Hunting Journal

I had plans of getting out of work and getting into the woods early to allow me plenty of time to cover a lot of ground to see what I could find. After getting stuck in the office longer than I had originally anticipated, I was delayed further when I stopped at my parents’ place to get a few things.

When I finally got into the woods, I didn’t have the amount of time I needed to go to the places I wanted to go. I brought my stand with me and left it at the base of a tree for Saturday morning. Although I wanted to sit in it, I forget my safety rope, so I decided I better avoid it for the evening.

I didn’t see any deer, or animals for that matter, while I was wandering aimlessly through the woods. My trips to the woods this year haven’t left me with a very optimistic outlook for the days ahead. The weather has been pretty decent for the early season, but the heat is coming next week. The mid 70s that are predicted will probably be closer to 80.

I poured in the early afternoon before breaking and becoming calm. Although the sun never poked through the cloud cover, it felt good to know the rain had temporarily stopped. Brian and I headed to an area where I thought a big buck might be hiding.

Instead of setting up stands, we decided to cover some ground to see what we could find. During our journey, we discovered an area torn up with rubs. I’m sure that Brian could kill a nice buck there if he puts some time in when the leaves come down. Unfortunately, we haven’t had anything even remotely close to a frost, so the leaves won’t be coming down anytime soon.

When we came across the rubs, I thought I saw something in the distance. Suddenly, two deer began running over the knob in front of us, one of them carrying a nice rack on its head. If we had guns, we would have been able to get a few shots off before the deer disappeared.

I was impressed with the area we covered tonight. I’m not a big fan of hunting on steep mountains, but this place definitely had possibilities. It reminds me of the mountain where I killed Cliff, the buck I wrote about in my second book. The area was so similar I almost thought I had been bounced back in time.

We are supposed to have one cold day before the heat rolls in next week. The temperatures are supposed to hang in the low 70s all next week but dip into the 30s tomorrow. I wish I could hunt in the morning, but I’ll have to wait until I get out of work to give it a whirl. I’m going to head to my old stomping grounds and walk as far as it takes me to locate some good sign to sit on Saturday morning. I’m looking forward to see what I can find. Something in my gut gives me a good feeling.

I’m still not feeling all that “into” hunting season. I’d like to see at least a few leaves change colors. It might make me feel like fall was in the near future. Instead, I feel like cool weather is a million miles away. Things can happen quickly, so I guess I’ll take it as it comes.

The rain won’t let up. It seems like it has been raining since late spring. Although last weekend was nice, I haven’t seen the sun at all this week. When the rain briefly stopped in the afternoon, I decided to go hunting when I got out of work. Undecided about where to go, I called Brian and we decided to try an area we haven’t hunted yet this year.

When we got into the woods, we saw a few turkey vultures, a lot of crows, two bald eagles, and a few ravens. Although we know something was dead in the area, we couldn’t locate it. It didn’t take me very long to find a spot to sit. Since there has been so much rain, I found a spot that funneled the deer around a bunch of standing water. There were a lot of oaks in the area, but I couldn’t find any acorns on the ground.

Without any sunlight, it didn’t take long for the woods to become dark. A flock of turkeys decided to roost in the trees around my stand, so I sat there and welcomed them into my world. A big hen latched onto a branch of a tree that was about 30 yards from me. She danced around for a bit before settling in on her evening perch.

Brian saw a few turkeys early on and a spikehorn right before it got dark. Doug texted me tonight and had three spikes go by him tonight. It seems like a lot of the smaller bucks are up and moving around. Maybe we will get a look at a larger one in the days to come.