I headed into the woods in the pitch black. I decided to hunt with Brian today while my dad hunted another area a mile or so from where we hunted. We started into the woods at 4:30am and walked, and walked, and walked. Since I had never been in this place before I didn’t have anything to get my bearings. We were a few miles from where I hunted last night and in the dark I couldn’t tell what anything looked like at all.
Thankfully last night my dad and Brian gave me the good advice to buy some safety glasses if I valued my eyes, so I listened to them and purchased a pair. Once I began the trek I understood why I would need them. We walked through stuff so thick that I could barely move. It tugged at my clothes and repeatedly slapped me in the face, but one thing was obvious; there was an abundance of deer tracks everyplace my eyes came in contact with the ground. I was walking over more scrapes than I could imagine.
I had my lone wolf portable stand strapped to my backpack along with my climbing sticks. Since there were no suitable trees for a climbing tree stand Brian told me to bring my portable stand. An hour and twenty minutes after the journey began we reached our destination. From the outline of the land in the darkness I could see that I was setting up on the edge of a CRP field with a big hardwood ridge on my backside. In the dark it looked good, but it wasn’t an area that I would have chosen for myself.
Shortly after daylight I began seeing deer and it never stopped the entire day. We sat until dark. I always listen to people talk about how difficult it is to sit all day. I’ve never had that problem, especially when the deer are moving. I base my decision on the length of the sit after I observe what’s going on in front of me. If there’s a lot of activity or even spotty activity and it’s during the rut I will sit all day. If I have another place I can get to without wasting much time on the ground I’ll split my time between the two places. Many times I catch deer moving when I’m moving and some great opportunities can present themselves. When the day ended I had seen eight bucks and 16 does. A couple of the bucks were really nice ones, but nothing I wanted to shoot. I got some good video of a young 10-pointer who has some serious potential to become a giant if he gets some age on him.
The morning seemed to be much more active than the evening. I’m glad I sat all day, but looking at it now I probably should have done some scouting since I have limited time. In some ways I feel like I wasted a day. Although I was seeing deer I probably could have found some other places to set up for the upcoming days. I feel handcuffed since I didn’t get to come out last week with Brian and dad.
Here’s the video of the 10-pointer I passed. He milled around underneath me for about 10-15 minutes before heading off in the other direction.