I spent the day in the woods with one of my best buddies, TJ Jordan. He grew up in Greenwich, which is a little south of me and he hit it right when he decided he wanted to be a deer hunter. He was always a very good turkey hunter and let it consume him every May. After some encouragement he took up deer hunting and got involved in a very good QDM co-op in his area. I’ve been lucky enough to walk the property he hunts a few times and give him some advice. We spent the day today trying to locate a good spot for him to intercept one of the mature bucks that are known to inhabit the surrounding properties.
After looking around for a while we headed down into a bottom. He showed me an area he liked and we surveyed the area to see if we could find something that would increase his odds of taking a nice buck. It didn’t take long to figure it out. A stream running through the low-land made it easy to identify some prime places to set up. We found some pretty impressive scrapes from last season, which appeared to be primary scrapes. The way the stream ran through the property it funnels the deer to cross a ditch in one place that is about 50 yards wide. There are four main runways there that are pounded into the ground. When I looked at it I instantly new it would be a slam-dunk place to set up, especially during the rut. We set up some cameras and got out of there as quickly as we appeared there. The light rain that fell last night surely washed our scent away to help us with the matter.
I’ll keep you in the loop as to TJ’s success as the season goes forward. I love hunting big woods, but a taste of farm country hunting every year when there are big bucks roaming through the crop-fields is always fun, too. My buddy Bobby is in Kansas right now. He’s been spotting fields every night in hopes of finding a buck he named “Stickers” last year. This buck has a chance to be a 200 inch deer. Hopefully Bobby can find him before early muzzleloader opens in a few weeks. If he locates him I’d put money on Bobby to take him. We’ll see how this plays out as well.
I can feel it in the air. The nights are getting cooler and the northerly winds make me aware that fall is only a few weeks away.