area where the 6x5 has been showing up. We got in fairly quiet, and tucked into our homemade ground blind. Zero deer.
October 5th - Evening (Sit # 11): I had a NE wind, so I wanted to try something new - I headed out to the stand I hung for the pre-rut North of the East/West road. After I got set up, the wind felt very EAST and I now know I need a straight N wind when sitting out there. I got drizzled on and saw two deer. I hung the SEEN camera out there on the same tree that I got pictures of Pencil & Splitbrow in 2011. Hopefully I get to see Pencil again out there.
October 6th - Evening (Sit # 12): The wind switched over to a NW/WNW and although I didn't really plan to hunt, the corn field was already a set up option for me, so I tested it out. I had a clear sky, high pressure system with a perfect wind, but the only thing I saw was a doe and a fawn until I was already packing up. It was at that point that two younger bucks decided to make their way into the corn from the NW corner of the field. The corn still does not seem to be a destination food source. Until we have a couple killing frosts, I don't think it will be. There's still green in the woods!
October 8th - Morning (Sit # 13): I finally got a SE wind and figured I better try to hunt Twigs since he was about the only good buck giving me daytime photos. Well, he still hasn't been in there since the 29th of September, but the huge bear decided to make an appearance. He is a monster!!!

I have about a week to kill him if I want to buy a tag. If he comes back in, I'll consider it. He's probably there right now. I'll have about a week off of hunting and then it'll be swinging right into the early stages of the pre-rut.

Guess Who Showed Up? - TWIGS!!!

While running a camera in hopes of locating HighRise again, I locked onto another buck that took me a split second to recognize, because I assumed he was dead. Twigs walked into the cameras frame for no rhyme or reason on the morning of September 18th (Wednesday) at 11:15am! So strange.

He came from the west or south and I checked back and it was a south wind that day. Weird. He's a beast! He's for sure 5, but I think he's 6 (based on his 2011 pictures as what I thought was a 4 year old). His body is going to be enormous.
It makes more sense now about the other big 8 point I got those two isolated pictures of near the river back in July:

I thought this deer was somewhat mature, maybe 4, but not 6! I'm thinking it was Twigs. He's got pretty good mass, he's still narrow, but his height is awesome. He must have 3 tines that are 10". I'm guessing him to gross just over 140". We'll see as he offers me some more pictures.