I took today off to go late muzzleloading. Since it’s not open where I hunt up north, I hunted around home. I went back to one of my favorite places, which I referred to a few times in both books. I call it The Rock. I put a camera there on Thanksgiving Day so I decided I better go pick it up before winter settles in.
On my way in it was fairly crunchy. When I began climbing the hill near the place we call the Flat Rock I heard a few deer take off. They ran a little way up the hill and began milling around in there. As I stood in the darkness I heard another deer cross in front of me on the other side of the knob from where I was standing. It was headed toward the other deer. After a few more minutes I couldn’t hear anything at all. Something inside me told me to stay, but I ignored the little voice and continued on.
When I got to The Rock I stopped and detached the camera from the tree. There was still a lot of sign in the area, which made me happy. I didn’t expect much on my camera, but kind of hoped I might see something interesting once I began looking at the pictures.
After I flipped through the pictures I was surprised to see as much activity as I did. I had a lot of does going through in the daylight as well as the dark. I got two bucks in the dark, too. I sat until 10:30, but didn’t see anything. When I got up I decided to go for a walk to check a few things out.
As I wandered along the ridge beyond The Rock I was pleasantly surprised to see as much sign as I did. It made me feel good to see a lot of deer were using the area. I began seeing rubs as soon as I left The Rock and I continued seeing them all the way to the top of the mountain. While there wasn’t an abundance of them, there were plenty enough to get me excited. Once on top of the mountain I saw a tree in the distance that appeared to have some shredded bark hanging off from it. Upon closer inspection it was a really nice rub. The rub had been made within the last couple of days. I could still see the buck’s tracks and all of the bark lying in the leaves.
Prior commitments will keep me out of the woods on Saturday. I’ll be sitting close to the rub first thing Sunday morning though.
