My first opportunity on the Wisconsin 40 - Heart Broken

After getting in way too early, I was sitting with about 45 minutes before legal shooting light. I did have a buck chase a doe about 75 yards from me up and over the ridge, so I couldn't see them. Then at about 7:45am, two deer ran up behind me about 60-70 yards away, with their tails up, like they were spooked. I thought, "they couldn't have gotten my wind. Is there a coyote chasing them? Is the neighbor's wife out walking her dogs?" Then it dawned on me that it could be a buck bumping/chasing them. No later than thinking that thought, did I hear some more leaves crunching further below me to the S-SW. I waited to spot movement. There it was - a little doe. I still don't know if it was a fawn or a yearling doe, but once I saw the buck step out behind her, I saw how badly he dwarfed her! Either this deer was an easy 220 dressed, or this was a tiny doe. Maybe both!
As soon as he came out from behind a big maple tree, I could see that it was the big 8 point. What a stud! They skirted behind the scrape that was 38 yards below me to the south. They came up and over that little rise and were heading down and below me, but not on the right trail. I was sitting above a trail that would have taken them to about 20-25 yards, but instead, they took their own. By the time they were perpendicular to the tree, they were at 43 yards. I ranged the doe as she entered into the open gap. I dropped my rangefinder and drew back. I had to mouth bleat twice to stop him. When I punched my release it seemed to take forever to get to him. It was arching and going to hit low, but at the last second, he ducked and ducked right into the arrow. I probably would've missed him cleanly had he not ducked.
I hit him, but it seemed about 3-4 inches behind the shoulder and about 4-5 inches lower than I'd want it, given my severe angle from above. The arrow stuck and he took off running. It all happened so fast (as it always does) that it was hard to see how much penetration the arrow got and whether the shaft made it up into the chest cavity, or if it lodged between the belly hide and the rib cage. I was on cloud 9 for about 25-30 minutes. I climbed down and tried to gather my thoughts. I texted Jena, dad, Mitch, and Dan. Everything was picture-perfect until I started to try to find blood.
I eventually found blood by just trailing him. He started bleeding after about 30 yards and it seemed to increase with each bound. He worked his way up another ridge and as he ascended the hill, the blood trail got to be less and less. He crossed a four-wheeler trail and that was the neighbor's property line, so I backed out.

New Property

After losing permission on the 240 acre farm from two years ago, it has taken me a while to find some places that can even compare to the potential that I experienced out there. I started cutting wood for a guy who lived out near that same area and he gave me permission on one of his 40 acre parcels. After I worked with him over time, he recently granted me permission on another, more secluded 160 acre piece that is really far off the beaten path. These two properties have the right ingredients for some tremendous deer. So that's two pieces.
About a year ago, I asked and was granted permission on a small 10 acre piece of property that normally, I wouldn't have thought twice about, but after studying the maps, it became clear that it could function in two ways: 1) an easy doe-in-the-freezer spot, or 2) a great rut spot because the 10 acres slope from a small ag field down to a popple/brush run into a swampy creek drainage. This slough really acts as a travel corridor between 2-3 larger blocks of timber, so you never really know what might come through there.
Then in September, as I was shooting photos for a high schooler, I asked about permission to bow hunt on a 100 acre property up in Sand Creek (a fair drive north). They said yes to 40 of the 100. I hiked out there and saw that it had some serious potential, as it connects to a much larger ridge system and again, once the third week of October rolled around, anything could walk across the ridge! So I hung a stand and two cameras out there and am eager to check them soon.
Lastly, two weeks ago I got into a conversation with a friend who though they had invited me to hunt a 40 of theirs previously and I had no idea that they had acreage of any kind. After hearing more about it and looking it up on the map, it seemed to get better and better. That same day I drove out there and met the neighbor. We chatted in his driveway for a goo 15 minutes and I headed back home. The following day, I brought two cameras and a junky stand out there, in case the place looked decent. Well, it didn't take 20 minutes to find some really nice buck sign and to hang the first camera over a fresh scrape. The second camera ended up in the northwest corner of the property, on the edge of an alfalfa field. I liked the stand placement, but the tree was not the straightest. I made it work.
I let the cameras sit for 7 days and decided to zip out there and see if anything reworked the scrape.. I'D SAY SO! in 7 days I had 4 bucks that were 3 years old or older come through! Jackpot. I waited a bit to collect my thoughts and eventually sat the property on the morning of Monday, October 28th - two days ago.

On Wisconsin!

Well, I'm back on here! Keeping up with a blog is not easy and I probably have less time than Ive ever had. But I love to look back and see how each season unfolded, look for patterns of dates and activity, and hopefully put those pieces together to aid in a successful hunt this year.
This summer, I picked up on a buck that had me drooling. He came through only one time on July 14th and I'm 80% sure it's a buck I got a few pictures of last season. In the 2018 season, I acquired permission somewhat late in the game, so I didn't really have a good idea of what this property could do, as it's only 10 acres. I'm learning now that it acts as a definite transition area for cruising bucks during the rut. So I hung single camera and ran it all summer and in walks this dude - Hercules.

The day I checked that camera was the 16th of July and I actually saw him about 3/8 of a mile away in a bean field. After I learned that I had pictures of him too, I was pumped! However, week after week of checking the camera came up with ZERO additional pics. That is until today:

 I knew that if nobody shot him early season, he would make a trip back through the area in this third and fourth weeks of October - just before the rut kicked off. I knew that this transition area would bring bucks through it, but it's not a place that they want to stay, so I'm hoping to remain patient until the conditions are perfect and the does are just about ready. I think he'll be moving in daylight around November 4-6, but I need to move a stand so I can stay completely downwind of the line that these deer seem to be traveling. Right now, the only stand there is in a really goofy spot, but I didn't put it there. 

My last tough decision is whether to put a flash camera there to get a really beautiful picture of him, or if that's just pressing my luck, and possibly alerting the neighbors. Maybe I'll switch to video mode instead. Stay tuned!

Cameras are hung!

I got my first official permission here in Wisconsin last week, on 240 acres, and I was able to get three cameras hung on Saturday, the 26th. So although the bachelor groups will be breaking up in the next week or two, I'm able to have eyes out there for a short while, while I try to decide where to hang a stand or two.
The primary strategy for the early season is hunting the field edges in observation-stand locations. I know there are plenty of deer using this farm - as there's beans, corn, alfalfa, oaks, and even apple trees for even the pickiest of deer! It's all custom farmed, and of the 240, I would guess that about 160-180 are tillable, leaving about 80-60 acres of timber (mostly along the north edge) that runs up the ridge. I think it's very possible to kill a doe before the end of September on the field edge, and maybe even a buck. I'd like to hang two stands and as we approach the third week in October, I'll move my cameras over licking branches on field edges. I want to find a scrape or two in a staging area up in the woods/pasture that might produce at last light. I'm learning that I don't have enough stands with me!
Stay tuned for some pics and videos next week!

Back to Blogging! Here I Come Wisconsin!

It has been nearly three and a half years since my last blog post - that's INSANE! I remember it being such a therapeutic way to catalogue my thoughts and findings (all in one place) and it must have taken something fairly gargantuan to put a halt to it. Well over three years later, I've married the love of my life, I've inherited two beautiful daughters, and I graduated from North Park Seminary!
The reason that I have decided to bring this blog back from the dead is that we've moved to Wisconsin! I took an Associate Pastor position in Menomonie and no doubt will be chasing after these hill country monsters this fall. I moved to town not knowing one landowner, not one piece of public land, and not having a clue where to start - so this truly will be an adventure from the ground up. I really only had a handful of people that I knew who lived here, one of which was and is an avid hunter/fisherman from back home out of Warroad, MN. His name is also Mitch! Mitch Thortson has a few of his own hunting connections around here, but I trust that my networking and door-knocking will eventually find myself some private land to hunt on. Until then, I'm determined to scope out a few public pieces before August ends. After driving 90 minutes one-way, to hunt in Illinois, I'm prepared to drive 30 miles to get into a good spot here.
This type of hunting will be entirely different. There's actually topological features that I need to learn how to interpret, which will help me understand how and why and how deer (more importantly bucks) choose to use them. This area has it all: corn, beans, alfalfa, acorns, corn, corn, corn and beans! The city of Menomonie is only 19 miles from Buffalo County, which is the county with the highest number of Boone and Crockett bucks recorded out of the entire United States. So either these folks like to record their bucks more than others, or there truly are some giants in this country. These southwestern counties of Wisconsin have the perfect storm: TERRAIN (topographical features), FOOD (corn, beans, alfalfa and acorns), SOIL (quality food), and WATER (rivers, creeks, swamps).

2017 should be a learning year for sure! Hopefully the trail cameras will be out in the next two weeks. I'm hoping to put together a small Hitlist by the end of summer - stay tuned!

Chicago Style Sheddin'!

Man, it's fairly clear that a person could make a haul living in Chicago. If a person planned it out right, you could pick up quite a bit of bone in a weeks time with good boots, and a little preseason scouting. The tough parts are that some parks have people visiting every single day feeding deer and picking up fresh antlers. It takes some work to find the herds of deer that are tucked away, let alone bucks worth chasing. Luckily, on my first morning, after eating a meatball sub and warming my toes up, I stumbled upon a place several deer had been hitting pretty hard. I dropped off this little ledge toward the river bank and as I was scanning the areas these deer had been digging, I spotted a couple good beds I figured I better investigate more closely. As I walked up to the beds, my eyes rose back up the ridge and BINGO. The old familiar curve of a mainbeam. It was a nice 4 point shed.

After I pulled it out, I knew I had at least one bigger buck in this woods and I hadn't encountered any people tracks. On top of that, this shed was mostly covered in snow, telling me he dropped it about a week or more earlier. I slowed my pace way down and scoured the area. I went back up the ridge and back down. I walked all the way back out to the river bank. Thankfully I did, because when I turned around, there was number two! The match to the first one. This one was also a big four point that was no more than 40 yards from the where the first one was laying. It was tucked behind a big tree so I couldn't see it until I got out a ways. In the snow, this one looked a little bit smaller than the first, but it actually turned out to be the better side.

The first side, the deer's right, measured 57 2/8" and the second side, the deer's left, measured 59 3/8". With a 16" inside spread, that puts the buck at 132 5/8" gross. I figured he would net 129"or so.

On my walk back to the hotel, as I was about to walk out of the woods, I saw a city police car parked in the park's visitor lot, right where I was headed! My mind was racing as to the city having an ordinance about removing any items from the forest preserve areas. I know they banned metal detecting last year, so I panicked. I hid the sheds at the base of a tree and walked out of the woods right towards the cop, not knowing if he wanted to talk to me or not. I walked right past his car and just kept walking as to not seem suspicious. Had he already seen me in the woods carrying antlers? Was he going to get out and steal my sheds? I just kept walking. At this point I'm about a block away and I have no plan. My mind is racing about a mile a minute when I figure it out: I'll go into this gas station as  if it were my original destination. I'll buy something, ask for a bag and walk back past the cop. Maybe he'd be gone. So far so good, except the cop is still sitting there. Phase two of the plan was to just walk past him again pretending like I'm headed home and once I make it out of sight, cross the road and dive back into the woods. So far so good. What a rush! I felt like a 13 year old again. Haha. I made it to the antlers without him seeing me. I put the antlers in the grocery bag and started inching my way back to the cop. By the time I got to where I should've been able to see him, he was gone! I headed straight back to the hotel with a grin from ear to ear.
That was day one.
The second trip out was on a warm morning and I decided to try look on the other side of the river - a place I had never been. After having my mind blown as to why there were so many deer right by the road/bus stop, I figured out that people were feeding them there. Since it was close to residential areas, people could watch the deer from their homes and leave corn around. The bus stop was literally trampled with tracks. I started a grid and the tracks got to be less and less. The further north I went, the more the tracks picked back up. I didn't bump that many deer so I wasn't really looking for them that diligently, when all of a sudden there's a full racked buck staring right at me at about 15 yards! He scared me. I was frozen. The hilarious part that I eventually learned was that I didn't need to respond to these deer like I would an encounter back home. These deer saw me coming too, except that meant for them, the possibility of food, so they approached me! We had a staredown for probably about 5 minutes before he took off walking. My next experiment was to sprint after him seeing if I could get him to jump high and maybe jolt an antler off as he ran away. So I took off running through the brush with no luck. I crossed an opening with a long driveway into the park. I ignored it and kept going north until I got closer to the river. Finally I jumped two deer. One had a decent 9 point rack (130?) and the other was a busted up 8 point. They seemed less tolerant of people. Anyway, as I worked my way around, I came to an area where the deer had again trampled the forest snow. Sure enough, I pop out onto this hiking trail and its all starting to make sense. This is an area that people frequent to watch the deer. They feed them and talk to them. They even can park their cars, lay down some feed and get back in their cars to watch them! It's literally like a zoo with wild animals. So now I knew I would have some competition when it came to antlers. At this point I was starting to see more bucks, too. I walked back in the brush where these deer had come from. I was bumping more and more deer. I would say that in total I found 10 different bucks and probably 25 antlerless deer. Eventually, when I got back into my grid system, I found an antler. It was hard to tell what it was, but that's half the excitement. I pulled it out and although I was a bit disappointed, it was another shed on the year! Here's where the story gets good. So now I'm carrying around an antler as I'm gridding these deer infested woods. I've already had 4 or more good bucks within 20 ft or so. Now I have a weapon. I ran into a big old buck and threw my antler at his rack. Miss. He didn't seem too bothered so I picked it up and followed him around until he let me get back into range. I hit him in the back! He didn't like that too much. I got on the tail of another 3 year old 8 point and threw the antler underhand quite a ways and hit him square in the side of the head! He wasn't having that. He shook his head pretty hard. Finally I was about to give up on this strategy, when a little yearling 6 point walked up really close, thinking I had food. Boy was he wrong! I tossed the antler at about 10 ft and Bullseye! I knocked one of his antlers right off his head! I could hardly stop laughing. I wish I could've gotten that on video! Maybe next time. It was hilarious. So I ended the day with two more sheds and that made 4 for the year! I look forward to my next journey to the land of the trapped Auschwitz deer.

Still Holding

Today is January 22nd and very few bucks have shed yet. I would guess that by the end of the month, that would change pretty significantly. There have been a few yearlings and maybe some unidentified two year olds that have shed, but besides Pencil, the only buck that has shed is a young buck we're calling TurkeyFoot. He just has a common base G2. Odds are, he won't have it next year. Anyway, he dropped his normal side. A person should be able to see lots of new bucks drop in the next week or so.
The deer are still heading out to the Soybeans. I really should check out some of the other spots that I've seen lots of deer tracks. Depending on the other people, there may be an antler or two just laying out in the open.
The prized antlers remaining are really the three year old 9 point, and a few two year olds. Not much too be thrilled about.

One Season Ends And Another Begins - Let 'Em Shed!

Well Auld Lang Syne came and went. New Years Day is upon us - 2014. I guess I didn't kill any monster deer this year. I did learn a lot of lessons in the woods that nobody can take away from me. I think the most important lesson was that there are preferred areas for mature bucks and that a new buck can move in and take over at any time. Although I never was able to confirm it, there was rumor of a giant that was spotted in a bean field this late August. A clean 10 that supposedly had 12-14" G2s. We'll see. What we do know is that Blacknose was shot at least once and that Pencil slipped through the cracks once again.
He's the first buck to have shed this year - sometime between December 27th and 28th, he dropped his left side. I have not confirmed how long he carried his right. He for sure still had his right side still attached at 4:44am on December 29th. I imagine that as he bed down that early morning. His right antler will be very near his bed. In fact, the morning of the 28th we had a lot of blowing snow (probably 1.5") and when Pencil came into the camera on the 28th at 9:44pm, he had snow on his forehead and a bloody pedicle.

I would bet that after being snowed on all day, he got up, shook the snow off, and POP goes the antler. So hopefully these two antlers are in the same little bedding area and I can find it. Zach and I were getting pretty close as we walked through some heavier brush. It hasn't snowed since, so basically any track thats fresh could be the best bet. We'll have to get back up in there, maybe Friday the 3rd.

Winter Solstice

As we approach the shortest day of the year, it's been kind of a head scratching late season. The deer seem to be scattered, and it's becoming more and more clear just how low the deer numbers are. We've also had some of the coldest weather we've had this early in a long long time. We've probably had 3 weeks of below zero temperatures and about 12" of snow to boot. What this has done is it has slowly pushed the deer out of the grasses and farm country and up into the northwoods. That's good for us, but with this new endeavor of trapping timberwolves, I haven't been paying as much attention to getting good pictures of deer in this late season. That's changing now as the wolf quota is 57 out of 89 as of today. We've got a week maybe two at the most to get something in the traps. It's already been a roller coaster with our bait sites. I did manage to snare one coyote - my first animal I've ever trapped. We hadn't had a bird or hardly a thing for tracks at our farther bait site, so we decided to pull the pin on that one. The day we went out to pull all the traps, there was a yote all tangled up in the brush. We proceeded to pull the traps and a few pieces of carcass in hopes of freshening up the closer bait site.
On monday morning, the 9th of December, we saw three fresh sets of wolf tracks coming into our bait site on the minimum maintenance road. Sure enough, from the truck I couldn't see my snare in the binoculars. I could see the brace wire, but nothing else. As we approached the tree, the site was demolished and there was a little blood on the ground and by the tree, but no wolf. We eventually picked up his running track where he drug brush and junk away from the site. After tracking him for a little while, it was just the snare that was hitting the snow on the right side of his track. SO CLOSE!! I was disgusted. Since then, we haven't had any fresh tracks in there. I'm hoping that they were not the only wolves to visit that area. As the deer are migrating east and north, we're coincidentally seeing less predator tracks. Maybe thats a coincidence. Maybe not. We'll stick it out in hopes of trapping a Twolf.

Today I placed four cameras out trying to get some coverage on the standing soybeans sw of the Tweeten woods.  I'm excited to see what comes through that area. I mostly want to know if Pencil is still holding his antlers. He should be. Then if I can capture him repeatedly, I'll know when to start the search for his antlers. I should back one camera deeper into the woods in hopes to pinpoint his bed. I've got a good hunch.

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: