End of October madness
Last week of Oct is always busy....hunting, moving cows, spreading seed, conference/district/state volleyball. A very tiring week but always seems rewarding.
Son-in-law has an itchy finger and found reward opening morning. The hit was low on front shoulder and spotty blood. The deer was given 3 hours but we didn't know the hit location when we started. They spent about 30 min before I got there and couldn't find blood (it is a skill the boys need to hone)....so I started making wide arcs in the direction of travel and we found first blood and a bone chip 50 yards away in a ditch crossing. That is a clue something isn't right. My son and I tracked slowly and gave hand signals for general travel while he still hunted ahead of us. Buck stood from his bed and was shot a second time in the liver which probably sealed his fate. He rebedded, jumped again (prolly adrenalin) and received a third before finally expiring. I found over the years it is best to follow a slow methodical track while actually doing more looking ahead than looking at blood. While you are messing around looking for blood, you will lose focus on being quiet and the deer you are after can sneak out without you ever knowing. Dressed weight 125 lb....3 or 4 year old....9 points. Note all the senescent leaf material of NWSG....a byproduct on insufficient cattle impact in this corner which is furthest from winter feeding grounds....this is where you 'bale graze' or place the mineral feeder to get remote impact. We will burn this unit in March so no worries.
High winds during the rain Wednesday and daily thereafter shook acorns from trees and scattered deer. A few does were coming into estrous so buck groups seen early in the week disbanded into singles or pairs with attitudes....numbers of scrapes and rubs increased with the increased tension....increased tarsal staining. Thursday morning about 6:45 am I could hear a buck making a rub close to the blind.....due to fog and a small cedar I could not see deer nor bush movement in the glass.....fog lifted and rub was 45 yards away...go figure! With mid 80 highs and acorns on the ground, deer stopped heading enmasse to destination areas of plots and soft mast...except at night for socialization and reprieve from biting insects of timber. Needless to say deer sightings and activity declined through the week....to the point of being 'pitiful'...and it is really hard to get motivated to hunt in such conditions when you are used to seeing 20 deer in a sit. So, I hunted a different quarry one morning and bagged a few from an elm....oyster mushrooms.
Four of the last 5 black powder seasons have been less productive than in the past. Maybe it is due to a shift in mid-term weather patterns or climate or some other forgotten factor. Gun season which is a few weeks later seems better than in past years. So it is a fair trade.
The last evening of blackpowder season arrived. My son and I waited until 4 pm to head out to avoid the heat. About mid-way into the walk, I noticed wind on the back of my neck and spider webs streaming forward (yes, I was that tired)....What?...North?.....that wasn't in the forecast earlier that morning! We went to our selected spots anyway...north wind means blind windows must stay mostly closed....the massive cold front dropped temp from 82-81 in 1 hour....so I spent most of the final eve sweating and cursing about sweating. Pretty sure a mature buck slipped through about sunset, as I could see a tail flick and deep neck through timber, but couldn't see antler nor tarsal. North wind died...southerly thermal took over and the windows opened....but he never materialized in a shooting lane. I will take solace in believing 'maybe I saw a mature buck'! Before sunset, a distant shot with no double report shattered the evening silence (single report always sounds like a miss).....thought it was my boy but he didn't respond to my text (not sure who I texted but wasn't him)....neighbor asked if it was me and I said, No!.....okay maybe another neighbor.
My son was hunting over a half mile away. Two mature bucks were using that area the eve before the opener (area was dead the week before season and we didn't pull cards until Tuesday at noon...go figure). He sat that stand Tuesday AM and had a buck with a limp every two steps skirt behind him and not offer a shot....said it was an 8 (I knew different)..he had work and we had to watch some vball next few days so the area was rested. Checked cam again Friday and one buck was showing up there at night...and had a slight limp in his back foot. That cam is run on video mode starting Oct to get an idea of travel routes and nature of deer activity...how do you think I knew the buck had a slight limp every two gaits? A still image over an attractant won't capture the nature of deer activity in the area and distant images are often blurry. You've seen it..... image of the one triggering the cam is focused and some 'blobs' in the background...when you zoom the distant image is pixilated. With video mode you won't gain resolution, but it is pretty easy to see if it is a mature buck or a young buck chasing a doe at 100+ yards from the camera....based on body size differences and on intensity of the chase etc.....10-15 sec vids with 3 min timeout....try it! Most rut activity often occurs on the fringes of food and fringes of bed...so it makes sense to aim cam to monitor those areas for some distance. Anyway, work would have my son busy and state championship was Sat pm....so he was left with the final day to hunt. Back to the hunt....I told him to sit tight on the N wind and just watch the downside and try to get the needed shot off before he got winded....too late to move....so what else do you do? He sat tight while a doe pair fed through and didn't get busted. This is when high temps are actually an advantage...because it pushes deer movement after sunset when thermals take over and make the 'wind right for the stand'. He finally texted me and said the late shot was him....I was dwelling upon several things....the sound of distant single report echoing over the ranch...remembering the 5 does in front of me flinch....remember them staring back in the timber at the 'ghost buck' I saw a few minutes prior....glancing over at the distant bank of clouds in the sunset...thinking he missed....and really just waiting on enough darkness to sneak out and end this deal! Text received....'Got blood'. Text sent 'You got a light?. Text received, NO! Text sent 'CENSORED'! lol Long story short, got back to the barn and I grabbed a couple lights, some odds and ends and an extra knife (you wanna bet he forgot a knife too?) and walked back in there in the dark (you know a place when you don't need a light to walk at night). Lit the beams and blood was immediate to impact.....dual spatter 10 yards out....followed it up on a hog-back ridge.....and ended the track here finding a double lung hit tight to the shoulder! He dressed 122 lb with 11 points and cut-up in the cooler by 10 PM. Boy took the jaw out and I didn't look at it closely....4 is my guess. My boy's WONDERFUL wife had dinner ready for us when we got back to the house....know you know why I call her my daughter and gave her a long appreciative hug!
