Well, for the fourth year in a row no deer. Didn't even get a shot this year. I pushed my trip back as far as I could to time it with the rut and still catch archery only season and did fairly well in that aspect. The experience of it all is always great, but it does get frustrating not getting anything. There were several sits of not seeing a single deer by either my father or I.
Let me start over....we were hunting my fathers friends land which is aroudn 200 acres, mixed woods and open pastures along with my dads property of 25 acres. Prior to season my father was seeing a herd of 20+ deer daily, with monster bucks mixed in there. The trail cams caught all the action along with daily shots of several bear. Come season and my trip up there everything about disappeared. We never saw a bear and didn't catch them on trail cams....must have moved to a new food source. We saw very few deer, but their timing was inconsistant and tracking was very rough. We had 6 stands in vaious high traffic places.
One night I had a monster buck begin approaching a stand but before he got within 40 yards he stopped, raised his head looking at something back where he came from, and strode off toward it, posturing heavily as if trying to ward off another buck. So they were out there somewhere, we just couldn't get on them.
Around wednesday (Nov 7th), my dad, texted me while in the stand that he just had 2 big bucks grunting like mad zigzagging around his stand chasing a doe with their tongues hanging out! Now we are thinking...IT'S ON!! the rut has started!! The next day we are out before sunrise (nothing new there) and sit until about 10 AM with no luck. Head back to the house to warm up (18 degree weather...brr) and are back in the stand by 11:30. I'm sitting in the stand my pops was in when he saw the buck chasing the doe.
Good Lord.....it was a loooooooong sit! I amuzed myself by watching the big old grey squirrels running frantically around the woods while a very mad tiny red squirrel was chasing them off their property. Contemplated several time about getting out of the stand and doing some stalking, but the leaves were very dry and brittle so any movement was loud, to say the least.
Time rolls, by 2 PM, nothing, 3, nothing, 4 nothing....ZZZZzzzzz...Then 4:45 I hear what sounds like a heard of frogs off to my back right and look over to see a doe running full speed with 2 buck in tow grunting as if their lives depended on it. At this point they were 45 yards out and runing straight toward me. I stand up, but they are hauling serious booty, there is no chance of a shot. So I thought, what the heck.....MAAAaaaaa and bleat at them. They all slam on their break and look around, I can sense the feeling of relief of the doe as she walks around and begins feeding, relieved that she can now catch her breath and hoping the bucks will find more interest in the new "doe." Now I have the 2 bucks attention, they're madly looking all around trying to locate this new doe. They carefully take a few steps in my direction (still 40+ yards are among heavily wooded areas.) They stop and about give up, as they turn their heads away from me, I bleat again...Mmmaaaaaa.....sounded like a goat to me, but it got their interest. Their heads whip around agian, looking for me. After a few minutes of this, the doe starts feeding off in the opposite direction and the large 8 point buck follows. The young buck (only a 4 point) is still looking, probably thinking his chances just increased since the other buck walked away! He gets within 25 yards yards (he's not a shooter by PA law, but he's got a good looking rack and great looking buck, so I'm hoping to see him in a few years , but I figured it would be fun to play with him and see how close he will come) I bleated and got him to about 20 yards when the real doe had regained her energy and started running with the big buck following suit, then the little buck took off not wanting to miss out on the action. That was a very cool experience.
A few minutes later, a true monster buck came in, by PA standards, anyways. He was a very impressive 10 pointer. Came along the creek, the same place the other ones did, but never came in close, just fed along the creek. I didn't get a chance to shoot, gave him a bleat, but he wasn't interested at all.
We hunted hard for several days and saw nothing. We confirmed our thoughts with several friends, that the bucks went into lock down. They saw big bucks standing in fields, not moving an inch with a doe bedded down in front of them.
Finally on the second to last day I caught a glimpse of them running again, but they were 60 yards out and only saw them for a second.
Although we didn't kill anything, we had quite an experience, now that I look back on it. We had to laugh several times, bc after hunting all day, we would drive back to my dads farm and see 6 deer feeding in his back yard. We tried hunting them, but they were moving too late, way after sun down, with no moon in the sky. Oh well, I'm worried about next year though, my father who got me into Trad shooting is very frustrated and is seriously thinking about going back to wheelies. Anyways, that's my trip in a nutshell for this year. Good luck to all ya'll still hunting.
Topic: Another year, another bust (Read 245 times)
