5 pines farm 2016 updated 1/2017 page 29

[Cyclic-Rivers]

Glad your wrist is feeling better.  Bummer about the cwd.  Hunting will be tough for a couple years but the herd will bounce back relatively quickly. We went through it at our farm. Good luck

[Cyclic-Rivers]

Glad your wrist is feeling better.  Bummer about the cwd.  Hunting will be tough for a couple years but the herd will bounce back relatively quickly. We went through it at our farm. Good luck

[Kopper1013]

Sorry to hear the news Jim hope it works out

[pitbull]

Glad to see you back at it.

[LITTLEBIGMAN]

ok so not a lot to report from the last 2 mornings sits. Zero deer movement, at least at the 2 places I sat. This morning I went back up to where I killed my buck. More to relive the moment and to look for one of my missed follow up shots! From the tree stand it didn't take long to locate the arrow by using my bino's. I was surprised where I found it. I don't recall the buck being that far to my left. I also noted that I attempted to shoot thru some branches that I do not recall being there. Funny how that happens in the heat of the moment.  I think it safe to say my first follow up may have actually been deflected downward. At least that's my new story.

I was unable to hunt last night but was able to watch deer with the spotting scope from the house. A very big 10 point that I have not seen before was in the back food plot well before dark. He has a heavy dark rack and the tips of his points are all Ivory looking. He fits the description of a buck a neighbor down the road was watching in his bean field in late October.  Let's hope he makes it another 7 days past the final muzzle loader season.  His antler's will surely be worth searching hard for come late January.

I can also confirm that the buck I posted a night time video of back on 10/21 is definitely the same buck I killed. I also found another video of him on 11/9 that I didn't know I had. Fun to have video of that buck!!

The deer now are bedding close to the food plots. It will be very hard to slip into stands with out blowing deer out of their bedding cover going forward. While deer tend to group up and hang around food sources in December, it sure doesn't make then any easier to kill.

[TxSportsman]

Good luck with the rest of your season. You have a beautiful piece of property and it looks and sounds like you are a true steward to the land and a holistic thinker.

Sorry to hear about CWD and the upcoming overreaction by state authorities. It's absurd they treat CWD the way they do and try to completely wipe out populations... but that is for another thread!

[4woods]

Love the stories Jim.  Hope the wrist is healing quickly and the snow comes.

[LITTLEBIGMAN]

My fears about getting to a stand with out busting deer were well founded. Last night I was inside of 50 yards below the stand when I spotted at least 3 whitetails bounding away above me. They had been bedded just above the stand.    

This morning , same thing. I was just arriving to my ladder when snorts rang out just above me!!

But boy what a difference 24 hours can make in the scenery.

Here is my view last night.
 

and the same field ( different angle) this afternoon on my way to my stand.
 

[Cyclic-Rivers]

Good luck Jim.  I hope you are able to slip in undetected one morning.

[LITTLEBIGMAN]

I tried sneaking in to apple alley this am in the wet heavy snow. As I stated above , I didn't bust deer till I got to the stand! It was snowing pretty good all day. Nothing moved near me in the am and I took a break long enough to plow the driveway.

This after noon I was back in the stand early. I went to the contour stand where I killed the coyote. Not a deer went by me. But they just poured off of the west facing hillside in to the food plot just at dark. 16 deer in all came down where I placed the blue arrow.
 
I bumped a deer or two on the way home.

Here is a view walking up to the stand.
 
and the view from up in the ladder.
 
I was going to take a breather tomorrow am but after seeing all those deer tonight there is no way .

[Huntrdfk]

Amazing what seeing deer will do to a guys resolve! Now just need to get them within range.........keep it up Jim!


David

[Hopewell Tom]

Have you ever tried blowing back at the "fleeing blowers"? If you've been winded or seen, the jig is up, but they will often come right back to investigate.
Of course, they're "somewhat on edge", but coming nonetheless. And super quietly as well.

[LITTLEBIGMAN]

Hey Tom, I have not tried that yet. I may the next time I get the chance.

With temps above freezing all night and all day we lost a lot of the new snow we just got yesterday.

I chose spots to sit where I thought I could intercept one of the many deer from last night. But both attempts were failures as far as getting close goes. I watched deer in the food plot from a distance during both sits. But just chose  the wrong trail. I did jump a nice 3 year old buck going into my stand this afternoon. He was bedded about 30 yards from it and didn't hear me coming until I was right at the stand. I sat tonight where last night's herd came out of . Zero went by .

  Here is the view from tonight's sit.
   

[LITTLEBIGMAN]

A cold front was rushing in and the temps were dropping all day long. Windy too.  The real challenge now, in addition to choosing the right spot is not to  get there too early or too late.

Too early and you freeze out. Too late and the deer are already in the food plots. I was worried about being too late as there was already a doe in the lower food plot as I made my way up the logging road. The higher I got the windier it was. For awhile I was regretting my decision. But once I was over the  crest , the wind was calmer and the spot I was going to would be perfect with todays wind.

No one had been here for at least two full weeks.
 
I was encouraged by the number of tracks heading in both directions right in front of the stand and on the trail to my immediate left.
 
 
I was on high alert starting the moment I got in the ladder till the end of the day. Never saw a single deer! Was totally amazed by that. On the way back it was just light enough to see a number of deer in both food plots near the house. Guess I should stayed low.

[LITTLEBIGMAN]

Didn't hunt today due to the weather. Single digit temps with high winds. But I am happy to report that this am I watched Short brows my number 1 target buck sparring with a lesser 9 point. They pushed each other around in the food plot behind the house for over 30 minutes. When they split up SB bedded above the food plot at about 100 yards. He lay there until 10 30 and then got up and browsed his way up the ridge until I lost sight of him.

I was very disappointed when at noon I went to retrieve the trail camera card from the trail camera in the food plot. The bucks had been sparring directly in front of the camera. Despite brand new batteries in the camera, the cold temps caused the camera to fail. Not a single picture!

I did capture a few shoddy photos by placing my smart phone up against the spotting scopes lens, here is the best one.
 
Gun season ends on this Sunday. The forecast is for cold and snow. I will hunt but very lightly. So glad he is alive and doing apparently very well. His antlers will be a prize worth searching for.

[Kopper1013]

That's great news Jim glad he wasn't wasted and is/has spread those genes on your hill

[LITTLEBIGMAN]

With temps in the teens and winds out of the NW 12 to 15 mpr I did not want to spend 3 hours in a tree ! So I chose to hunt in the pop up blind just up the hill from the main food plot I have been hunting.
 
But this cold weather had the deer up on their feet in the middle of the day feeding. At 12 30 the was all ready 4 does and one small buck in the food plot. Getting to the blind would be difficult if not impossible with out blowing them out of it.

Just as I was getting ready to go at 2 pm the mail man came down the drive and solved the problem for me. The noise of his truck cleared the field.

I took advantage of the window and hurried up to the pop up .

 

There is a hub of trails all around the blind as well as the mowed 4 wheeler trail just off to one side. With all of the deer around I was hoping just one might pass by.

By 4 pm the food plot was full of visitors but not a single deer had gone by me any where that I could see.  I hate hunting pop ups due to their reduced visibility. I could have easily not seen them if they were 30 yards or more passing by.

Finally at last light I heard a familiar thumping sound. I had a side window opened just a hair. Through the opening I could see a small doe at 20 yards stomping her foot. She had me. The blind has been here for two months. I have not sat in it for at least a month, and she had me. She had to have scented me for I was not making any noise.

She swung wide around me and headed on down to the food. When I left I took a circular route home but still was unable not to spook them out of the field. The sounds I made in the noisy snow sent them running.

[pitbull]

[LITTLEBIGMAN]

Was unable to hunt Friday, long drive to and from a biz meeting......

This am it was 5 F when I left the yurt at 6 am. Fortunately there was no wind. I walked up the county road and then up the old pasture hill sides to the sure thing stand.(route in red)
       
For the first hour rather than quiet I would say there was just an absence of sound. Finally there was some bird noises began to occur and also the popping of trees around me. I was surprised at that as it normally needs to be much colder for that to happen. I could hear the metal on the neighbor's barn roof contracting as well.

Don't ask me how but the only deer I saw the whole time on stand I managed to spook some how. Suddenly it was just there and instantly it was running away. But that's late season. Really, really hard to kill a deer with trad equipment now.

I put up anew stand right on the south western corner of the lower food plot a week ago. Mostly for my newphew who sometimes can hunt for just a few minutes at the end of the day. This stand allows him that opportunity since it just 100 yards walk from the house. The shots are longer but he still uses training wheels despite my threats to not him hunt with it here. He has killed 2 PY bucks here. I tell him #3 and its trad only for him from then on.                

My wife was also in on this afternoons hunt as we planned to try the annual One Woman Push if there were deer in the food plot.

[LITTLEBIGMAN]

At the designated time providing she could see deer in the food plot, she would walk to the yurt and then up the fire break and along the top of the hill side. the hopeful result is deer leaving the food plot and heading North on one of the many trails that goes by the popup. Yesterday when my nephew sat over this field there were 16 deer in it. But tonight just five. 4 of the 5 headed out of the plot but ran to the East. Only one a buck went North but I didn't even see it. They also didn't move until Jayne was already on the downward path back towards the plot. So when they saw her they moved out fast. I t was a miserable failure, but fun to try .