2017-18 Live from the tree

The daughter came out this AM with me. Already one doe and if she presents a shot may take her, with hopes of a buck on her tail.

Not to many nice days like this left. Yesterday morning had a little 4 point circle me as i tried to get in my stand. Jumped 3 on the walk back, dang it. Wish the southeren neighbors would chop their corn already. About 500 acres with 800 yards of neighbors woods between. I think thats made for a quiet fall for me. Most the deer seem to bed and eat there. Our woods activity has declined greatly since august/sep.

To the left is about 200 acres of bedding which is closed to hunting, and to the right is the field I’ve been hunting. The deer sign is impressive back in here! Now I just need one to make a mistake while it’s still light!

Sitting in a stand at home tonight overlooking an awesome brassica plot with cut corn on 2 other sides. Temp is cool and wind is right. Prolly wasting my time since I don’t have a deer pic in a week, but it beats sitting on the couch.

Back in the stand at home, beautiful morning. See what happens in the cut corn

Deer, coon, yote, squirrel, rabbit I am not going to be fussy this morning

Last sit of the season. Been having a lot of deer cruising the tree rows to sneak across the field. 400 yards, I had a huge doe cross. Took my final shot of the season also. Unpleasant surprise. Recovered a 6pnt that had a rack about 3″ tall and 6 “wide. Completely hidden by its ears. Oh well, seeing the progress of our farm is holding so many deer is nothing less than satisfying to me

Got my stand moved to a new spot about half way between two heavily traveled benches that wrap around a thick brush covered hill side. I was looking for a spot with better access for morning hunts and I found it!

Here’s my report for how the weekend went;
I hunted a Doe management state park hunt for the first time, you’re able to harvest 2 antlerless deer (1 with a bonus tag and the other you must use your main deer tag), during the hunt the park is closed to all nonhunters to help keep things safe. But there are a lot of side access points that a person can enter the park, so we were told to be aware that there could be people out other that are not hunting and may not know that a hunt is going on. The hunt is a 2-day hunt where you can enter the park at 6am and checkout by 6pm.
My plan for Saturday was to hike ½ to ¾ of a mile cross country to get to a place that looked good on google earth, to help get there in the dark I mapped out a path on my phone using OnXmaps. As I was walking in the dark I jumped 2 deer, and when I arrived close to my spot I jumped another deer that I could see it’s eyes in my headlamp. This helped confirm that deer were at least in the area that I picked out, and by using the mapping software I was able to get to my spot with no troubles at all.
Around 7:30 I had a deer blowing at me from about 60-70 yards away but couldn’t tell what it was or see it, about an hour later I had a 6 pointer and a half rack spike come past me at 40 yards. I had to look really close at the spike since it was hard to see and antlers on its head but once I saw the one antler glisten in the sun I knew it was a buck and off limits. Maybe 15 minutes later I had a hunter walk up to me, we talked about this hunt and how it was going, he was a very nice guy and decided to head the other way and hunt. I decided that around 10:00 I was going to get up and still hunt in a big loop to end up close to where I was setup that morning, mostly to see some other country to hopefully put a plan together for Sunday.
While I was still hunting along a trail I looked up and could see a Doe and a fawn on a hill side up ahead of me about 120 yards away, I pulled up my scope and got settled on the Doe. Just about when I took the safety off the deer spooked and took off, right over the hill came 2 people on fat bikes talking really loud and wearing only black. As the blow past me I said Hi and waved, but they didn’t stop, I decided to run up to where I saw the deer to try and cut them off. I got up to where I thought they were going to cross and waited for 20 minutes or so, but nothing came past me. I started still hunting down the hill, when I got to the bottom I looked up and saw a doe trotting down the trail towards me I pulled up on her and over the hill cam the same two bikers, the doe took off. This time when they came past me I didn’t say anything just started at them (the park ranger did catch up to them later, and informed them there was a hunt going on and the park was closed). I continued on still hunting until 3:00 I jumped another deer during that time but couldn’t tell what it was, I also ran into 2 other hunters. I found a place to sit overlooking a very nice meadow with the wind blowing in my face and thick cover behind me. I had 2 deer come through behind me at 20 yards but they smelled me and took off, as I was walking out I jumped another deer and had one cross the trail really fast in front of me.
The totals for day 1 were:
10.5 hours hunted
5 miles walked
11 deer seen and 3 heard for a total of 14 deer
2 mountain bikers
3 hunters
0 shots fired

Evening sit picture

another from the same spot

Day 2
I went to church in the morning and made it out to the Park by 11:45 my plan was to meet up with the guy that was hunting with me and head back to where I saw the deer cross behind me the night before and have him sit there, I was going to go to a spot I found the other day that had three different funnels intersecting in front of the tree I was going to sit by. I found out while hunting Saturday that the deer were moving but holding tight to cover and the thicker the better, this spot I found had it all. Thick cover a steep ridge that had a ditch running up it and no trails by it. My plan was to sit until dark and hope I could catch something trying to sneak through, I only made it till 12:45 and I looked up to see a Doe and a fawn heading my way at 40 yards. The Doe stopped behind a tree, so I got my muzzy up and put the scope on her, see took two more steps quartering towards me and out into the open, a mouth grunt stopped her.
I lined up on her shoulder and touched the trigger, there was very little wind and the smoke cloud was awesome, I could hear her crashing through the thick brush. While I was reloading I could hear the Fawn blowing and stomping around so I knew the Doe was down, she made it about 60-70 yards mostly down hill and the blood trail was easy to follow. After a quickly taking care of her I walked back to the truck and got the game cart, from the time I shot to when I had it loaded on the truck was only 2 hours, not bad for being ¾ of a mile back and having to go through some thorny, thick brush and downed trees.
I was shooting my Traditions Pursuit G4 ultralight .50cal with a Nikon 3-9×40 scope, 100 grains of Pioneer gold powder and a 250 grain T/C shockwave. The exit hole was about 1” in diameter.
The totals for day 1 were:
45 minutes hunted
3 miles hiked
2 deer seen
0 hunters
1 shot fired

As she fell

ready to roll out

Slow start, but a perfect morning

Deer sure are moving this morning in NW MN. My son shot at a good buck but because of the lack of wind the deer got covered in smoke so I didn’t see the shot. Going to sit for a while and then go look. Fog is moving in thick right now.
DT

7 deer so far, but nothing I want to shoot.

DT, what did you find?

Zero sign. I believe it was a clean miss. Someone told him to shoot for 120 yards when it was actually 200. In a hurry in an open field situation and I screwed up. It was a big deer too…. Ugh!
DT

You will have that, not a big deal, at least he got to burn powder

Fresh snow, cool Temps high winds, what could be better than a secluded standing bean plot blocked off by mature pines with brassica right behind it. Hopes are kind of high, been getting some deer on cam here at home lately.

Last night at home with the muzzy, sitting over the standing ag beans with a perfect wind. With the cold Temps I hope they come to feed.

Nice late season sit, Temps aren’t bad, low wind and fresh snow.

Different spot tonight, high hopes

Could be the last morning in the frosty woods at the farm

Day number two of trying to spot and stalk in the corn stubble. It seems to be a pretty viable option so far. Last night I got with in 18 yards of a group of does and fawns. Then at last light I started making my way towards 3 bucks, but ran out of light at 67 yards. One being a 10 pointer I would have shot and two smaller 8’s.

Stalking in corn stubble? Impressive! White camo and belly crawling?

Well the farm didn’t work out and there is some activity at home. Beds with 10 yards of my stand.

craig s wrote:

Stalking in corn stubble? Impressive! White camo and belly crawling?

You got it! The field is totally surrounded by bedding so the deer just trickle out from everywhere. The field is full of low spots and little rises so it sets up pretty good for this… better than a stand anyway. The deer didn’t start moving till late today with only two does and one small 8 point showing up before dark, but I did make a stalk for the fun of it. I got to 40 yards and drew on him, but let down and took a pic instead. I should be able to get out a day or two this week hopefully with a bit more wind to hide my crawling!

Here he is right side up…

Hillhiker – when stalking with white camo on, where do you put your bow?
Do you have some kind of sling for it on your back?
Love the idea. Deer don’t seem to notice white. It works a ton better than camo.
Snow absorbs noise too.