We moved to a new house about a month ago. The second night that we were there, a doe came out from the woods. Since then, we have had three does hanging around, one of which was VERY pregnant the last time we saw her (I am hoping for twins!) They are out on the back lawn at least twice a week and one morning, I had a doe only a few yards from the house. When I threw open the curtains, she just looked at me and kept eating. If I draw a doe tag this fall, they are not necessarily safe but until hunting season arrives,, we will keep watching...
As I climbed into the Sky Condo to start the 2017 hunting season, the top step broke off from the tree sending a chuck of wood to the ground and leaving the bulk of the rung hanging down to the next step. I lifted my gun off my shoulder and slid it onto the floor of the Sky Condo and them threw my backpack up. I got myself into the stand and looked down at the damage. We were going to have to replace a few rungs before the following week. And my silent entry into the woods was anything but. I sat there for a couple of hours and then headed for my stand in the woods to see if anything was walking through. I was cautious walking in and looked for any sign of brown. I made it around the corner when I...
If you do not follow me on Facebook, then you don't know that Dad totally schooled us in how to shoot a big buck. Did some scouting, brought his gun, right place, right time, incredible buck! (Mom's flip phone doesn't take great pictures) So, that leaves Hubs (who has a doe permit) and I (who does not) to attempt to get a shot at one of these big bucks! The competition is on!
I am not sure if the target in the backyard has made the deer around here more relaxed or not, but for this fawn, it wasn't sure what to make of this thing that looks like a deer but doesn't move. If this target can fool these deer, I am wondering if we could use it as a decoy during hunting season... that is something that I will need to research! Either way, the doe and the fawn both look incredibly healthy! Always a good sign for the deer...
At this point, Staci and I just say that we are doing shed hunting but in reality, we just walk through the woods and see what we can find. Our latest trip was quite the adventure. I took Staci to T3 and showed her where Dad had shot his doe. The trick was getting there without getting hurt. There was enough crust on the snow to be able to walk on it in the morning. We debated bringing our snowshoes, but ruled that we could handle the crust with the occasional inch break through. The amount of deer tracks right from the start were nice to see. They had been checking the old apple trees and following a lot of the same trails that they had been taking during hunting season. We started off at the...
"All I saw was blue smoke" dad said smiling. One week after I shot my deer and rifle season ended, Dad was still hard at it trying to get one of those big bucks we still had pictures of. But, instead, he squeezed the trigger and got his first deer with a muzzleloader. According to Dad: two doe came crossed three different shooting lanes before starting to talk at him. When he decided to fire at the biggest doe, he lined up the sites and just saw the blue smoke and no deer. "I got down and walked to where I saw her last. The second doe was still standing nearby, so I knew she was down. When that second doe ran off by itself, I knew the deer was somewhere near by" Dad picked up the blood trail and tracked his...
The snow was melting and dropping off the branches and leaves. I had been in the stand for only a few minutes when I heard a deer walking off to my right. It was one deer and too dark to know if it was a doe or buck. Maybe it was the crotch horn. I closed my eyes and listened to the deer walking away from me. At least it didn't seem spooked; maybe it didn't know that I was there. The sky began to get brighter, indicating that the rain predicted was not coming. I dug into my pocket for handwarmers. I tried to keep the crinkling plastic as quiet as I could as I ripped the first side open. I waited before I opened the second warmer to keep my noise at a minimum. When I made the second tear, just...
There was a storm coming in on Thanksgiving night, so Dad and I started and ended our day in the woods. It was silent when we walked into our stands in a turkey induced semi-stupor. The silence didn't last long. For almost two hours, we listened to someone target practicing or just shooting different guns. It was ridiculous and I still can not understand why, during hunting season, someone would do this when they could have waited until Sunday (when we can't hunt.) When we went to bed Thanksgiving night, the cold rain had turned to snow and on Friday morning, there was enough on the ground to track. Snow turns me into a kid! It could be an early snow in Oct, a Christmas show or the type that you dread in March but for...
There were signs of deer everywhere! Tracks, rubs and fresh scrapes but for some reason, I was not seeing them. Dad, on the other hand, was seeing deer everywhere he looked. One morning, he watched a spike horn chase a doe and fawn through the woods. He walked out of the woods behind a doe and fawn another night. He was seeing multiple does every time he sat or walked through the woods but instead of using that doe tag, he wanted that big, illusive buck that we knew was still hanging around. I hung out in my stands and watched a lot of squirrels. How could we be spending so much time in the woods and not come across a deer yet? It helped that Hubs had filled the freezer but we knew that there were deer all...
