I didn’t feel well today but I headed to the woods anyway. Since I haven’t had much time to look around I wanted to check a few things out. I went to my old stomping grounds to look for some buck signs and any indication of where the deer might be feeding.
It has been years since I’ve seen a significant beech crop in the area. That’s not the case this year as there appears to be an abundance of beech nuts. I haven’t found any acorns yet and it looks like they will be spotty at best.
I expected to see a few rubs here and there, but I didn’t see one on my entire walk. When I got down near one of my favorite places I noticed where someone had cut a few small trees and nipped a few others. After further examination I found where they propped a few rocks against a small hemlock tree on a knob. It’s a perfect funnel due to a small swamp hole that gives the deer limited options when they reach that point. It’s a bottleneck of sorts and the deer have to go on the high side around the water or the low side. I’m pretty sure my friends Steve and Doug cleared out the place to sit because Doug killed a pretty good buck in that area a few years ago.
Eventually I found a place for my camera. I put it on top of the mountain. I wasn’t too excited when I left. It’s like sitting in a place where you would be surprised if you saw a deer. I will be surprised if I get more than a couple of pictures. For now I guess I’ll just hope for one picture. I’ll go back and check it in a couple of weeks.
I didn’t see any deer today. The woods were quiet and the canopy is still very heavy, which makes visibility extremely poor.
My buddies from Kansas sent me a few trail cam photos today. I’ll attach them after this. I also found an old trail cam picture from a couple of years ago. I had this in the piece of woods where I hunted tonight and never saw the picture until last night. Meanwhile, it was taken at the end of the season in 2009. I’m not sure how I missed it, but I did.
You are right about seeing a lot of big bucks, but knnoiwg if they are big enough is tough no matter how many you’ve seen. Our group has a 160 inch minimum and this deer is rare even here where we are the only hunters ever and the land is so large. For me I’d vote for shooting a buck that excites you and the hell with the number of inches of antler it holds, but my Texas friends don’t see it that way.