Well I think the time has come to sum up another exciting year chasing a metro public land buck. Between the holidays and weather forecast I doubt I’ll get out again. If you’re only interested in the results, I didn’t get one and you can move on now. For those interesting in how the sausage actually, literally, gets made (or not), here’s how my 2022 season went.
To start I thought this was going to be my easiest season ever, I spent a ton of time and miles scouting a WMA over the summer, and had a very nice 10 point and shooter 8 point dialed in (I believe both pictured below, but not anywhere near where I was seeing them). I would see both these bucks along with a few smaller bucks nearly every morning like clockwork on public land. However, like most things if you think it’s too good to be true, it usually is. The DNR came thru and clear cut/mowed a huge portion of the WMA that I was seeing these deer at on August 15th, and I didn’t see a single deer in that general vicinity for the rest of the season. Apparently they needed to mow/cut this down to help the wildflower roots, to help the songbirds and butterflies. I was seeing tons of songbirds and butterflies and all sorts of wildlife before they mowed it all down, and none after, but I digress as that’s another topic of discussion for another thread. So I was back to square one.
I knew these deer were still in the area, the question now, was whether they moved elsewhere on the public or hightailed it to private ground. I was zigging and zagging every which way thru the WMA to try and get a bead on one or both of them again without much luck. Until October 12th when I saw the big 10 chasing a doe thru my neighborhood! So kind of good news, right? I mean he was still around, which is great, but he was about a mile or more from anywhere I could hunt. And I don’t think any rattle or grunt call is going to draw em in from that distance. But it did give me a better idea of where he’d be, if he made it back on public. Then November 12th I saw the 8 pointer in a no hunting area of the WMA, but only a few hundred yards from where I could hunt him. Sorry for the bad pic, I zoomed in to try and not give the area away.
So I focused my hunting and scouting time on this area, and found 2 areas that had a ton of buck sign. With fairly limited time to hunt, I rotated which area I hunted based off the wind, and had some great encounters. One night I had a doe, fawn and something a lot bigger come thru REAL close, but the bigger one busted me before I could see it, so the mystery continued. On two subsequent trips I had a fork and little 6 within 10 yards of me, and could have easily taken either one, but I believe in letting em go, to let em grow (even on pressured Metro Public). And obviously that is a lot easier when you know there’s some much bigger ones around. It also told me one of the areas with buck sign, was from these immature bucks and the other area was likely from one or both of the bigger ones. The sign also indicated that, as the rubs and scrapes were much bigger and more frequent, with about a dozen rubs in 100 yard stretch.
So I focused more on that area, but never saw a deer, let alone one of the bigger ones I was after there. After one of our first snows I got in to hunt, and scout that area and did not find anything that led me to believe a bigger buck was still in the area. I was also limited a bit this year from a family trip during prime October time, the flu ran thru our house for about 2 weeks in November, and our 2 year old deciding 4-5 am was his new time to start the day (still occassionally ongoing). Plus we filled some bonus tags during gun season, so the need to fill the freezer had decreased slightly. Highlight of the year was the 6 pointer coming within 10 yards was when I had my 5 year old out with me, which made a little hunter that day I believe. So a tip of the hat to the bucks this year, and look forward to finding out how big they are next year, and how I can get the drop on em next time around! Keep on crushin!
Here’s the link to the last 2 years write ups, for anyone interested:
http://www.in-depthoutdoors.com/community/forums/topic/metro-public-land-buck-year-2/
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8-point.jpg
Rubline.jpg
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