Catskills
Well-Known Member
My brother and I are on our second year of deer hunting after living 28 years of always wanting to get into it. With that said, it's tough to call this hunt unsuccessful because lots of lessons were learned in one evening.
Yesterday, we set out to a public ridge top we scouted in the spring. This area is Appalachian style hunting, it's the foothills of the catskills in NY. Low density, no crops for miles. The hill country hunting beast tactics led us to some great bedding areas. On the attached map the solid red line (distance markers) and the blue line are the two times we scouted it. The stars are the buck beds we found with hair and the other waypoints on this ridge are rubs and oak trees. The red dotted line is our entry for the hunt and the circle with the blind symbol (they need a saddle symbol lol) was his set up, mine the left blue circle.
The forecasted wind worked for these beds. When we started walking at 3:15pm the thermals were already dropping due to being in the shade and wind was minimal. Milkweed dropping straight down. We kept an eye out for fresh sign and picked trees 50yds apart on different trails leading to oaks. Our spots were 100-150yds away from the beds we found in April. The ground below the oak I set up on was all beat up.
Around 5:30pm a spike came right down my brother's shooting lane. Great sign, hoping a bigger one is following. Right after that my brother spotted a bigger buck 50 yds out. Looked to be a basket 8. He pulled up his binoculars and the buck spooked. Right as this happened 3 bear cubs popped out 10 yds behind him and out comes mama bear. Huge. Biggest bear I've seen in person. I'd be lying if I didn't mention my heart has never beat so fast. Crazy to see. Lots of bears in this area. They eventually worked off and the rest of the evening was quiet.
Not sure if the binos or the bear spooked the bigger deer. But to us just having a plan come to fruition is a huge confidence boost. Because as you can imagine we discussed this plan for hours leading up to it. Debating on best access, our wind, how close we should get etc. Happy we decided to get aggressive since there's a warm trend coming and I have a dang ol wedding next weekend during the next cold front. That 2.5yo-3.5yo+ buck read the script. He's yet to shoot one so any legal buck (3 points on one side) would be awesome. Just getting on a buck in this terrain can be tough. This proves confidence can kill deer. If we stayed intimidated about the what-ifs this hunt would have never happen
I've decided no more binos unless its absolutely necessary. If a buck is in bow range, a buck is in range. Using the binos may be too much movement.
Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
Yesterday, we set out to a public ridge top we scouted in the spring. This area is Appalachian style hunting, it's the foothills of the catskills in NY. Low density, no crops for miles. The hill country hunting beast tactics led us to some great bedding areas. On the attached map the solid red line (distance markers) and the blue line are the two times we scouted it. The stars are the buck beds we found with hair and the other waypoints on this ridge are rubs and oak trees. The red dotted line is our entry for the hunt and the circle with the blind symbol (they need a saddle symbol lol) was his set up, mine the left blue circle.
The forecasted wind worked for these beds. When we started walking at 3:15pm the thermals were already dropping due to being in the shade and wind was minimal. Milkweed dropping straight down. We kept an eye out for fresh sign and picked trees 50yds apart on different trails leading to oaks. Our spots were 100-150yds away from the beds we found in April. The ground below the oak I set up on was all beat up.
Around 5:30pm a spike came right down my brother's shooting lane. Great sign, hoping a bigger one is following. Right after that my brother spotted a bigger buck 50 yds out. Looked to be a basket 8. He pulled up his binoculars and the buck spooked. Right as this happened 3 bear cubs popped out 10 yds behind him and out comes mama bear. Huge. Biggest bear I've seen in person. I'd be lying if I didn't mention my heart has never beat so fast. Crazy to see. Lots of bears in this area. They eventually worked off and the rest of the evening was quiet.
Not sure if the binos or the bear spooked the bigger deer. But to us just having a plan come to fruition is a huge confidence boost. Because as you can imagine we discussed this plan for hours leading up to it. Debating on best access, our wind, how close we should get etc. Happy we decided to get aggressive since there's a warm trend coming and I have a dang ol wedding next weekend during the next cold front. That 2.5yo-3.5yo+ buck read the script. He's yet to shoot one so any legal buck (3 points on one side) would be awesome. Just getting on a buck in this terrain can be tough. This proves confidence can kill deer. If we stayed intimidated about the what-ifs this hunt would have never happen
I've decided no more binos unless its absolutely necessary. If a buck is in bow range, a buck is in range. Using the binos may be too much movement.
Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
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