I'll try to get this caught up today, but there are some honey-dos to catch up on too.
I had met Jeff Holchin 12 or 13 years ago when he drew a NH moose tag in a zone I used to spend a lot of time in. I offered to give him whatever help I could, he accepted and somehow I found him on a remote mountain top at 5:30 one morning that had no real roads going to it. We still talk about that today. Jeff was coming up from North Carolina to hunt a different area but close enough that we planned to get together at some point during our hunts. It would be good to see him again.
Seth and I had never been to the area we were going to hunt, state forest land in Pike County. We got there on a Wednesday night, scouted Thursday morning and our first hunt was that afternoon. I saw one doe at dusk, while Seth didn't see anything. I liked the spot I was in though and planned on giving it some time. We hunted again Friday morning, planning on scouting in the afternoon as a steady rain was coming in. At about 11 am a small 6 point chased a doe around in the bottom about 70 yards away, then up the hill towards me, ending up about 30 yards from me before chasing her away. We spent the afternoon scouting again, looking for a new spot for Seth as he had yet to se a deer. We found a very good looking spot a few miles away that Seth would hunt in the morning.
Saturday morning was cold and wet with high winds. I saw a lone doe, Seth saw two bucks but had no shots.
We were back at it in the afternoon, I got settled into my stand just before three. I had been there for about a half hour when I heard a deer sneezing towards the head of the hollow to my right. It stopped for a bit and then started again, only closer this time. I saw the deer working its way towards me from about 150 yards away and could tell it was a buck right off. I got binoculars on him, and saw that while he wasn't a monster he was a decent deer and would be hard for me to pass on if given the chance. He continued towards me, and about 60 yards away stopped and freshened a scrape and was working a licking branch. This was the first time in my life I have been able to watch a deer do that while hunting, I have to say it was pretty cool. (For those of you that have not hunted deer in NH you just don't see that type of behavior due to low deer numbers. Heck, we only kill around 2200 deer a year here with archery gear). By now I was able to tell he was an 8 point and I had made my mind up I was going to shoot him if given the chance. He finished his business and came to me like he was on a string, passing within feet of a trail camera I had on the roadbed he was following.
Topic: Ohio Public Land Bowhunt (Read 1373 times)
