- Joined
- Apr 1, 2014
- Messages
- 700
Last year on the saddlehunter.com hunting talk forum (interactive talk forum dedicated to hunters that use harnesses instead of conventional tree stands) I frequently exchanged hunting information with a fellow hunter Mike Maustellar from Columbus Ohio. In early October of this year Mike called and offered an open invite to bowhunt whenever I had the time to come down. With the current Ohio State/U of Michigan football rivalry going on and being from Michigan I was tentative about crossing the state line and leaving my Michigan plated vehicle parked unattended.
On my first trip to Kansas in 2004 with Bryan Schupbach a pissed of resident that didn’t like out of state hunters coming down and taking their bucks, flattened all 4 tires on both Bryans truck and my mini-van while they were parked overnight at a Motel. However, I really wasn’t that concerned about it happening in Ohio.
Mike doesn’t own or lease any property but his good friend Donovan Kuhn (614-354-5317) is a buyer/developer for Countrytyme Land out of Lancaster Ohio. Countrytyme Land is a hunting/recreational land company that buys mid to large size parcels of land throughout the state and develops them by: improving access, installing trail systems, manicuring, building cabins on occasion, and basically making them turn-key ready for hunters or recreational users to start playing on day one. They sell lands anywhere from 5 to 500 acres in size with most of their smaller splits backing up to public hunting areas.
While properties within close proximity of Donovan’s residency are being surveyed, developed or being sold Donovan and his friend Mike has the opportunity to hunt them. As most deer hunters are aware it’s difficult in a short period of time to learn the subtle deer movement habits on a piece of property such as; where they bed, where they prefer to feed during daylight, where their comfortable transitioning through during daylight hours, and how the properties bordering hunting pressure affects deer movements.
Depending on the property Donovan has sometimes had to deal with trespassers as the locals assume the properties aren’t being hunted and know the property owner or developer doesn’t reside nearby.
The 243 acre parcel of property Mike and Donovan invited me to hunt is about 6 miles NW of the tiny town of Kimbolton Ohio and the only time I could foresee a lag in my work schedule and an opportunity to bowhunt was in December right between Ohio’s main gun season and their 2 day weekend gun season on December 17th and 18th.
Since I write about bowhunting pressured deer and with my home state of Michigan statistically being the most heavily pressured state in the country when it comes to licensed bowhunters per absolute square mile of land mass, I’ve remained committed to hunt Michigan until gun season or both of my Michigan buck tags are punched with bow kills. I had also drawn a tag for Kansas and had solid plans of going there to bowhunt during Michigan’s gun season.
Mike and Donovan hunted the property during bow and the first gun season and also had several motion cameras out and sent me several pictures of a drop tine buck and a clean 10 point along with a few Google Earth aerial photos to entice me to make the trip down.
During November they saw the 10 point they called crab-claw on 4 occasions and Mike saw the drop tine buck twice. They named the 10 point crab-claw because his short G-4’s were so close to the end of the main beams that they resembled crab-claws. During an evening hunt Mike saw the drop tine buck under another of his stands and on yet another evening hunt Mike grunted him to within 75 yards before he caught sight of a doe and went after her.
The bordering properties also get bow and gun hunted and neither Mike nor Donovan knew what bucks in the area might have been taken.
Mike’s enticement worked and on December 9th I checked into a flea bag Motel in Cambridge Ohio with a kitchenette. Mike invited me to stay at his place but it was more than an hour away and Donovan was ever further. They also both had to work, so I would be on my own.
I slept in the first morning and arrived at the property at around 9:30 am and was blown away at the sheer beauty not only of the property, but also of the surrounding area. Sometimes words simply can’t explain nature’s beauty, and this was one of those times. I’ve had the great fortune to bowhunt in several other states and other than bowhunting for Elk in Colorado I’ve never seen such gorgeous landscape.
The property itself has 3 ponds, 2 tillable crop fields that hadn’t been planted (in weeds) with perimeter timber, several dense briar packed small stands of timber as bedding areas, and to top it off a large river as its eastern border with timber, brush and briars running along both banks. The aerial maps didn’t show elevations and that alone was a sin because the property was nicely tucked in a valley surrounded by high and very steep rolling hills littered with patches of timber and gold colored weed fields.
On my first trip to Kansas in 2004 with Bryan Schupbach a pissed of resident that didn’t like out of state hunters coming down and taking their bucks, flattened all 4 tires on both Bryans truck and my mini-van while they were parked overnight at a Motel. However, I really wasn’t that concerned about it happening in Ohio.
Mike doesn’t own or lease any property but his good friend Donovan Kuhn (614-354-5317) is a buyer/developer for Countrytyme Land out of Lancaster Ohio. Countrytyme Land is a hunting/recreational land company that buys mid to large size parcels of land throughout the state and develops them by: improving access, installing trail systems, manicuring, building cabins on occasion, and basically making them turn-key ready for hunters or recreational users to start playing on day one. They sell lands anywhere from 5 to 500 acres in size with most of their smaller splits backing up to public hunting areas.
While properties within close proximity of Donovan’s residency are being surveyed, developed or being sold Donovan and his friend Mike has the opportunity to hunt them. As most deer hunters are aware it’s difficult in a short period of time to learn the subtle deer movement habits on a piece of property such as; where they bed, where they prefer to feed during daylight, where their comfortable transitioning through during daylight hours, and how the properties bordering hunting pressure affects deer movements.
Depending on the property Donovan has sometimes had to deal with trespassers as the locals assume the properties aren’t being hunted and know the property owner or developer doesn’t reside nearby.
The 243 acre parcel of property Mike and Donovan invited me to hunt is about 6 miles NW of the tiny town of Kimbolton Ohio and the only time I could foresee a lag in my work schedule and an opportunity to bowhunt was in December right between Ohio’s main gun season and their 2 day weekend gun season on December 17th and 18th.
Since I write about bowhunting pressured deer and with my home state of Michigan statistically being the most heavily pressured state in the country when it comes to licensed bowhunters per absolute square mile of land mass, I’ve remained committed to hunt Michigan until gun season or both of my Michigan buck tags are punched with bow kills. I had also drawn a tag for Kansas and had solid plans of going there to bowhunt during Michigan’s gun season.
Mike and Donovan hunted the property during bow and the first gun season and also had several motion cameras out and sent me several pictures of a drop tine buck and a clean 10 point along with a few Google Earth aerial photos to entice me to make the trip down.
During November they saw the 10 point they called crab-claw on 4 occasions and Mike saw the drop tine buck twice. They named the 10 point crab-claw because his short G-4’s were so close to the end of the main beams that they resembled crab-claws. During an evening hunt Mike saw the drop tine buck under another of his stands and on yet another evening hunt Mike grunted him to within 75 yards before he caught sight of a doe and went after her.
The bordering properties also get bow and gun hunted and neither Mike nor Donovan knew what bucks in the area might have been taken.
Mike’s enticement worked and on December 9th I checked into a flea bag Motel in Cambridge Ohio with a kitchenette. Mike invited me to stay at his place but it was more than an hour away and Donovan was ever further. They also both had to work, so I would be on my own.
I slept in the first morning and arrived at the property at around 9:30 am and was blown away at the sheer beauty not only of the property, but also of the surrounding area. Sometimes words simply can’t explain nature’s beauty, and this was one of those times. I’ve had the great fortune to bowhunt in several other states and other than bowhunting for Elk in Colorado I’ve never seen such gorgeous landscape.
The property itself has 3 ponds, 2 tillable crop fields that hadn’t been planted (in weeds) with perimeter timber, several dense briar packed small stands of timber as bedding areas, and to top it off a large river as its eastern border with timber, brush and briars running along both banks. The aerial maps didn’t show elevations and that alone was a sin because the property was nicely tucked in a valley surrounded by high and very steep rolling hills littered with patches of timber and gold colored weed fields.