Frustrating morning but good way to start the season

zerodown

zerodown

Joined
Oct 25, 2007
Messages
723
Likes
73
Feedback: 7 / 0 / 0
Got into my stand really early today all excited for the season. After hearing nothing but squirrels and chipmunks running around, I gave a short doe bleep with a can around 7am. To my surprise, a young but nice 4 pointer (one of the ones from my camera shots) came right in like a man on a mission. Came so fast I didn't even have time to react. Well the damn thing came right to my stand within 12 yards with his head right up and just stood there. He was looking for some action. I couldn't even move. After what felt like forever he took a couple more steps and just passed my left shoulder out of sight. I knew he was still under me but wasn't sure if he had his head down or what. Waited 30 seconds or so and slowly turned my head only. He was staring right at me. Our eyes met, I got the white finger and he took off. Only ran about 70 yards, gave me 2 big wheezes and bolted. Awfully exciting for first day out but man it was frustrating. Couldn't even draw on him.
 
Last edited:
I too went out early and had a good but bad morning. 20 yrds out of my gate(i hunt the woods behind my house) I jumped a deer(didn't get to see him because it was to dark) but he didn't snort and I was low and walking slow, so he may have thought i was something else. I get to my stand and as soon as i sit hear another deer 35 yrds in the thick walking around so I sat ready and waiting and out of the blue hear him start sparring with another buck which was awesome even to hear. After about 2 hours of waiting( because i am an idiot and forgot my doe can) they both where gone and nothing came in but they scraped my doe urine I put out the day before like it was crack. I am going out again tommorow morning(with my can) I freshened up thier scrapes with more doe estrous from the same bottle as before lets hope they all come back for more crack.
 
Yea I hear where you guys are coming from...I was up in my stand at about 6-6:30...Saw a few squirrels, heard a deer but never saw him. I had a can bleat call and used it but nothing happened..looked at the clock and it was 8:30 I had to be at work by 9 so I come down from the stand and 30 yards out behind my stand I have a small 8 pointer staring straight at me on the trial to get out. I check my trail cam and 5:20am I had him walk 10 ft away from my stand..just wish I had the day off. Going back out today after work to my 2nd spot to hunt maybe I'll get lucky...my buddy shot a doe this morning.

glockstones that's awesome that you heard 2 bucks fighting
 
Sounds like par for the course. Got in my stand at 5. At 5:30 had 2 or three deer walking around eating acorns for about a half hour. By the time it got light they were gone. Stayed till 9 but nothing else came by. Off to a different stand for the afternoon very shortly.
 
here's another. in my stand by 5a.m. about 530ish a deer trotted by my stand, to dark just let it go. saw nothing else. tomorrow i'll get em. goodluck everyone.
 
Didn't get out to the woods today. Had to stop at R&R to pick up some stuff and someone showed up with a nice doe. Good to see somebody is having luck.
 
I am not sure if I am going to get out before Saturday. I have to take all the work I can get while things are good. Good to see some had a good morning. What time is it getting light out right now? Good luck to everyone!!!
 
Boy, what another crazy morning. So my buddy comes up to hunt this morning which gets us into the woods about 40 minutes later than I wanted. Not 30 yards into the woods we jump a deer. It didn't run very far so we wait a bit and continue on trying to be quiet. Well it must have been coming back towards us b/c when we get out of this thick area a little further, we look up and there it is again (and of course it bolts). Hearing it run a bit further this time we scurry into our stands and sit. Around 7:45 I catch something out of the corner of my eye and its a little spike horn walking up the trail on my left side. He makes a right turn in front of me (about 40 yards out) and is going to walk right through my lanes. I stand up, pick a shooting lane, and as he goes behind a pine I draw. His head barely enters the lane and he stops dead in his tracks. Now he is directly down wind from me and sniffing the air. He knows I'm there but has no idea where I am. He continues to stand still smelling the air and right when I'm at the point where I simply can't hold the draw anymore he turns around. I slowly let down and continue to watch him. Backtracking, he then makes a left and starts walking down my left side about 30 yards out this time. He goes behind this big oak and I draw again. A clear lane is about 10 yards in front of the oak but its the best spot to draw so the movement isn't seen. Well as luck would have it, he takes 2 steps and decides to stop and eat. He has no idea that I'm there and is just foraging taking his merry time. I'm holding the best I can but my arms are tired and I am starting to struggle. I could let down and wait but I decide to try a hero shot and thread this arrow through the branches. Epic FAIL on my part. My arrow bounces off a branch 3/4 the way there and goes over his back by about a foot. He takes off for good. Man, what a crazy first two days of the season.
 
Thanks guys I want to try to get some time in before work but don't know if it would be worth while. I have leave at 7:45 so it might be for that hour or so.
 
Brian5582 said:
Thanks guys I want to try to get some time in before work but don't know if it would be worth while. I have leave at 7:45 so it might be for that hour or so.
Click to expand...


did that this morning, nothing moving. I am going to try some 10 am to 2 pm hunts this week with the approaching full moon.
 
I got out yesterday morning, night and this morning. Yesterday there were about 7-8 deer 60 yards out from my stand. This morning, the same. When I got out of my stand I decided to take a look where they all were the last 2 days with the intention of coming back w/ a climber to get a little closer for the evening. I walk halfway there and freeze. There's a bunch of deer walking right toward me, mostly does. when they're about 10 yards away one of them spots me and starts starring, then they all lock up on me. Finally they all bolt. One stopped and weezed at me twice. I'm afraid that spot may be blown. Opinions?
 
Yup, blown. Go elsewhere for a while and wqhen trhe wind is right, head back to get some.
 
If there's rain you can go back in a few days. Interdigital scent may be gone. By then.
 
Fixxah said:
If there's rain you can go back in a few days. Interdigital scent may be gone. By then.
Click to expand...

Agreed. But, I've no intention on going back for a couple of weeks. I've overhunted spots in the past and have since learned my lesson. I've got multiple stands setup in multiple spots. This is by far the best spot I've ever hunted though. Thinking I could move closer was definitely a dumb move. I should have been more patient.
 
Went out this afternoon & evening. The only real hunting I did was for my wallet after it fell out of the bottom of a ripped pocket......

P.S. Thanks DSG for selling such fine camo clothing and having the stitching come apart on the bottom of the pocket.
 
Saw a nice six point last night. He came in about 25 yards away with about two minutes of shooting light left and bee-lined it right to my scent dripper/mock scrape.
He was all over it. Hoofing the dirt, stretching his neck out to smell the dripper but the whole time he was facing directly away from me. With time ticking he never gave me a broadside shot until he walked off into the dark.

This morning in the same spot. Nothing but squirrels, a couple feral cats and lots of mosquitoes.

Went back there tonight and watched two four pointers spar for about 20 minutes, 35 yards away at the end of one of my shooting lanes. They were pushing each other around but it didnt seem like an all out battle. Almost looked like they were having fun.
All of a sudden I heard a loud crash to my right and the two deer split up going in opposite directions. I could hear something big coming through the thick pines I am hunting in. Got my bow ready and all of a sudden a huge buck dashed through my shooting lane. No shot, too fast. I heard some grunting then all sorts of crashing and horns clashing. I think he grappled with one of the smaller 4 pointers. It sounded like a good ass kicking .
I hit my grunt a couple times and they paid no attention to it. Im not sure they even heard it even though they were within thirty-thirty five yards of me.
Finally they finished and I could hear them crashing off into the wind away from me.
I know where Ill be tomorrow morning if the wind is right....

Oh, and the ticks are bad. I must have picked 15 of them off of me while sitting in the stand tonight. Be careful out there.
 
arlow said:
Illegal
Click to expand...

Well aware of the legal shooting times. Poor choice of words for a description. I was not advocating shooting before legal time (hence why I didn't bother calling till 7am). Simply trying to give a description of how light it is that early and even though sunrise is at 7, you need to be in stand way before 6am.

arlow said:
Unethical and irresponsible.
Click to expand...

Slow down there. You were not there, nor know what the shot looked like. You are making assumptions based on a 200 word short description that was meant to have a little fun. It was just sheer bad shooting that I nipped this small branch. Wasn't like I throwing an arrow through brush or pines. Come on now.
 
We all take "hard shots" it is not unethical or irresponsible it is hunting. I didn't read that and feel like it was a shot through 6 pine trees hoping it will correct and hit the target. And I have hit a twig or small branch plenty of times and messed up my shot in low light sometimes you really think the shot is clear but you human eye can't see the arrow sized branch 50 feet away.
 
Maybe I just think differently. I will only take a shot where I feel extremely confident I can put the animal down cleanly and quickly. Fatigued to the point of struggling to hold my bow at full draw and attempting a "hero shot" threading through branches while fatigued to that level is certainly not in my comfort level especially at close to my self imposed range limitations of 35 yards. Last thing I want is a wounded animal I cannot find, or even worse running through peoples backyards with an arrow sticking out of its shoulder or back because I took a bad shot and got a bad hit as a result.

If that is what you did I stand by my words. If you were "having fun" with a description and embellishing then I take them back, but as you wrote it your only providing fodder to the antis.
 
Plural of Mongoose said:
Oh, and the ticks are bad. I must have picked 15 of them off of me while sitting in the stand tonight. Be careful out there.
Click to expand...

I have been using a permerthrin based clothing spray that is very effective against the ticks for the last 5 seasons or so and I have not had a single tick on me during the last 5 seasons when wearing treated clothing.

Bob
 
Well one of the four pointers came back tonight and hung around a little too long.
He presented me with a quartering slightly to me shot at about 30 yards. I took aim, picked a hair and let fly. Whack. He dashed into the pines and disappeared. About three minutes later I saw him at the end of one of my shooting lanes. He wavered, did a little circle and fell over. I saw him twitch his tail a couple times and let him lay there for about ten minutes. I got out of my stand, dragged him a little closer and climbed back in my stand.
Hey, Its only 5:25pm. Maybe Ill see another.....
Not 5 minutes later here comes the second four point. He milled around, ate some stuff, scratched his ears, and proceeded to go directly down wind of me. I thought he would smell me but he didnt. At one point he was less than 15 feet away from me and had no clue I was there. All of a sudden two doe were there with him. I watched the three of them until dark and they walked away.
I was almost tempted to shoot one of the does as I have three doe tags but I didnt want to deal with two dead deer tonight. These deer arent going anywhere far anyhow and Im going let my youngest sit there tomorrow. Maybe he will get the other four point.
 
Monday AM I had to stop and watch two does galloping down the double yellow lines and almost hit my van. Was sharpening my knives in my mind. Lol.
 
I ran into my arch nemesis yesterday morning in my stand.....wild turkeys 25 of them to be exact because they sat there like a bunch of stupid birds and scratched the ground for 3 hours ruining my morning. Any morning that begins with turkeys for me ends with nothing(now if it where fall turkey it would have ended well)The good news this was my first day in that stand and the scrape that I am set up near on thier path leads right to a corn field and they scrape this one spot every year so maybe saturday will yield some good luck coming off the full moon.
 
Got another this morning. A spike that has horns less than three inches so he qualifies as an antlerless deer.
Here is a pic. of the two. Off to the tagging station.
This morning's was a classic spot and stalk. It took me about twenty minutes to sneak about 60 yards and get within 30 yards for a good shot. He went about 50 yards and fell over.
deerbow2010.jpg
 
Last edited:

Similar threads

Season recap
Replies
1
Views
191
chuckster
chuckster
MA deer shotgun season
2 3 4
Replies
117
Views
4K
arlow
arlow
Season not quite over
Replies
11
Views
537
greencobra
greencobra
Nice morning
Replies
0
Views
300
peterk123
P
Decided to try
Replies
24
Views
663
ThePreBanMan
ThePreBanMan
Back
Top Bottom