wolc123

Living on the hunting land is nice, but so is getting away. Around 1/2 of my hunts are on our home 34 acres. The pluses are not needing to drive, being able to get work done on weekday evenings, lunch at the house, butchering facilities, tractor availability, and trespass deterrent. Having a free range dog would probably be a minus. My sister always had one and walked it on a leash regularly in my parent's woods, and that never hurt the hunting over there. Their place is about 60 acres and is 20 minutes from our place. About 1/4 of my hunts happen there. The drive ain't bad and my dad also has tractors and a side by side, which are handy. Trespassing was a big problem over there, but has vanished completely since an energetic neighbor moved in 4 years ago and ran off all the tresspassers. The biggest problems with those two spots is too many people nearby (highway noise, neighbors target practicing, riding dirt bikes, etc), and lack of hills/mountains. The last 1/4 of my hunts are up at my in-laws retirement home in the Adirondacks. Those are the best because of the lack of people and the scenery, which I consider to be the best in the world. There is also a decent deer population in the area. My father in law has a tractor and atv, and my mother in law is a great cook. I would spend all of hunting season up there if I had more vacation time and that will be at the top of my picks for where to retire.

I aim to try that in the morning.

I saw a big bodied deer on my walk out last night. It was after legal shooting time and too dark to see if it had antlers. I have several stands in the area. I am going to pick the best one tomorrow, depending on wind, to try and get in shooting position before dark. I hope it is a big doe. I have 4 dmp's, but no buck tag. Tomorrow will be the best day of this long weekend for me to kill a deer, because it will be followed by a long stretch of near-perfect carcass hanging weather. Once the meat gets cold, I like to keep it cold for a week or so in my insulated garage, prior to processing. It is best for that if the temp is below the mid 40's the whole time. I can understand why you feel as you do now. On the years where I have killed a big trophy, I never minded if a bigger one showed up later. My issue this year is that my buck just barely made the cut. It did make about 60 pounds of boneless meat though, so I have no regrets (yet). I am not sure how I will feel next Sunday night however.

That is my worst nightmare. I breath a sigh of relief, every time i finish a hunt where I don't see a bigger buck than the one I punched my tag on. In 39 years of deer hunting, it has not happened to me yet. I would say that I am way overdue. If I can just get thru tomorrow, and next Saturday and Sunday, I can start fresh up in the northern zone for the late ML season. I still have a buck tag for that, and an antlerless.

I will see how the chainsaw works as a deer call this afternoon. I ran it for about an hour, clearing blowdowns off the trails in the woods during my lunch "break". Spent the last couple hours with wife, kids and parents, eating leftover turkey and helping decorate their Christmas tree. Now, if only a doe and button buck would step out to feed on a bit of clover before 4:40, it would make a good ending to a good day.

I wear an orange hat while walking during gun and ML seasons, but I switch it with a camo when I am up in a tree. I hunt mostly flat land, so I feel pretty safe if I am just a few feet above ground level. Most of my stands are 6-8 ft high. This one has produced for me on the last three opening days of gun season, but no luck today.

Some of these guys and girls who hunt with .243's ought to hury up and get some kills in on this page.

If chef adds the points together for teams 1 thru 3, he might get close to half the points that team 4 has now.

That is all that I have seen and heard where I am this morning. Maybe they are waiting till 10:00 again to move here like they did last Saturday. I am pulling the plug at 10:15 and firing up my chainsaw to clear some trails.

I think I will head up for the late ML weekend also. I will probably just use 1/2 of a vacation day on Friday, so I dont have to drive up on the dark. I dont have too many of those left, after using some for the early ML season. I like it that the ML season opens a week earlier up there than it does in the SZ. I will probably use another vacation day for the last Monday of the SZ ML season, and head down to my buddy's camp in the southern tier. I am hoping for some snow, but not too much to make the drive up difficult. I will be making the trip up there with my front wheel drive suv. I will have 4wd once I get up there, because I gave my father in law my old Silverado to use to keep the camp roads open. It does real good in the deep snow and ice, with a bed full of sandbags, and tire chains all around. I am hoping to get a second chance on a big Adirondack buck that I was too slow on the draw for on opening day of rifle season. I also will have an antlerless tag, which are usually easy to fill up there, if there is snow. One more deer would be just right for our freezer this year. Good luck on your trip. Adirondack deer are worth 10X southern zone ones for the scenery factor alone. First good snow up there trumps peak fall foliage, because it makes it a lot easier to kill a deer.

If your spot is not that large, a break can be good to reduce pressure. That allows the deer to get comfortable there again. I don't have too much trouble with that, since there is about 15 miles between my two local spots and I am the only one who hunts them. Usually, I just hunt the weekends. Hunting a spot just once a week seems to work out pretty good. 4 consecutive days right now might overload things a bit for me though. I feel good about tomorrow morning at my parents, since it will be a full week since I hit it. I plan on hunting one side of that 60 acres in the morning, and the other in the evening. Sunday morning, I will hunt back at home, from my bedroom window prior to church at 9:30. Sunday afternoon is a tossup. I am leaning towards a low stand, right near the center of our 34 acres. I have not hunted from that yet this year, and it would provide a great spot to shoot the deer I saw in the field on my walk out this evening. I hunted the east edge this morning, the south end this evening, and the north end Thursday morning. I saw 3 deer at my parents on Saturday, but nothing at our place on Sunday afternoon, or Thursday morning. I probably would be burned out also, if I had not seen the two this afternoon and this evening. The second one has me particularly interested, because I think she was a doe, for which I still have tags. I wouldn't care if I didn't see that little buck (or any other buck) again until ML opens. I breath a sigh of relief, when every hunt ends, and I don't see a buck larger than the one I killed. In 39 seasons, I have yet to have that happen. I am not too confident about tomorrow morning. I found a huge shed over there this spring, and that big boy must still be around. I hope he stays hidden, until ML season opens.

I am in 9f.

Is there any corn around ?

I still have quite a bit of standing corn, and they rarely start on the turnips until that is picked pretty clean. One of the advantages of a high coyote population, is that small acreage of corn lasts a lot longer. Coyotes love eating coons.

Bucks yes, does no. I typically see 4 antleted deer per each antlerless on both local spots where I hunt (NW, & SE corners of wmu 9f). That makes it tough to punch dmp's (which even non residents can probably get (4) of), but relatively easy to punch buck tags. The reason for this "backwards" ratio, is that local farmers hit the antlerless deer real hard with their nuisance permits prior to October 1st. Those that survive past that date are extremely elusive.

The exact same thing happened to me last year. I intended to shoot a big button buck, that was with a doe and a smaller fawn, but they switched positions on me. Thru a case of mistaken identity, I shot the doe instead. They had passed me earlier, on the side where I could not shoot, and he was in the lead then. Prior to that (throughout crossbow season), I had seen bucks on every hunt, sometimes several. Apparently it was that one doe that was keeping all of them around. I was set up for that again this year, but I let the doe pass and I waited for the buck 15 minutes later. Now that that's out of the way, I am going back over there and try to get the doe, and/or the fawn, tomorrow. The two local spots that I hunt normally have a good buck population, but doe are scarce after October 1. Farmers kill many with their nuisance permits prior to that. I dont think it is due to the warm weather. Usually, it is an old dominant doe that controls the territory. If you take her out, everything changes.

Our place is on the NW corner of wmu 9f. I stayed up in that stand until 4:42 (last legal light), and saw another deer in the middle of the back field on the walk out. My parents place is on the SE corner of the same wmu and that's where I will be tomorrow. That is also where I killed my 6-point on opening day morning. They have been seeing a couple of deer come out and feed, about a half hour before sunset, almost every evening since then. I am thinking they may be a doe and fawn that I saw ahead of my buck on Saturday. I am going to sit in the same stand, deep in the woods, where I saw all three on opening day morning. Then I am going to clear a bunch of blowdowns that are blocking the trails in the woods with my chainsaw. Hopefully, that won't prevent the doe and fawn from doing their usual evening feed, where I will be waiting for them in my field edge stand. What area are you in ?

I saw one more unidentified deer, standing in the middle of the back field. That was about 5 minutes after legal sunset on my walk out.

Not all of them like to stay close to the houses. This little 3-point just stepped out to say hello, just about as far as you can get from any house on this block. If only some of his hornless relatives would do likewise. Unfortunately, those are few and far between in this area, where the local farmers hit them hard, prior to October 1 on their nuisance permits. He posed nicely in a shooting lane for a 15 yard broadside camera phone shot:

My little friend just stopped by to say hello. Some big bully knocked one of his points off the left side since I saw him last. He is down to just three now. Too bad he didn't knock off the other side, so I could put him on a dmp tag. He had all four when I passed him up, on opening day of crossbow a couple weeks ago, about 20 yards from where he is standing in this picture:

I have seen them get on them pretty good in mid-December, if it is cold and snowy. The one bb, that I shot from my bedroom window on the last day of ML that year, had a mouth full of turnip greens when he died. I can't recall ever seeing them eat the bulbs, but they like the greens after they get frozen good.

I am settled in also, for the afternoon sit in my back woods stand. This is the spot where I killed my last late season antletless deer in 2017. Maybe lightning will strike again. A little relaxation will be good anyhow. My 3 hour lunch "break" was pretty productive but not to relaxing. I fried up a big onion and about a pound of liver. I like the flavor of venison liver a little better than beef, but not quite as tender from a deer older than 6 mo. I also freshened up my coyote bait pile with the butchering waste from Wednesday night. There was nothing left in that field but a rib cage from a big roadkill buck that I dragged out there last week. Afyer that, I cleared a dead ash blowdown that was blocking the lane, and fixed the exhaust leak on my wife's van. I also put the hitch carrier on that, in anticipation of needing it to bring a doe home from my folks place tomorrow. I think my odds of getting one of those over there is a lot better than here.

6-point liver and onions for lunch. Not quite in the same class as bb but not bad.

Yes, pace yourself. I know all about dragging a deer full of guts out of the water. It is certainly no picnic. Once you reach the high ground and get the guts out, it will go a little easier.

I am going to stick it out until around 11:30, then go back up to the house for lunch. Yesterday's store-bought turkey was ok, but I am really looking forward to half the "organic" liver from Saturday's free-range 6-point. After 6 days in the fridge, it ought to be real tender, when I fry it up with some onions. After that, I got an exhaust leak to work on, with my Wife's van, then its back out for the afternoon sit. No deer seen yet this morning, but I did hear 3 shots within a few hundred yards. Hopefully, the drivers will kick out a few antletless deer after lunch. I have (4) 9f dmp's to work with. I would be happy to punch just one, especially if it was on a tasty bb.