Hunting Journal

It was 32 degrees this morning and very clear. I could chase my shadow as I walked to my stand. I glanced at the waterway locust and kept on walking. I wondered if the decision would come back to haunt me when I checked the trail camera next time I returned. When I left the field and headed into the hardwoods I could smell the stench of a buck. Seconds later I could hear him bounding up the hill and headed for safety. If I was going to guess I’d say it was surely a shooter. When I got in the tree I could hear deer all around me. As it got light two does fed past me. The morning passed quickly as the wind began blowing harder. I saw and passed two really nice 8s. Dad saw three bucks and seven does this morning in the tube stand and three does and a buck in the grunt stand tonight

I sat in the big timber in my climber tonight. As I messed around latching my stand I saw a doe bolt down the hill in front of me. I knew a buck was coming. It ended up being a big 10-pointer and he walked right past my camera as he started coming toward my grunt. He hung up for a few minutes and never finished the walk as I waited patiently with a nocked arrow.

After he disappeared I climbed into my stand. I so two more bucks go across the field in front of me. At 5:03pm I heard a stick crack and looked to my left. It was a shooter!! I got ready because he was going to walk right past me………..and he did. For some reason I let him walk. I still don’t know why. I’m kicking myself in the ass right  now. I knew it was a big 9 pointer that I had seen on camera, but it didn’t click until he started walking away from me and it was too late. I can’t believe I passed him. I’m pretty sure that will be the last opportunity I get this week. Everything just happened too quickly. I think Thursday might be the lucky day.

The daylight picture is the 10 and the night picture is the one I passed.

It was cold and relatively calm this morning, which means the wind was probably blowing about 10mph. I sat in the big timber again. I saw four bucks and a doe. One 8-pointer was a good one. One small spike. A little 6-pointer and a buck with an injured leg. Tonight I sat in buck alley. I took video of a coyote trying to hunt down a fawn. The coyote didn’t look too healthy.

Dad saw two bucks tonight and one appeared to be pretty decent. He sat in the bottom down near Brandon’s Ladder. He got some pretty cool trail cam pictures of bucks in scrapes on my camera. This morning he passed a mature 10 with a pretty big body. The buck didn’t have very long tines. He saw five bucks and five does.

Two bucks in the same scrape the same day.

I sat in the Waterway Locust today. Every year I’m on this property something tells me to sit there. It looks like the perfect place to ambush a big buck. While I’ve seen some nice bucks there I’ve never seen a real smasher. I’m hoping that it might change this year. Right after it got light I saw a mature buck with broken tines. He was trolling the edge of the cornfield on the hill across from the stand. He was a mature deer, but his rack didn’t correspond with the size of his body. At 10:15 I had a small 8-pointer make his way down the hill and across the gap in front of me.

Dad saw the long tined 8 chasing a doe through the North Bowl this morning. He couldn’t slow it down to get a shot and said the buck was gone almost as quickly as he came. This evening I sat in one of my favorite trees in the Big Timber. Since the first year I came out it’s a place I feel comfortable. I enjoy it there even if I don’t see any deer. I’m not even sure it’s a good spot, but it always feels good to sit there. It’s kind of hard to explain. It’s almost like a comfy recliner that you don’t want to get rid off even though it hurts your back. Dad sat in the plot below me.

I saw six does in a group. They fed by me and headed down the hill. A short time later I had a small 8-pointer chase a doe past me. Two of the does in the group were standing, but no bucks entered the arena, which really surprised me. Dad saw seven does tonight. The wind just doesn’t want to let up.

We rolled into Kansas around midnight last night. We got up at sun-up and headed into the woods. The wind was ungodly and at times gusted up to 45mph. I sat in a stand for an hour, but couldn’t handle it any longer. After I climbed down I decided to sit in some heavy brush just to get out of the wind. I didn’t wander too far as I was still adjusting to the new place and new surroundings from the last week.

As I sat in the thicket on the edge of a cornfield I imagined big bucks walking by me as I remained hidden amongst all of the small trees. Suddenly I could see a doe running along the edge of the field below me. I knew something was chasing her. A few seconds later a giant buck ran her up the hill across the ravine from me. I sat there in amazement. It was a really cool experience and I sat back and let it sink in.

A few seconds later I spotted the doe headed right toward me and he was right on her tail. When she cut to the left I could almost touch her with my elbow when she stopped. She was extremely nervous and I could see her eye twitching. At full draw I waited patiently for the big buck to take the same path. Instead of following in her footsteps he took a different route and stopped about 10 yards in front of me. There was a lot of brush, but I decided I would shoot if I could. Although the doe was so close I extended lower body beyond the tree in front of me and tried to find the sight pin to center on the buck’s chest. As soon as I moved he started doing the notorious head-bob that is usually associated with younger deer back home. I knew it was now or never so I released the arrow. It was quite disheartening to hear it rattling out through the bushes as he bounded up the hill and disappeared.

A few minutes after he disappeared a small 8-pointer came by on the doe’s trail. He wasn’t anything I was interested in shooting so I watched him as he continued past me in pursuit of the hot doe.

Dad saw a really nice 8-pointer this morning. It was similar to the one he killed in Ohio last year, but for the first day he decided it wasn’t what he wanted. This evening I didn’t see anything and dad saw three does. The wind is absolutely horrible. Hopefully it calms down a little bit.

It was our last day on this new piece of public ground today. The wind just wouldn’t let up and we put up with another day of 25 mph winds. I had a big buck chasing a doe around my stand before it get light. I could see his outline, but not well enough to get a shot at him. When it finally got light he was nowhere to be found. I’m pretty sure it was the same 10-pointer that I saw yesterday afternoon. I saw another doe later in the morning, but nothing followed her. Dad saw his first shooter of the week. He had the buck at 35 yards, but they saw each other about the same time and the buck  nonchalantly walked in the opposite direction. When dad got to my stand to head out he realized that he lost his quiver. We covered every inch of that swamp over the next few hours looking for his quiver. Dad found it, but it was more unlikely than finding a needle in a haystack. After we packed everything up we had to retrieve the stands we left in the woods down the road on the river bottom. On our way in we ran into three guys who were setting up for opening day of gun season. They were hustling around trying to set up three ladder stands before dark. They were nice guys and I wish them luck. I’m pretty sure I’ll probably never see them again. It makes me wonder if they were lucky enough to tag anything the next day. I’ll surely never know. We headed for Kansas as soon as we got out of the woods. It was just about dark and the sun quickly set on our first trip to this area……………….until next time.

It was unbelievably windy today. I had all I could do to stay in the tree. At times I was scared because my harness attached me to the tree. If the tree ever broke and fell I would be all done. I tend to think all sorts of crazy thoughts when I’m sitting in trees. Hopefully none of them ever come true. At times the wind was gusting up to 40mph. At least it warmed up. It was 37 degrees in the morning and warmed up to 53 by mid-afternoon. We didn’t see anything in the morning. I’m thinking with all of our activity the deer smartened up to our presence and the well ran dry. This afternoon we went to pull stands in the swamp below camp. At 3pm I saw a giant 10-pointer. I heard a stick crack and there he was cruising through the timber behind me at about 35 yards. When I saw him I knew I didn’t have a chance of getting a shot. It was way to thick and within seconds he was going to cut my wind……….game over and that’s exactly what happened. He was one of the largest 10-pointers I’ve seen in the Midwest. Dad saw a few does tonight and he found a place for morning. We’re going to hunt in there for the morning and call it a year in this place before we head to Kansas for our annual hunt in that state. On my way out of the woods I jumped some more deer at the edge of the swamp before heading up the hill to camp. The deer running through the timber answered some of the questions I had asked myself earlier in the week. I now know that deer use that area in the evening. It looked really good to me, but I was unsure if they would use it due to the amount of human activity in the surrounding area.

Traditionally this has been my most successful day in the woods over the years. Something in my gut this morning told me the trend was going to continue. I saw 11 deer in the morning; five bucks; two spikes, a 3-pointer, a 4-pointer, and a big buck. I feel like I’m close to getting the job done. Dad saw a spike this morning. We moved his stand next to me in order to cut off the big buck I keep seeing. I think our chances are good of getting a shot at him. Dad saw a spike this morning. The big buck I saw this morning walked directly under the tree that I moved my stand out of yesterday. That was a little disappointing, but it’s a chance you take and I still feel confident about the new location of the stand. Here’s a look at the surrounding area of the woods we’re hunting as well as a nice rub right next to where my dad moved his stand. It’s hard to imagine this is public land.

It was very cold this morning. I had action right from first light until noon. I saw two giant bucks today, especially for hunting on public land with this much pressure. The only good thing is that it appears Dad and I found a couple of places that don’t get a lot of pressure from other hunters. One of the bucks was going across a winter wheat field in the middle of the morning. I had to look twice because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The other big buck came in shortly after I rattled. He never got closer than 70 yards to me, but his presence got me very excited. Shortly after seeing that buck I passed a nice 8-pointer. I thought about shooting him a few different times, but after seeing the two other bucks I just couldn’t drop the hammer. If I hadn’t seen the others I would have shot him, but after seeing the quality of some of the bucks in there I chose to hold off in hopes of getting a crack at a wall hanger. After the 8-pointer disappeared I had a small 4-pointer make his way down the hill in front of me. He fed by me in the direction of the swamp where I’m sure he probably went to bed down for a few hours after he ate. Besides the bucks I also saw a few does. It was a pretty good morning. The evening didn’t produce the same results as the morning and I just saw three does cross the wheat field in front of me shortly before dark. Dad saw one small buck this morning. He found some huge rubs in the area he’s sitting. It looks really good in there. It’s a classic Midwestern river bottom. Here’s a photo of  one of the rubs.

Unfortunately we overslept today. The alarm got knocked off the tote last night and somehow ended up getting turned off. I rushed into the swamp by camp and set a stand up in a tree that I found. It’s in a great place, but I didn’t see anything. I didn’t get it set up until around 8 o’clock. Dad stayed on the opposite side of the swamp and saw a couple of does make their way across it during the mid-morning hours. He saw a couple of bucks tonight. I saw two does tonight. We’ve been seeing a lot of deer crossing the road and some good bucks following does. It looks like the activity is increasing.

We’ve only been here a few days, but time is flying. I wish I could slow it down a little. It’s hard to hunt and scout at the same time.  We’ll do the best we can to learn the area and make the most educated decisions we can in case we come back in the future. The learning experience should cut down on exploring time in the future. We hunted the first swamp this morning. It didn’t start off well when I got to where I wanted to go and someone was flashing a light at me in the three different colors; white, green and red. I found a tree before daylight and made myself comfortable. After I settled in I realized I was sitting in a pretty good place for setting up in the dark. I saw three 6-pointers and three does. Dad didn’t see anything. After we got back to camp we decided to go exploring again. We found what looks like an incredible place along another river. I saw one doe there tonight. The place I put my stand is a text book example of what a perfect funnel looks like in the Midwest. The only discouraging thing today was how many ladder stands we found during our exploration of the area. Although it’s public land the  people have it monopolized for gun season. I’m not sure how fair that is, but I guess since they’re following the rules that the department of conservation established there’s nothing anyone can do. What’s the sense of hunting public land if someone stakes their claim to it every year. Not to fair. I think it should be first come, first served. I could write all day about this topic.