This photo is of our entire deer camp for 2020. We expanded our bubble during the Covid pandemic to include Eric (our son) and Tommy (our grandson and a deer camp regular). We arrived on Sunday and immediately embarked on a camera tour.
We were a bit surprised to find not one, but two, ladder stands set up exactly on our property line.
They were literally strapped on to a tree that was a boundary line marker (red dot on tree).
I guess that's legal but it surprised us. I suppose that I could have strapped one on this side of the tree and we could have chatted while hunting. Later in the week, the stand was rotated to look into our property. It would have been an interesting call to discuss access for tracking. If they bothered. Have had trespassers from that direction in the past.
Anyway, I chose to ignore it and get on with our week. The cameras showed some potential targets. Number one was this buck that had only showed up on camera once before this season.
Shortly after collecting these images, I learned that one of our neighbors, Mike, had taken this buck with a bow a day or two earlier. He's a beauty - even with a broken and missing G-2. Congrats Mike. I later heard from another neighbor, Dusty, that he had been watching this buck for a couple years.
But we still had some great bucks left to target. There has been a wide 10 point running around all year.
And a buck with a mule deer-like fork that I christened Split.
And a number of other mature and respectable specimens. And I was hoping to see the "bird-seed buck" from last year. It had "can opener" shaped brow tines.
So we finished our tour on Sunday and prepared for a week of chasing the big boys.
We had rain on Monday, rain to snow on Tuesday, and 4" of snow by Wednesday morning. We didn't see much until this system cleared out. View of the main field on Tuesday.
And then it started to change.
I was hoping that we'd get a rush ahead of the storm but it didn't happen.
Eventually it really started to fall. Here's a video of what we were seeing.
Snow Moving In
Meanwhile, back at the cabin, remote learning was in progress. It isn't easy given the quality of DSL internet service provided by Frontier in this area.
But works of art were created and lessons were learned.
There might have been some "cabin fever" developing but games of competition tended to help.
The hunting was cold with 4" on the ground.
The does started to move.
And work ensued on the construction of a snowman.
By Wednesday evening, the system had passed thru and I thought it was time for some deer movement. But, we continued to just see an occasional doe.
There was plenty of good food still available in the food plots but with a full moon and snow on the ground, it was almost like daylight all night long. Not much in the way of daytime movement.
We got tired of sitting in stands and started to move a bit. Here's a sunrise view on Thursday.
While we're seeing almost nothing, the cameras are showing action like this. This is a nice buck who unfortunately lost one of his antlers in early November. He is probably running away from either Eric or me but we didn't even know we pushed him.
The visibility in the woods is great with the snow on the ground.
And we can see the tracks where they've been digging acorns from under the snow.
And, when you see a foot-dragging track like this, you just know it is a big buck. But we never saw him - seemed to be all nighttime travel.
We tried everything - sitting, walking, calling, etc.
And in the evenings, we ate well and enjoyed the new Solo-stove firepit. Check this video of it's post-combustion that clears up the smoke.
Hot Firepit You have to be careful when roasting marshmallows - it's hot.
I did get an evening where some does started to appear.
Eventually followed by a buck.
He worked a field edge scrape.
And came in to about 15 yards. Video here.
Young Buck at 15 Yards He wasn't what I was looking for - maybe in a year or two.
Once the system was thru and the sky cleared, the snow started to melt. We had some nice sunrises and sunsets.
I did some moving around and some stand sitting. Eric took a big mid-day walk and accidentally pushed a big buck off his bed. We spent the next two days trying to find him again.
On an evening sit, I had this spike come thru the field. Behind him in the pines, I saw something at last light. It looked like 4 tines coming off of a main beam. As the sun was setting, it didn't seem to move and I convinced myself it was a tree branch. But then it was gone after being still for a long time. And then it came back. I grunted at it but it didn't take the bait. I lost light without ever seeing if it was a buck.
The next morning I checked that spot and there was no branch with any shape like a rack. But there were a bunch of little rubs.
Walking around there was sign everywhere. The cameras were full of movement, there was poop, rubs, scrapes and tracks everywhere.
Many candidates for "poop of the week".
One evening, Eric was down in the valley trying to find the buck that he bumped. One of the neighbors had a mother dog get away from the house with two 5 week old pups. Of course the dogs ran into the woods on our property right above where Eric was hunting. The neighbors were courteous enough to ask for permission before barging into the woods. Eric heard all the commotion up on the field edge and a reasonable 8 point ran between him and the neighbors. It all happened so fast that he didn't have a shot anyway. Eventually the mother came home and it was after dark before the pups were found and recovered. It seems like every year, there's some sort of unexpected disturbance like this one.
Tommy had some slack time during the day on Friday. Eric got him out to a deer stand for some field time.
They packed lunch and looked for the big buck - no luck.
That evening, the fog rolled in as all the snow melted. With 20 minutes of light left, I had does in front of me in the main field and I could barely make out 2 bucks in the driveway field. Visibility was so bad, I knew they were bucks but couldn't really judge the racks. With 10 minutes of legal light left, they came up to the main field. The smaller of the two chased does right under my stand. I could see that he was a younger 8 point. The other buck was much bigger bodied but I could not see the rack in the fog and fading light. With 5 minutes left I could see the body outline at 60 yards but couldn't make out the rack. I chose not to shoot.
On Saturday, Tommy and Eric headed back to Chicago. I hunted all day.
Some "volunteer" pumpkins in the pond stand clover.
The woods are a lot different without the snow on the ground.
A scrape in the trail by the valley stand. I spent several hours down in the valley and never saw a deer move.
I set up watching a well worn deer trail from across the creek. It was on a shelf but I could see the whole hillside.
We left Sunday after the morning hunt. I pushed 6 does by a big white oak out in the front of the property.
We have taken one buck off the property in the last three years. We could have taken does and we have had some chances missed. But the hunting sure seems harder than it used to be. The deer are here - there's plenty of evidence of that. They seem to have gone almost completely nocturnal. Is that all due to hunting pressure? We haven't had that much pressure but there sure seems to be a lot more pressure from all neighboring properties. Could this blog be contributing to that trend?
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