On Tuesday and Wednesday I sat in the upper room and watched as 20 plus deer each night came off the ridge above this stand and ended up in the forage beans behind the house or in the picked Ag beans in front of the house. Last night the number of deer slacked off quite a bit, but still there were plenty to watch. Today at 1 pm I looked out the kitchen window and spotted deer in the apple trees just below the stand. While I watched and tried to figure out how to get up there with out scaring everything off, the buck did it for me. He got a little randy and pushed all three does over on to the CRP field and then eventually all four ran up into the timber.
I took that as my signal and quickly dressed and headed out the door. Having been quite ill these past few days, I took my time going up the steep hillside. The stand sits above where this trail and many others like it start.
There are about a dozen crab apples trees in among the regular ones and they still are holding a lot of fruit.
You can see why the deer are still attracted to them!