We had a wonderful snow fall all last night. I awoke to over 8 inches of new snow. I knew deer would be coming in to the food plots all morning, but choosing the right place to sit is seeming nearly impossible. I am surely playing a game of cat and mouse.
I decided to try some thing different. So just before first light I snuck in the stand I set up for my nephew. BW is the black walnut the stand is in.
There were 3 or 4 dark shapes out in the food plot as I crept to the tree in the semi darkness. I was unable to make it up into the stand undetected.
But within 30 minutes a buck had come down to eat followed an hour later by 4 big does. The deer seemed to know I was in the walnut and fed nervously on the North end of the plot. When they exited they went up past stand #7.
So at 1.30 pm I returned to stand 7 hoping I might catch one of them on her way back down. Walking in to the stand I spotted 3 different does up in the bowl opposite the stand.
By days end 21 deer were feeding below me. The closest one had gone by at 40 yards or so. Most of the deer had come down out of the cedars on the point across from me. A few including one big buck I couldn't identify other (than he was a dandy) came down the prairie hill side above my house. Here is just a few of them about an hour before dark.
See the doe in the middle of the front 3 deer? She stood there and stared up at me the whole time she was there. She spooked twice taking half the deer with her out of the plot . Only to return 30 minutes later and stand in the same spot starring up at me!! She is going to die of old age for sure.
Here is a larger picture of the evenings view before the deer began to show.