Last couple of days in NE Kansas

[ksbowman]

Tom Porter (Gatekeeper) has kept me informed lately on Moon activity times and he has been right on. Sunday the 20 th he said 7:05 am was the height of activity and  Monday the 21 st it would be 7:55 am. Here is my hunt activity for those two days.
   Sunday morning there was a lot of chasing and activity starting at 6:55 and continueing to 10:05.The morning hunt netted 14 deer sitings, 6 bucks and 8 does. I put out a little HS doe urine where I wanted a buck to stop and was sitting for the first time in a new stand. At 6:55 in comes a nice 8 with about a 18" spread 6" brow tines and 9" G2s with good mass. Straight to the urine and gets a real noseful, but offers only a head, on to quartering to shot.Had my bow up and was ready to draw (15 yards). Then his head comes up a he looks right at me. I squint and he stares for about 30 seconds, puts it in reverse, back up two or three steps looking right at me the whole time. he then turns and walks off nonchalantly. No shot opportunity, ten minutes later another 8 with tiny brow tines, 8" G2s, good mass and about 20" wide comes in to 10 yards walking towards my shooting lane and he catches me moving my bow into position, takes two quick steps and walks off. Sunday night I saw a couple dinks and a 3 pt.
   Monday the 21 st morning lots of chasing again. Started at 7:00 am and continued until 10:00 am. Could have shot one of the two 3 pts., but not yet(too much time left).Saw 5 bucks and 3 does. All of the bucks were shooters, but none gave me theeee shot although two were inside of 20 yards with brush between us. Didn't hunt last night.
  Hunted this evening only, too rainy this morning. Only saw one 3 pt.
  Epilogue: Everytime I've used doe scent I've had some glitch (I.E. spooky or some extra looking for scent and trail me to my tree). Think I'll give up on it again for the 50 th time.One of these years I'll smarten up and walk past it.

[Charlie Lamb]

I'm hooked on that crap too even though I can only claim 2 deer over the years that it seemed to influence.
Like you I just can't seem to walk past it on the shelf.

Sounds like a lot of fun in the woods where you are bud.
   

[Kip]

Nice action Ben I would take half of your problem.Nothing moving for me except a few hogs.Kip

[steadman]

Sounds like fun Ben, although I somehow think another scent is spooking the deer  

[snakebit40]

I've never had much luck with that stuff before either. Second weekend this month I did a drag to my stand and had 6 doe's hit the trail and run. Then I had a little button buck come to me on a string. I'm going to give Smokey's deer lures a shot next year.

[Gatekeeper]

I got your PM Ben, Thanks. I am fascinated by this Solunar activity. It is a blast getting texts from you, Chris, Brian and Andrew when I am out hunting and we are all seeing animals at the same time as predicted my Solunar time. At times I am dumb founded by the amount of activity that is going on. Your PM coincided perfectly with what was happening around Brian, Chris and me. AMAZING!

I have had decent success with the store bought scents but only on immature bucks and curious does. The big boys seem to know this trick and shy away from it, but that doesn’t seem to stop me from buying this stuff every year.

I have a recipe, given to me by James Foster, for making a dominate buck lure but I need to get my hands on a pair of dominate buck testicles (p-a-u-s-e for comments) so I can make this concoction. So if you happen to get a hold of a pair let me know and I’ll send you the formula.

Kip,

Hi buddy! Here are two links to some partly free Solunar links that will tell you when the animals will be the most active  

 http://www.solunarforecast.com/solunarchart.aspx

 http://weather.wnct.com/us/mo/camden+point/solunar.html

I would love to hear if the activity that we are seeing with deer also works on hogs. That information could be very helpful for a few of us in the near future. On both of these sites you will need to change the heading to your location. Another source for the Solunar information that I have been using is the Hunter’s Moon Guide. You can buy it at Cabela’s.

I’m going to send you a PM.

[BMN]

Sounds like you're having a great time. Stay after them.

[Whip]

6 bucks and 8 does in one sitting?  You're doing something right Ben!  Sounds like a blast.
I've never really followed those solunar tables much.  Should start paying more attention I guess, but have always been stuck on the standard morning/afternoon time frames.

If the tables tell you that the best times are outside of the standard am/pm times do you sit all day, or adjust and hunt closest to the predicted best times?

[ksbowman]

Whip, Tom can give you all the skinny on the tables. He tells me and I watch the activity. The rest of the story is the whole season hasn't been this good the first 21 tmes I sat this fall I saw a total of 11 deer. It was really getting depressing until this last week. So far I've sat 29 times and with the rut now it's getting interesting.

[Gatekeeper]

Hi Joe

Like you I’ve never really followed the Solunar time, this is my first year and I have only started within the last few weeks. I too primarily only sat the AM and PM, but since watching the moon time I try to be in my stand at least two hours before the moon time and stay at least one hour past the moon time. I have done some all-day sits and have found that there is a big lull (nothing is happening) in the time between the minor and major Solunar times. If the major time is at two o’clock, I will hunt the morning and come out of the woods for breakfast but be back in the stand by noon. For the evening part of the hunt (going off of the two o’clock time) I would stay in the stand until dark.

The Hunter’s Moon Guide that I mentioned breaks the activity time down a little bit further by telling the hunter when to hunt ridges, corridors between feeding and bedding areas or when to hunt close to bedding areas.

As an example, I am hunting a park as part of a managed deer hunt along with my buddy Brian. One day the Moon Guide predicted that all the deer activity was going to be close to the bedding areas and the deer would not venture out from their bedding area to feed. My stand is setup on a secondary ridge where the terrain changes from scrubby brush to hardwood timber and I can see into the scrub brush. On that particular day Brian wasn’t seeing any movement where he was but during the moon time I was seeing sporadic movement and it was all in the brush just the way the guide had predicted. On other days when it predicted high activity during the moon time it was pretty darn close to being spot-on. From what I have witnessed so far, the action can start one hour before the peak and last an hour after the peak. So during the major moon time there is a three hour window that needs to be hunted. Before and after those times things can be pretty flat. The cool part is it’s not just me. When my phone starts lighting up and there are 2, 3 or 4 guys sending texts telling me they have shot or are seeing deer at the same time the action has picked up for me, I find myself just sitting in amazement at the whole phenomenon. It's pretty cool!

[lablover]

Not seeing that kind of activity in SE Kansas but I'm going to try the chart for this weekend. See what comes of it.

[KSdan]

Its the rut!  Moon, temps, etc. have little to do with it.  Heading down the bell-shaped curve right now, some lock down, while most does have been bred. . . bruisers should start cruising a bit over the next 7 days.  Watch out. . . the best time to get a beast!

[bentpole]

What KSdan said!

[Bryan pinick]

Dan is spot on....young bucks and skittish does right now... occasional fawns by themselves....will change any minute!

And I have no buck permit....  :eek:

[Hermon]

I saw 3 different 10 pointers today while working.  Wish I could have been in the woods.

[JDunlap]

I just started using the solunar app on my iphone this year and have definitely noticed more activity during the times the solunar predicts. I'm not sure that the big bucks "cooperate"...but deer in general are definitely more active during the major and minor feeding times as predicted.