2015 Fletch In The Field

[Fletch]

11/20 pm 47

Just slipped out in the field edge pine for an hour. Sent out the bow season.

I'm beat hitting the sack. 4 am comes early!

[Fletch]

10/21

My brother, brother in law, nephew and I hit state land in Tully. It was 30 and loud when I went in. I have a biiiig hill to go up and was not quiet. Get into climber and half way up crunch crunch... Deer goes by in the dark. Get up after a slight mishap of having bottom of climber slip loose! That made thing interesting quick and why you always have a connecting rope! Sat from before 6:30 till noon not a dang thing. Go out to truck for lunch and a break. 1:30 I'm getting ready at the truck. Two ladies walking their dogs go by and say hi! I need to go the same way a bit before I cut in the wood so am about 50 feet from them. One of the dogs is cutting in and out the ditch near where I go in before I got there. As I cut in I take 5-6 steps and notice movement 60 or so yards up the ridge. It's a deer running, not fast, from my right to left. It's s buck. A good buck just from the seconds I saw at least 2.5 yr old good body and main beams past ears but not huge. I pull up on him and grunt he stops 70 yards head behind a tree and crosshairs dead on shoulder. In my mind I know I got 2 ladies and 2 dogs like 50 feet down the road whom I will most likely scare the crap outa. Shooting would be 100% legal that's not a question.

I have not got a very good look at the rack it honestly could be 2-10 points but at least 16 wide I guess. I have a nice 8 in bow so I don't want a buck unless it's bigger. I could not make a decision that quick so he took off again and made it for me.

I spent the rest of the night on stand wondering about the decision when I have a good chance of not seeing s good buck now that gun is here lol. 7.5 hours in stand to see the deer on way in rrrrrrr. Woulda liked to seen him from stand and got a good look and time to decide!

My bro saw one doe too far out and the other two zip. Not a good day. Outa the 4 parking lots at our end and 25 plus vehicles. One shot one doe all day. Poor.

[Fletch]

11/22

3.5 hours behind the house this morning and 3 in the hole this afternoon and zipped! 14 hours in stand last two days not a deer sighted! Only deer I saw was walking back in yesterday. Bro in law and nephew zipped today too. Man what an awful opening weekend.!!

My one bright spot

I had a pic of him 10/31 so a 21 day pattern lol

[Fletch]

11/23

 

Hunted first watch in the hole. Had an inch or so of fresh snow and had quite a few tracks from overnight but no sightings.

 

Hunted last watch out behind the house. Absolutely no tracks from past day in the snow. No good. No sightings.

[fasteddie]

Good Luck . It can only get better ! 

 

[Fletch]

11/24 28

 

Hunted down in the hole this morn and before light had 2 big deer come in behind me and stop. I saw the outlines of both and both looked big and at least the first one had a rack. The second was about 50 yards behind the first. About 40 minutes later after sunup I had one come in in front to the scrape it was a spiker. He was very nervous and doing a lot of sniffing. I had scent out and he was down wind of me. He ended up walking right by me and into the thicket behind me that I saw the first deer go to and stop earlier. I finally saw a bit of movement on the thicket and got the binocs on the first deer that bedded. I saw a decent rack maybe one of the 8s. The spike goes up to the 8 while its bedded and they click antlers a couple seconds then the spike turns and walks away. About 3 minutes later the bigger one gets up and mills around in the brush then turns and walks straight away. He would not respond to any calling. I never did figure out what happened to the second deer I saw early. It was noisy I heard them come in before light from 100 yards away. It must have somehow snuck out.

 

Hunted back there tonight and saw nothing but had 2 shots very close just down from me. I also learned the 11/12 pointer above I am chasing there has been seen 3 morning this week crossing the road outa this piece into a town park. Not good he is crossing roads so much and not good that people are seeing him. He was seen this morning so the two shots tonight most likely where not him since he was headed out. I need to try to figure a new plan for him but am very limited on what I can hunt.

Edited November 25, 2015 by Fletch

[Fletch]

11\25 29

Hunted out back in the far stand for 2.5 hours. Nice morn not a thing. Couple shots over the ridge not too far.

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[Fletch]

11/26 am

Lots of nothing. Now to fry turkeys!

[Fletch]

Not much going on the past few days. Passed one 4 point and that's it. Nobody is seeing anything. Had turkeys gobbling tonight and heard one for blow my bil jumped on way out after dark.

Edited December 1, 2015 by Fletch

[Fletch]

12/2 am 38

 

Sat in the misty rain for a couple hours behind the house and saw zero deer. I did have 41 hen turkeys feed past me. Most turkeys I have ever seen around my property.

 

12/3 am 45

 

Out in the hole stand for two hours. Nothing.

[Zem18]

Lol your post above shows tomorrow's date 12-3! Good luck in the morning in the hole stand. If you sit for 2 hours, you won't see anything. I can sense it.

[Fletch]

lol Zem I was a day ahead of myself in those dates. And guess what......Thursday 2 hours in the hole stand and zip!!!!!! lol

 

Two hours this morning(12/4) behind the house and zip!!!!

 

 

This is getting discouraging. I talked to a couple guys I know that my son plays soccer with and one on their property they usually have 4-5 down by now have 0 and the other has seen 3 deer hunting hard since opener.

 

I think we lost a lot more deer last winter in CNY than we thought!!

[Fletch]

Well I been slacking lately but here is my annual wrap up of my bow statistics.

 

This is just bow stats.

 

115 hours in stand during legal light.

 

9 buck sightings for 1 per 12.78 hours

33 total sightings for 1 per 3.48 hours.

 

I missed one big doe early on a drop arm and peek.

Shot the nice 8 pt with the compound

And the doe with the crossbow

 

Overall my bow season was great for final results but less than average for all sightings and really poor for buck sightings. The biggest buck I saw all bow was the 8 I shot. If I had not missed the early doe I would have had three in the freezer in bow!

 

Now back to the gun season which I do not record stats for because it would make me sad!

 

 

 

Edited December 4, 2015 by Fletch

[Fletch]

Saturday just hunted the morning for 4 hours with a big zip, again.

 

Sunday Hunted a few hours in the hole and saw zip, Then BIL and I went to Howland Island for afternoon to look at some different trees.

 

No deer sighted. It has now been over a week since I have seen a deer and even more for my brothers.

 

I took this morning off to recharge, my bro was out back all he saw was a fisher.

 

I am losing motivation.

[Renegade Hunter]

It just seems as if the deer are really grouping up. If you see one doe, you will see a ton of them. I haven't seen squat either. Saw one lone buck cruising Saturday. Only deer all weekend. My buddy was walking out of the woods and kicked up 9 doe in one spot and 4 in the other. My uncle was sitting and he had 3 herds come across him from all different directions. Said there must have been 30 deer all together. No horns of course. I wonder if it's an instinctual thing to group up for safety, or after the rut. Seems every year they tend to do that.

[Zem18]

I hear ya Fletch on the motivation. I only hunted 2.5 days at my camp and never saw a deer. Only opening day I sat. The other 1.5 days I still hunted and never put up a flag. Discouraging for sure. I have only 5 days left to hunt so it is panic mode for me now. That is my motivation. Good luck the rest of the season.

[WNYBuckHunter]

Later in the season can be tough for me as well. Either my freezer is full and I start losing motivation that way, or I havent seen much and it frustrates me to where I stop putting forth the effort. I have to remember that the majority of the really big bucks I have seen have either been bow season or the last weekend of gun.

[grampy]

Twice in my years of hunting, I have killed a nice buck on the last day of the season. And have seen top end bucks for my area, late in the season quite a few times. I saw a pretty good one Sunday afternoon, about 150 yards out, walking a field edge, along thick cover. But have no buck tag. With so many other things going on at this time of the year, it can be tough to stay motivated and make time to be in the woods. But I will tell you, it can and does pay off big time to hunt late season! Best of luck and keep at it, all you can until it's over!

[Fletch]

Oh I'm not giving up guys!! I just miss the last week of October and the first week of November real bad!!

 

I went out 12/9 down to the hole for a couple hours and a big zip. I pulled the card and a few flats and a 4 point a lot at night. Neither big boy in over a week.

 

12/10 out behind the house for a couple hours in the am. Just saw a bunch of hens again.

 

This afternoon my dad came over and I walked him back to a brush blind. He is 78, 79 in a few days, and has had a rough 12-18 months and does not get around well now. So I walked him out with his cane and all and got him set up. I came back and worked for a bit then went out and hit the thick crap all around him trying to kick up a deer to him but just nothing. I have a feeling this might have been his last deer watch, I hope not, but we had fun talking "old times" and he enjoyed the 50+ temps.

[fasteddie]

I should loan your dad my 4 wheeler .............

 

 

 

[Fletch]

12/12 am

Sat 4.5 hours in the hole. Nothing but a truckload of squirrels.

I figured out what may be the lack if deer behind the house. There were a couple bean fields a mile down the road but those got cut right about end of October. My buck shot last week of October was full of them. I thought that was it I don't go that way a lot. Last night driving about another mile all the beans are still up! I beta lot of deer are hanging down there.

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Edited December 12, 2015 by Fletch

[Fletch]

12/13

Hunted all day on state in 7m

Lots of buck sign but we did not see anything.

Now for ML

[Fletch]

Well for the last week I hunted pretty hard and ended up seeing not one deer! I think went like 24 days of gun season without seeing a deer. That would be my worst gun seasons ever.

 

My brother did end up seeing 8 deer between afternoon watch Sunday and Monday morning and managed to scare the hell out of a lot of deer and take hair off a couple. Not good.

 

My BIL and Nephew did not see a deer all gun season.

 

I am very thankful for having a good bow season and sad to see deer season end but this gun season was a bear. Will need to reassess next years plan!!

 

I enjoyed reading everyone's journals and Hope you all have a Great Holiday Season!!

[Zem18]

Enjoyed your journal too Fletch. Happy holidays to you and your family.