Archery Day 1 - Sat 13 OCT

Deer Season in Indiana opened on 01 OCT for archery for the general public.  It has been way too warm to go sit and swat mosquitos, hoping for deer to be traveling around during the day.  So instead, we have been mowing the yards - plural.

Finally, it has gotten cold enough to keep the bugs down and get the deer up, but Mother Nature also brought about 1.5" of rain.  Oh well, time to get into the woods.

Alex came home from the high school volleyball sectional at CP Friday night and saw 8 deer feeding on Marshall's N woods.  We got up and rolled at 6:40 to head that way.

Alex sat on Neal and I went to the bottom ground on Marshall's N woods.  Sunrise was at 7:54, so legal light was 7:24.  We were well on our way into the woods when it got to legal light.


Yep, it was a bit chilly, but fortunately the wind was not blowing hard.

I watched a nice-sized deer head E across a row of trees.  I snuck E to cut it off.  I waited for what seemed like enough time for it to get to me.  I got up to move back W and there it was, 50 yards ahead of me, coming right down the path next to me.  It ran N.

I headed to the middle of the trees and found another good ambush spot.  We sat until 9:30, when I texted Alex to find out what he had seen.  He had a smaller buck come from the NE to him.  Got to within 75 yards before it winded him.  It ran off.

We decided to head back to the truck.  Again, as I got up to leave, I jumped another deer coming right down the path to me, this one about 30 yards away.  Damn, I guess the Good Lord is trying to teach me to be a little more patient.  I texted Alex that I jumped deer #2.  As he was checking his phone, he jumped two doe in the fence row about 5 yards in front of him.

We saw deer.  It was a good day.  With a little more patience, we could have put deer in the freezer.  What is the definition of a vegetarian - a poor hunter.  That we were on this day...

The birds were out in full force:  geese, ducks, crows, hawks, sparrows, black birds, pileated woodpeckers, cardinals, finches, and more.  Of course I could have limited out on squirrels too.


So just how could a deer get to within 30 yards of me without me seeing it?
Take a look.  It is THICK in the bottoms.  And due to the rain, it was REALLY quiet.
You had to rely on your eyes and not your ears.  Of course the deer still have smell on their side.


One of the scrapes Alex passed on his way to the woods today.


Fresh tracks in the field.  How do I know they are fresh?
It rained last night.  There is no water inside those deer prints.
Thus, they were made after the rain and are less than 12 hours old.


Comments

  1. Dave PorrillOctober 16, 2018 at 8:57 AM

    With a little more patience and honing those observation skills it looks like it could be a successful season yet!

    ReplyDelete

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