2008 bowhunts in review and New Years Resolution

[bohuntr]

Thanks Shakes, good luck with that gobbler!

[bohuntr]

BACK TO THE GROUND BLIND

     It got to be later on in October and I was trying my best to catch up with some deer of any sort out on the land I own with a buddy of mine. This is the same place I shot the deer and the turkeys described in the 1st two entries on this thread. I was not having much luck getting a shot from my usual tree stands and I suspected that was because the deer had me patterned better than I had them. I was doing some scouting when I found a series of interlacing trails that wound in and around a series of thickets where I knew the deer had been bedding. Right in the middle of one of those trails was a nice rub. I started to look around for a suitable tree but decided rather than go through all the work to set up a new tree stand I would try to set up from the ground.  
    These two pictures give you an idea of what it looked like in this area and also shows the rub.
   
   

    I noticed a couple of bushy cedar trees which would be downwind of several trail intersections with the normally prevailing NW wind. I had my ratchet shears with me and in very little time I constructed a makeshift ground blind. Since I had already contaminated the area with my scent I decided to wait until the following morning to hunt this new ground blind.  
       This is a picture of the ground blind. I would be sitting just to the right of the leaning tree.
   

    I got settled into the blind the next morning about 45 minutes before sunrise. It was just enjoyable sitting there and watching everything start to wake up. The sunrise was beautiful and shortly thereafter I heard turkeys headed my way. Normally, that would have got me excited but I had already filled my fall turkey tag earlier in the year. Of course, the turkeys came right into my lap! There had to be 25 to 30 turkeys all of which were gobblers. The whole flock passed through some being as close as 10 yds but none of them noticed me. I figured that was a good indication that my blind was working. Not to long afterwards I spotted a lone doe working it's way towards me. She finally stopped slightly quartering away from me at just short of 25 yards. It looked to me that this was as close as she was going to get so I slowly drew my bow and released the arrow. Just as I was releasing she took a step forward. Oh crap!!! I saw the arrow hit her in the midsection. She hunched up and ran a couple steps and stopped trying to figure out what just happened. I did not move a muscle not wanting to spook her. I was hoping she might calm down enough to give me another shot. Unfortunately, she got into the thicket with out presenting me another shot. Since I have hunted this land for almost 20 years I had a really good idea of where she was headed. I knew better than to try and follow up too early as that would almost certainly guarantee an unrecovered deer.  It was still early so I decided to stay in the blind to see if anything else showed up.  Maybe an hour later I notice another lone doe walking through the thicket towards my blind. At this point I am really talking to myself to make sure to make a good shot if she gives me the chance. After 20 minutes or so of watching her casually mill around and feed she ended up about 25 yds from me standing completely broadside. This time the arrow was perfect. The doe had no idea of what had just happened and she collapsed no more than 30 yds from my blind.
    This picture is a picture I took from my blind right after she collapsed. That is the doe in the foreground. It looks farther awy because I did not zoom in on the doe as I wanted to get the surrounding area in the picture.
   

   This is a close up picture of the doe and my Big East bow which I have now christened "old reliable".
   

    I gutted out the doe and got my hunting buddy Leon to help me drag her out of the bottom. I intentionally did not tell Leon about the gut shot deer as I knew he would want to give up his own evening hunt to help me look for my deer. Not only did I not want to interfere with his hunt, I also felt it would be better to try to recover the deer on my own at my own pace. I went back to where I hit the deer about a half hour before sunset. I was not able to find any blood but I thought I knew where the deer was headed. I slowly worked my way in towards that spot while glassing ahead for signs of the doe. I had just entered the area where I suspected she would bed when I spotted a patch of white ahead. Looking through the binos I could see it was the belly hair of my doe who was now very dead. Upon inspecting her I discovered she must have been quartering away more than I thought since the arrow actually exited towards the rear of the far lung. As it turns out she was probably dead within 20 to 30 minutes after I shot her. Better safe than sorry though! Rigor mortis had set in but it had been plenty cold all day and the meat was fine.

[DesertDude]

How's the RER?  Did you get her all tuned in? She sure is a Stunning bow.

Mark

[bohuntr]

Hey Mark, that RER is a sweet bow. I put on a thinner sideplate and that has got it shooting much more consistently for me. I still do not shoot it quite as well as my Big East but it is getting closer. That RER is quick --- I chronoed it at right around 197 fps with a 600 gr arrow!  The only problem with that bow is it might actually be the 1st bow I have had that I am afraid to hunt with. It's so dang purty it would hurt to scratch her up! Thanks again for a great deal on one helluva bow ---and thanks so much for the expedited shipping!!!

[BowHuntingFool]

Good stuff, looks like you took some great pics of your season, I take a lot as well, you can never have enough!!!  

[bohuntr]

Thanks Joe. The more time goes by the more pictures I seem to be taking. I probably still do not take as many as I should but I am getting better. The small, inexpensive digital cameras available these days sure make the process much simpler.

[bohuntr]

CALLING ALL BUCKS

   The rut here in SD usually starts in early November and generally hits its peak somewhere between the 10th and the 17th. I spent all my available free time from early to mid November hunting deer out on my property. I had some trail camera pictures of some good bucks but just was not seeing them much in the daylight. I am going to post a few of the pictures I got from my trail cameras this year.
         
         

         
         
         

      One Saturday during the middle of the rut I decided to sit all day on a stand that was located just below a saddle that connected two large draws that both contained bedding areas used by does. I figured if I sat there long enough I would catch a buck cruising between the two areas looking for does. I got into the stand about 45 minutes befor sunrise and settled in waiting for shooting light. About every 45 minutes after good shooting light I would grunt a few times and/ or use the primos can to doe bleat. It was brutally cold that day and there were winds about 30 to 35 mph. For the 1st 7 1/2 hours on stand I saw absolutely nothing ... not a doe, not a fawn, not even a squirrel!  After finishing a series of loud grunts I looked around to see if I could see anything responding. After a couple minutes of seeing nothing I decided to try the can. As I was pulling the can from my pocket with my nearly frost bitten hands the object inside the can hit the side of the can making a small unnatural sound. Just as this happened I looked up to see a deer similar to but bigger than buck # 1 from above heading down the trail that would take him 8 yds from my treestand. The buck heard the sound, stopped dead in his tracks and simply turned around and headed back the way he came. I know that he did not see or smell me but that stupid little noise absolutely turned him around. I wasn't sure if I was going to be sick or cry!!! It's one thing spending a long day under decent conditions and having it all fall apart but to suffer through that kind of crap only to blow it really hurt!

        I hunted at every opportunity during the rut yet I only saw two good bucks during legal shooting hours, the first of which was described above. My next encounter with a buck occured a few days later. The weather had improved significantly and I was hunting a stand I call the dead tree stand. This stand is just off of a tight corner where our 10 acre cornfield intersects with an alfalfa field. The pictures of bucks 3,4 & 5 above were taken on the edge of the alfalfa field about 150 yds North of the dead tree stand. Since it was during the rut and I was hunting a high visibility field edge I was using a doe decoy setup below my stand. I had set her up on the edge of the cornfield in such a way that bucks cruising North or South of this position could see the decoy. There is visbility for at least 200 yds either direction from this location. I don't have any picture from that stand but this picture taken from what I call the decoy stand (named because I killed a buck over a decoy there) shows the cornfield and the same decoy I was using. This picture is taken facing North. The dead tree stand is probably 200 yds NW of this location.
   
    In any event I was sitting in my stand when I noticed a doe a couple hundred yards south of me facing north. The doe was acting very agitated. I pulled up my binos just in time to see the source of her agitation. There was a grey striped house cat in the process of "stalking" her. Very ambitious, pretty stupid and definitely hilarious from my viewpoint! After the failed attempt on the live doe that goofy cat came up the field edge and actually tried the same thing with my decoy. Wow, what an idiot!         I am attaching a trail camera pic taken of the ambitous feline at the same spot I got the pictures of the bottom 3 bucks.
   
    After watching the conclusion of the deer hunting cat show I turned my attention back to the live doe. As soon as I looked back I could see without even using my binos that she had collected a very big boyfriend. I could see the bucks rack very easily without binos and when I put the binos on him I got very excited. This buck was substantially bigger than any of the bucks on the trail cameras! Just as I was admiring him I saw his head come up and saw him focus his attention directly at my decoy. Being that I had live competition I figured I had to do something to get the bucks attention focused on my hottie instead of the closer one. I figured if he thought that another buck was trying to get my "doe" he would display his dominance and come on over to administer a butt whuppin! I got out my grunt tube and let out a series of 3 or 4 grunts. I guess I figured wrong ... as soon as that buck heard those grunts he turned tail and ran like hell the other way.   Unbelievable!!! I hate it when bucks aren't educated enough to know how they are supposed to act. If more bucks would read outdoors magazines and watch some videos maybe we could get this straitened out. I don't know if this buck had got whipped before but , if that was the case, I sure would like to see the buck that did it!

[bohuntr]

FINISHING UP THE YEAR
   
     Hopefully, by the end of this post I will have brought my "journal" up to date. My next hunt of note was towards the end of December. I still had (and have) some antlerless tags to fill. Not only does the meat get put to good use but the buck to doe ratio could use some improvement out at our place. By checking the hourly weather forecast I could see that the wind was going to be out of the south that evening. The normal deer movement pattern where I hunt is from south to north so a south wind in the evening is always good. It seemed like the deer were moving later all the time so I decided to try and hunt real close to the bedding area where I thought they would come from in an effort to get on them during legal shooting hours.  I decided to hunt the stand I call the trespasser stand ... it is so called because the actual stand there was generously donated by the trespasser that hung it on our property. With about 20 minutes of legal shooting time left I heard footsteps crunching in the snow. I slowly turned my head to see 3 does heading right for my treestand. All 3 of the does passed directly to the left of my stand. When the final doe stepped into a shooting lane 15 yds away I slowly drew my bow and focused at the spot I wanted to hit. In order to get the bow angle right I had shifted my weight slightly as I was coming to full draw ... just as I was in the process of releasing the stand squeeked.    The doe heard the noise and simultaneously swapped ends to run back to the south. I heard the arrow hit but could not tell where, and for a moment I thought the worst was going to happen. I guess there is bad luck and good luck and in this case I had some of both.  I watched the doe run to the south and saw her pile up about 35 yds away. I got down right away to field dress her while it was still light. I was extremely curious about where the arrow hit that resulted in that quick collapse. Walking up to the doe the snow was covered in blood ... the proverbial blind man's trail. When I got up to the doe I found out that the 185 gr Snuffer had gone through her neck severing the caratoid artery ... damn lucky!

[bohuntr]

FIRST DEER OF THE NEW YEAR

   Monday, January 5th turned out to be a nice day with a south wind. The weather had been pretty cold and I had not hunted much since taking my last doe. I did not have much going on in the office that afternoon so I decided to leave work early and see if I could fill another antlerless tag. I decided to sit in a stand called the "busted stand". I named that stand that way due to the numerous times deer had busted me in it before raising the stand  height and shifting it around to the backside of the tree trunk. About 30 minutes before the end of shooting time I could see 3 deer approaching from the south. As they got closer I could see that it was 2 does and a spike. In this stand I cannot shoot until the deer actually get past my stand. All 3 deer seemed very cautious and they came to a dead stop at the base of my stand surveying the surrounding area. Evidently the spike was impatient to get to the feeding area because he hit the lead doe in the butt with his head pushing her forward. She took a couple more steps after the shove and that was all I needed to get her into my shooting lane. She was slightly quartering away from me when I hit full draw and released the arrow. The shot looked perfect! The doe jumped forward a couple steps and tried to figure out what just happened. She stood there for a few seconds and then started walking to the north as if nothing had happened. Exactly 28 yds from the point of impact she ran out of air from the double lung hit. The Steelforce tipped Axis arrow had sliced through the top of one lung passed through the other and exited low on the offside. Here is a picture of the arrow I took when I 1st got out of the treestand.
 

 These are pictures of the doe showing the entry and exit holes. Sorry about the blood I didn't have any way to clean it up before taking the picture. Once again it was "old reliable" my Big East bow that was responsible.
 
 

[bear1336]

Great stories and pictures. Thanks for giving this old man some enjoyment in reading about your hunts.

Dave