this is the story of saturday afternoon's hunt. things at home have been up and down and my kids were being particularly extra that AM so i was leaning towards not going, but told myself i needed some alone time to be a better dad/partner, which was true, so i left. (helped that i'd mostly packed the truck the night before).
got to my hunting spot not too long after noon with a plan to 1. check some close - to-parking possible bedding, 2. scout a far away creek crossing to see if activity levels remained high and 3. locate and move a camera that isn't telling me much. for ease of description, parking to the south, creek to the west, private to the east and far north. i hiked a mile north and a mile east before finishing the square i walked. now for the story:
the bedding area is probably only a quarter mile from parking,on the south east side hugging the creek, however it's surrounded by brambles, thick tangled crap, muck and swamp and bog, basically a combo of terrible land to traverse as a biped, so naturally i wanted to check to see if it may hold deer. didnt even get all the way into this area before i spooked a deer from it's bed, couldnt tell if it was a buck or a doe, but didn't want to go stomping through now that bedding was confirmed. i backed out and headed back to the western edge of the property, using the safety no hunting zone as a travel area to get deep into the woods to check on a few things. ended up not seeing any deer the whole walk and not as much sign as i was hoping, but made it to the creek crossing and moved the camera and continued to scout around, at this point the wind had started to shift so i angled to the east and south and then west and south as i returned, and ended up tracing a bit of a square baloon on a string type of track for the day. anyhow, as i worked my way back along the east edge, i decided to cross over to the other side of this "boundary" creek and see what was on the other side. ( i say boundary, because there's only all the brambles and overgrown weeds and mud to deal with ,then you get to the creek which is hard to cross in all but a few spots, but it was more of a mental boundary for me, i discovered the deer don't think so) and as i was getting back within 400 yards of the initial bumped deer (but approaching from the other side of bedding/ other side of the creek this time) i bumped another deer.
i decided to take this as my sign that i'd found them, at this point it was approaching 4 PM and i was pretty tired from hiking around about twice as much as i'd "planned", somewhere around 4 miles total, nothing too crazy but a decent effort with my pack on my back. after studying trees and picking one that would give me a variety of shot opportunities (but not much cover) i climbed to about 12-14 feet or so. within about a half hour i had a spike and a doe come in, i've already shot a spike this year so pulled out my camera(phone) insted, not realizing he had a doe behind him. oh well, perhaps we'll meet again next year. or his sister later this year
not too much time goes by and i see two does working own the steep hillside in almost the same spot, wait for the first one to come through right where the spike did, let her take about 5 more steps to clear some leaves, let out my first "MERP" at a deer (why do we do that particular sound by the way?), saw her tense up but not fully pick up her head, and took my 9 yard shot.
i knew the shot was good as soon as it blew through her, but was happy to watch her bound a few yards up the hillside before doing the stop, wobble, drop and roll. surprisingly she didn't roll all the way down the hill, but slid from maybe 35-40 yards to 25-30 yards away, my first deer i've seen die within eyesight (the other two were relatively short track jobs but i still worry about that portion).
i was happy with shot placement, shooting an EZ V sight and QAD exodus broadheads, bear cruzer g2. 3 deer shot, 3 pass throughs. (though this is the biggest deer i've shot thus far, third total, second from the saddle.)
i texted my wife and brother at around 5:30, at which point i was debating dealing with her vs trying for a double. decided to climb down at 6 if nothing walked by, which ended up being the plan, i actually had at least 3 more deer (possibly more, i wasn't paying enough attention) walk in and blow at me between 6-7, so the double was possible, though likely for the best that it didn't happen on this particular night. getting out was a bit of a story in and of itself lol, i dragged the deer to a clearing that i recognized, and set off to find the shortest route to the truck and return with the cart. instead of doing that, i took a wrong turn in the overgrown maze and found an area that had mud past my knees. i know because i found it by stepping into it. good thing i was wearing my lace up lowas, because my muck boots would have been lost in the muck and i may still be digging for them. i had to use all my "watched a YouTube video about how to deal with quicksand" skills to literally drop to the ground and roll around in the mud and water to be able to pull my legs out and then i had to get my wet dirty butt up and find the right way to the truck lol. took a few more detours but got there eventually, and got back to the deer with minimal incident. its amazing how different things look at night. at no point was i "lost" because i knew generally where i was, the direction of my vehicle etc, but vegetation all starts to look pretty similar when its dark and you're tired. I may update my opinions on flagging, this is an instance where a few well placed flags or reflective tacks would have helped me not waste time/energy and get wet boots.
i have no idea what type of birds they were but had some cool experiences with birds flying in and out if the grasses a few feet in front of me (chest high vegetation), they would flit in and out of the grass and the only way to visually compare is if you've ever seen flying fish jump out of the water. cool stuff!
anyhow, i got her back to the truck relatively easy (all these words represent less than 2 hours of my night) but it was a great time. quartered it that evening, had deer heart tacos with the kids yesterday need to further process the quarters tonight, although there's still enough ice in the cooler to leave until tomorrow if i need to.
I need to figure out a different place to process, I had a tree last year but it blew over. This setup is too close to the ground and my back wasn't happy.
Edited to add-thank you to my friend Rigor for keeping her neck bent and head off the ground for an accurate weight.
got to my hunting spot not too long after noon with a plan to 1. check some close - to-parking possible bedding, 2. scout a far away creek crossing to see if activity levels remained high and 3. locate and move a camera that isn't telling me much. for ease of description, parking to the south, creek to the west, private to the east and far north. i hiked a mile north and a mile east before finishing the square i walked. now for the story:
the bedding area is probably only a quarter mile from parking,on the south east side hugging the creek, however it's surrounded by brambles, thick tangled crap, muck and swamp and bog, basically a combo of terrible land to traverse as a biped, so naturally i wanted to check to see if it may hold deer. didnt even get all the way into this area before i spooked a deer from it's bed, couldnt tell if it was a buck or a doe, but didn't want to go stomping through now that bedding was confirmed. i backed out and headed back to the western edge of the property, using the safety no hunting zone as a travel area to get deep into the woods to check on a few things. ended up not seeing any deer the whole walk and not as much sign as i was hoping, but made it to the creek crossing and moved the camera and continued to scout around, at this point the wind had started to shift so i angled to the east and south and then west and south as i returned, and ended up tracing a bit of a square baloon on a string type of track for the day. anyhow, as i worked my way back along the east edge, i decided to cross over to the other side of this "boundary" creek and see what was on the other side. ( i say boundary, because there's only all the brambles and overgrown weeds and mud to deal with ,then you get to the creek which is hard to cross in all but a few spots, but it was more of a mental boundary for me, i discovered the deer don't think so) and as i was getting back within 400 yards of the initial bumped deer (but approaching from the other side of bedding/ other side of the creek this time) i bumped another deer.
i decided to take this as my sign that i'd found them, at this point it was approaching 4 PM and i was pretty tired from hiking around about twice as much as i'd "planned", somewhere around 4 miles total, nothing too crazy but a decent effort with my pack on my back. after studying trees and picking one that would give me a variety of shot opportunities (but not much cover) i climbed to about 12-14 feet or so. within about a half hour i had a spike and a doe come in, i've already shot a spike this year so pulled out my camera(phone) insted, not realizing he had a doe behind him. oh well, perhaps we'll meet again next year. or his sister later this year
not too much time goes by and i see two does working own the steep hillside in almost the same spot, wait for the first one to come through right where the spike did, let her take about 5 more steps to clear some leaves, let out my first "MERP" at a deer (why do we do that particular sound by the way?), saw her tense up but not fully pick up her head, and took my 9 yard shot.
i knew the shot was good as soon as it blew through her, but was happy to watch her bound a few yards up the hillside before doing the stop, wobble, drop and roll. surprisingly she didn't roll all the way down the hill, but slid from maybe 35-40 yards to 25-30 yards away, my first deer i've seen die within eyesight (the other two were relatively short track jobs but i still worry about that portion).
i was happy with shot placement, shooting an EZ V sight and QAD exodus broadheads, bear cruzer g2. 3 deer shot, 3 pass throughs. (though this is the biggest deer i've shot thus far, third total, second from the saddle.)
i texted my wife and brother at around 5:30, at which point i was debating dealing with her vs trying for a double. decided to climb down at 6 if nothing walked by, which ended up being the plan, i actually had at least 3 more deer (possibly more, i wasn't paying enough attention) walk in and blow at me between 6-7, so the double was possible, though likely for the best that it didn't happen on this particular night. getting out was a bit of a story in and of itself lol, i dragged the deer to a clearing that i recognized, and set off to find the shortest route to the truck and return with the cart. instead of doing that, i took a wrong turn in the overgrown maze and found an area that had mud past my knees. i know because i found it by stepping into it. good thing i was wearing my lace up lowas, because my muck boots would have been lost in the muck and i may still be digging for them. i had to use all my "watched a YouTube video about how to deal with quicksand" skills to literally drop to the ground and roll around in the mud and water to be able to pull my legs out and then i had to get my wet dirty butt up and find the right way to the truck lol. took a few more detours but got there eventually, and got back to the deer with minimal incident. its amazing how different things look at night. at no point was i "lost" because i knew generally where i was, the direction of my vehicle etc, but vegetation all starts to look pretty similar when its dark and you're tired. I may update my opinions on flagging, this is an instance where a few well placed flags or reflective tacks would have helped me not waste time/energy and get wet boots.
i have no idea what type of birds they were but had some cool experiences with birds flying in and out if the grasses a few feet in front of me (chest high vegetation), they would flit in and out of the grass and the only way to visually compare is if you've ever seen flying fish jump out of the water. cool stuff!
anyhow, i got her back to the truck relatively easy (all these words represent less than 2 hours of my night) but it was a great time. quartered it that evening, had deer heart tacos with the kids yesterday need to further process the quarters tonight, although there's still enough ice in the cooler to leave until tomorrow if i need to.
I need to figure out a different place to process, I had a tree last year but it blew over. This setup is too close to the ground and my back wasn't happy.
Edited to add-thank you to my friend Rigor for keeping her neck bent and head off the ground for an accurate weight.
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