This season was way different than previous seasons for two big reasons. First, I'll have a kid next season and I wanted to save as much money as I could this year and also prepare for what future seasons will probably look like. Second, last year I pushed really hard to travel and while it proved a theory I have about killing big bucks being 90% or better about location...it was exhausting. Conversations with a friend
This season I made 3 goals. Hunt my home county exclusively, with focus on tracts within 20 minutes of the house; hunt from the ground exclusively; and kill 5 deer that way. I succeeded on 2 out of 3. I killed 6 deer from the ground and 1 from a tree, hunted a total of 3 times from a tree, and never drove more than 20 minutes to hunt.
Recap on kills:
I usually kill 8-10 deer a year, so on the surface this season looks like a reduction in efficiency. However, I did not travel to areas with more/bigger deer, and I hunted only 2 weekend days. I made almost no evening sits or weekend sits in an effort to spend more time with the wife before the parasite hatches and to prepare for responsible nurturing of said parasite. I also straight-up didn't hunt for 2 weeks in December, and missed a week straight in January. I'd guess I had roughly half as many sits as in years past, which pushed my kills-per-sit ratio up.
Takeaways:
For the duck hunters out there, I also finally embraced the fact that we have a lot of wood ducks and not much else. I never carried more than 3 decoys and a jerk rig this year, ditched my call lanyard, and I did 90% of my duck hunting with nothing but chest waders. I bought a nice timber pack and spent a lot of mornings just leaned against a tree in a spot where I'd heard ducks the day before. I killed just as many ducks as I usually do with much less effort. Probably selling 3 dozen floaters and a half dozen motion decoys.
All in all, it was a very simple, very effective season. I spent less money and stressed the wife less than I have in the last 7 years, spent more time with family, slept in more, was more comfortable, and burned less mental bandwidth too. 10 out of 10, would highly recommend.
This season I made 3 goals. Hunt my home county exclusively, with focus on tracts within 20 minutes of the house; hunt from the ground exclusively; and kill 5 deer that way. I succeeded on 2 out of 3. I killed 6 deer from the ground and 1 from a tree, hunted a total of 3 times from a tree, and never drove more than 20 minutes to hunt.
Recap on kills:
- Doe in early archery season. Sat in the pacseat next to a hot oak on the edge of some known palmetto bedding on a ridge. Had 5 does come out at 20 yards. Killed the biggest with the mini. Awesome hunt. Clean kill. Deer dead within 10 yards.
- Doe in muzzleloader season. Scouted an overgrown clearcut and jumped a deer walking a 4 wheeler trail. Came back the next day and sat that trail in the pacseat. Shot her as she crossed the trail at 40 yards. Dead in 10 yards.
- Doe in gun season. Jumped deer out of a food plot one evening. Came back a couple of days later after seeing deer feeding in daylight in a field I pass on the way to work. Jumped deer out of plot. Set up in pacseat anyway. 30 minutes later shot a doe at 50 yards. Dead before she hit the ground.
- Button buck in gun season. Same trail and setup as doe #2. Dead immediately.
- Seven point from saddle with muzzleloader. Really wish I hadn't climbed a tree. The evening before I found 3 fresh scrapes clustered on a fire break on an isolated corner of the property near a private food plot. Sat 20 yards from scrapes and had a doe come out right on top of me. Passed on her and came back the next day to climb a little further away from scrapes (50 yards) and avoid another really close encounter. Buck came out to work scrapes. Shot and had no blood. 3 days of looking and I found the carcass. He ran about 150 yards. If I'd have sat in the same spot as the day before, I'd have probably hit him better and killed 100% of my deer from the pacseat.
- Spike buck with rifle. Sat in an area I've killed 4-5 bucks in the past on a fresh scrape. Shot the little goober at 28 steps as he sniffed it. Dead instantaneously.
I usually kill 8-10 deer a year, so on the surface this season looks like a reduction in efficiency. However, I did not travel to areas with more/bigger deer, and I hunted only 2 weekend days. I made almost no evening sits or weekend sits in an effort to spend more time with the wife before the parasite hatches and to prepare for responsible nurturing of said parasite. I also straight-up didn't hunt for 2 weeks in December, and missed a week straight in January. I'd guess I had roughly half as many sits as in years past, which pushed my kills-per-sit ratio up.
Takeaways:
- I got really, really, REALLY used to the pacseat. The two times I climbed a preset climber and the one time I climbed in a saddle, it was very inconvenient. The stealth and ease of just shrugging off the seat and sitting down is impossible to beat.
- I finally perfected the mental game of ground hunting. Basically, I'm hunting from my 9 o'clock to my 1 o'clock. Nothing outside of that pie slice exists. Trying to look behind you or shoot deer to your right is too low-odds to even fool with (although I did put the crosshairs on a doe that came out maybe 15 yards to my right one evening).
- There were some areas I found deer where climbing may have been more advantageous. I never felt like I was "out of the game" though. And, I found many areas where a ground chair was the much easier solution to hunting an area. Net result was positive.
- packing a deer out is much nicer when you have a frame pack and no climbing crap to weigh you down.
For the duck hunters out there, I also finally embraced the fact that we have a lot of wood ducks and not much else. I never carried more than 3 decoys and a jerk rig this year, ditched my call lanyard, and I did 90% of my duck hunting with nothing but chest waders. I bought a nice timber pack and spent a lot of mornings just leaned against a tree in a spot where I'd heard ducks the day before. I killed just as many ducks as I usually do with much less effort. Probably selling 3 dozen floaters and a half dozen motion decoys.
All in all, it was a very simple, very effective season. I spent less money and stressed the wife less than I have in the last 7 years, spent more time with family, slept in more, was more comfortable, and burned less mental bandwidth too. 10 out of 10, would highly recommend.