Today was a good morning to sit. It wasn’t too windy, and it held steady in the mid-30s. I sat near the place where dad got hung up in the tree a few years ago. A doe was bedded directly under the stand when I got there. After getting within 10 yards of her, I turned my light off and climbed up the tree. As I climbed into the tree, she walked away in the darkness. A fawn went past me at first light, and that was the extent of any activity for the rest of the morning.
Dad sat in my stand in the big timber this morning. He saw a beast of a buck, but the buck’s rack was completely broken apart. The buck hobbled past him and headed into the thick stuff. A button buck and another fawn bedded under his stand for a while. This evening we set a stand near the old grunt stand. Four does came into the bean field, but no bucks. The sun set on our season in Kansas as the does made their way out of the field. It was a disappointing trip. The last few years out here have been really slow. We haven’t seen very many deer, and we definitely haven’t seen the number of quality bucks that we used to see in the past.
Overall, my vacation was fantastic because I was in the woods, but the hunting was really tough. We busted our asses and didn’t come home with very much to show for it. Although I killed two really nice deer, those deer weren’t reflective of the struggles we encountered along the way. The hunting pressure was out of control in Iowa. I’ve never seen so much hunting pressure on any piece of public land I’ve been on. It was almost as bad as when I hunted in Ohio on opening day of gun season. I’m not sure if I will return to Iowa to hunt there again. The amount of pressure was overwhelming, which made it hard to get away from people. The weather was not conducive to a lot of deer movement. The entire first week gave us some fantastic weather for sitting on the beach, but 80 degree temperatures don’t help when you need to cover a lot of ground to scout it. It kept deer movement suppressed, too. Maybe we’ll luck out and have some great weather next year. The last few years has been a battle with extreme weather on both ends.