Deer Day 4 - Friday 10 OCT - Deer Spotted!

Alex and I went out tonight.  We hit the field about 4:30 pm.  The wind was much calmer than it had been, only pushing 9 mph versus the 35 mph we had been having.  Oddly though, it was blowing from the NE to the SW (opposite of prevailing).  It was 52F.

Alex walked N through the corn on Neal and sat in the W stand.  I walked NE across the open bean field and sat in the NE corner of Marshall, just inside the woods.  I anticipated that the deer would be coming out from the woods (directly to my E) and heading toward the field.  See photo 1 below.

Looking E toward the top of Marshall's.  Anticipated route of deer.
Please note, plenty of shooting lanes.

At 5:50 pm, I looked to the SW out in the beans, and there stood a large doe.  She had come out of the woods S of me and was cutting to the NW right across the beans.  Safety was off and red dot was on.  Thinking I would not have deer coming in downwind of me, I had put myself into a brier thicket to conceal my identity.   I moved to peek around the tree, and there were two more doe; another large one and a yearling.  All three were in the grass (see photo below) 20 yards to my SW.

Photo depicting where deer WERE in the green grass - through all this scrub.
No option for threading a crossbow bolt through there.
If you needed a hint, this was bad.

Recall the direction of the wind?  9 mph to the SW.  As soon as they got in line with my scent, they stopped.  They did not spook and bolt.  Just stopped, put their noses in the air and sniffed.  They milled around for 30 minutes trying to figure out what was going on.  When they left, the first large doe continued NW into the corn on Boyd (between Alex and me).  The other two returned from whence they came.

Now, did we spray down with scent killer?  Of course, but it does not work so well on Skoal at 20 yards, when you are hunting from the ground.  Oh well, guess I need to invest in the Ozone-ator or whatever they call that thing.  You know they run about $300!  Maybe they can donate one for me to try and then write it up on this here blog.  With my millions of followers, that ought to be worth something.

Other than the squirrels, I saw nothing in the woods the rest of the night.  I walked out at 7:30, getting to the truck at almost full dark.  I saw some shapes in the picked cornfield to our S and got my flashlight out - 3 doe out eating.  Poor Alex, he never saw a deer.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cleaning Winchester SX3 / SX4 Shotguns

Image
The Winchester SX4 is my Go To shotgun for everything - clays, doves, ducks, geese, pheasants, whatever.  It is an awesome firearm.  The drawback?  There are multiple moving parts and a few of them like to collect carbon.  And this carbon sticks as if it were put on those parts with super glue! Specifically, the magazine tube and the gas piston are the main carbon collectors.  Those parts come out more black than silver & gold. The inner components of an SX3 / SX4 with highlights where carbon will form So what is my trick for cleaning those bits?  I drop the gas piston into my Hornady sonic cleaner.  Inside the cleaner I put in about a cup of Hornady's One Shot Sonic Clean Solution for gun parts, add some DI water, a couple squirts of Dawn liquid dish soap, and then top it off with a dash or two of the citrus version of Dr. Bronner's pure castile liquid soap.  I have found that the citrus Dr. Bronner's is awesome at removing grease and oil.  All of that bakes in the son
Read more

Winchester SX4 Trigger Assembly Update

Image
First, you need to read the post immediately before this one to understand why I had to take my Winchester SX4 shotgun apart - all the way apart - specifically the trigger assembly. Second, my bad.  I had neglected to clean the gun after returning from last October's pheasant trip.  I had about one bale of grass seed inside that gun, which in the end, may have kept the #8 pellet from getting out on its own.  Shame. Finally, I did not give up.  I watched four different YouTube videos on how to disassemble and reassemble the trigger group.  Sadly, no one did the SX4, only the previous version, the SX3.  Close enough.  Why did it take 4 videos?  Because no one explained HOW the damn sear goes back in.  Everyone either ASSUMED we all know how OR in two cases, the reassembly process was out of the camera frame.  Aggravating! The key, and this is more for me to remember, was on the fourth video, the author said, "The sear kinda slides down into a channel in the housing."  Bam. 
Read more

Determine Sex of Deer from Tracks

Image
It IS possible to determine from a set of tracks whether the deer you are tracking is a doe (female) or a buck (male).  And, it's actually pretty simple if you know a few facts about deer. First, you have to know what a deer track looks like.  Deer leave a track that looks like the outline of a heart. Next, you have to know the direction of travel.  Deer are moving toward the "pointy" end of the heart.  So in the above example, the deer is traveling toward the top of this post, or up. Here is an actual photo of deer tracks in the wild so you can get a better idea.  Again, this deer is traveling up, or towards the top of this page.  (It is also clear that this deer was STANDING, not walking - well clear enough to me.  Read on to find out why I know that). Sometimes if the ground is soft or if the deer is traveling really fast (jumping), the track left will show the deer's dew claws at the rear of the direction traveling, like so: The two little "
Read more