december is upon us

I have definitely been slacking on updating my blog, no doubt about that.  As promised I will explain all the intricacies of the rut, but that will have to wait for my next entry.  I kind of had a long day and I'm just sitting at home listening to some music, unwinding I guess, thinking about the days events and figured I would share a little hunting experience with everyone.  Right now is what you call the "late season" or "post rut" stage.  Hunting can get tough this time of year, or it can be a cake walk, entirely dependent upon whether you're on a food source or not.  Food is getting scarce this time of year for deer, and if you're not on a food source, good luck.  However, for those hunters that  have a reliable late season food source on their hunting land, such as a "food plot" which they planted and maintain, they know exactly where the deer will be.  I myself haven't yet jumped onto the food plot bandwagon, honestly I think I will though.  Having a food plot not only lets you know where the deer will be late season but it supports a healthy deer population. I have typically never had any problem finding what the deer are eating this time of year, but this season I haven't been as lucky.  In the past, once the rut ends and the temperatures drop, I could always count on finding deer eating honeysuckle and honey locust.  However this year the honeysuckle is abundant, yet hasn't been touched by deer.  This is odd.  One other thing to consider about late season hunting, at this point every deer has had some form of hunting pressure on them.  Back in October, during bow season, and even into early november, muzzleloader season, a lot of deer hadn't seen a human all year and if they did that human probably meant them no harm.  But once rifle season comes in, every asshole who owns a gun heads for the woods and tries to shoot bambi.  So every deer in the woods has either seen a hunter, smelled a hunter, heard a gunshot, or been shot at.  So they will be much more cautious about when they come out of hiding to feed, and where they go to feed.  Rifle season is fun and all, but if you want to get serious about deer hunting, I promise you bow hunting and muzzleloader hunting is where it's at.  And for the record, modern muzzleloaders are basically just single shot high powered rifles, so if you choose to muzzleloader hunt you're not really losing the experience of shooting a deer long range with a rifle.  Just something to consider.  In my next entry I promise I will explain the rut, also talk a little about my hunting trip in the mountains. Until next time, I leave you with a latin proverb, simple but powerful:
"Fortes fortuna adiuvat" which simplies means "Fortune favors the bold."

Big Buck Down

Well last weekend, November 5th to be exact, was the opening day of muzzleloader season. Any experiences deer hunter will tell you, muzzleloader season is the best time of year to get a shot at a big buck. There are 2 main reasons for this, firstly the deer haven't had a lot of pressure on them from hunters yet, secondly because the rut is beginning. The rut is the only time of year big, mature bucks will be out during the daylight and they are so distracted by trying to breed that they take risks they would never take otherwise. The beginning of the rut is by far the best time to get a big buck, they will be more active early in the rut than any other time. Basically all deer behavior changes when the rut kicks in. My next entry will educate you as to all the intricacies of the rut.

Sadly for me, opening day of muzzleloader season I was at work. Boo. But Monday the 7th when most deerhunters were working, I was in the woods bright and early. I got down in the woods to my favorite spot on my family farm before the sun came up and set up shop on an old stump. I went through my routine of getting comfortable, making sure I had clear shooting lanes, and using my rangefinder to establish how far I could shoot in each direction.  Well, after I had only been in the woods for about 20 minutes, I heard something immediate to my left, looked, and saw a large mature buck come out of the thicket 34 yards from me. If you've never been deer hunting, let me just tell you, when you first see that big mature buck he looks way bigger than he actually is. I raised my gun, flipped the safety off, aimed and squeezed the trigger. When the bullet first hit him, he stumbled a little and i honestly thought he was going to drop where he stood, which would've been awesome. But he regained his balance and ran back into the thicket where he came from. Rule number one of tracking a deer is this, always give him time to die before you go looking. this is very important. rule of thumb is to give them an hour. well i admit, i couldn't wait that long. i gave him maybe half an hour to 45 minutes and then i had to go look. where he was standing when i shot him was covered in hair, this is good. but there wasn't any blood at all, that doesn't really mean anything except its harder to track a deer thats not bleeding. so i followed his tracks into the thicket and luckily he hadn't gone far, maybe 20 yards, and found him laying.

Now let me be clear about this, I am definitely not a "trophy hunter" I don't sit in the woods waiting to see a big buck like a lot of hunters. Theres nothing wrong with doing that, it's just not for me. I'm a meat hunter, all I'm interested in is the fun of hunting and putting meat in the freezer. But that being said, theres no feeling like putting a big buck on the ground. When all your work scouting and scent control and being sneaky and marksmanship can all come together like that, to kill the hardest of all the deer to kill, its a terrific feeling.

Once you find your dead deer you better enjoy the excitement for a while, because the work is just beginning. You might get lucky and kill a deer close to your truck, or in an area where you can drive the truck up to him, or heck you might even have a 4 wheeler to get the deer on. For me, this was not the case. I was about half a mile from my truck and there was no hope and getting my truck that deep into the woods. So I phoned a friend and asked for some assistance. In about 15 minutes my friend arrived, he watched me field dress the deer (which was not a pretty sight, his guts were kinda destroyed) and then we both grabbed onto the antlers and drug it all the way to the truck. Not fun. I took the deer to my parents house, hung it up from a tree by the back legs and started skinning him. Skinning is not hard, just time consuming. Then when all the skin and hair is taken off, you start butchering. Butchering is kinda hard to do the first few times you do it, you gotta get a feel for the best way to do things. I like to leave the meat in large pieces. I portion it out like this, the neck, the shoulders, the racks of ribs, the tenderloins, and the hind quarters (back legs). Some people like to break it down into smaller pieces. Whatever your personal preference is. But I would recommend taking it off the deer in big pieces and getting it in the refridgerator, leave it for 2 days at least so it gets really cold all the way through and then but cut it up however you would like. It will be much easier to cut up when it's really cold. I think it's crazy for people to take their deer to a butcher to be processed, you should absolutely do all the work yourself, it'll be much more satisfying and much cheaper. Ask an experienced hunter for help if you need it, most hunters are always glad to help out another hunter.

This is exactly how I found him

All loaded up, guts removed

The "rack" 7 scoreable points, 8 total points, 18 1/2 inch outside spread

As always, thanks for reading. My next entry will focus on all the details of the rut and a little information to get everyone ready for firearms season, which opens in less than a week now.

Weather

Todays topic was recommended to me by a friend and loyal blog follower. The original question was about the effects of frost on hunting but I'm going to go ahead and cover all weather conditions.

First let's talk about temperature. Deer, like most mammals have short hair in the summer and grow longer, thicker hair in the winter.  So this time of year, their winter coat hasn't fully grown yet. This means on particularly cold days they will try to stay moving to generate heat.this is good for hunting. On warmer days they may try to stay cool by being less active.  In the middle of winter when we get a random warm day like 50 degrees our so, you can pretty much forget about seeing much deer activity, that would be like us going out in 50 degree weather in you're warmest winter coat.  Not very comfortable.

Next we'll talk about rain.  Deer will go about their normal routine in light rain, but in heavy rain they won't be active.  However, when a storm is approaching, deer will be very actively feeding in preparation for the storm.after the storm they will once again be very actively feeding to make up for lost time.

Lastly, wind.  You will very rarely see much deer activity on a windy day.the deer can't hear or smell very well in heavy wind and therefore won't be active.  You will occasionally see deer on a windy day but its not likely.

And one final note, deer will be far less active when there is a full moon.  The less moon is visible, the more active they will be.


Sent from my MOTOROLA ATRIX™ 2 on AT&T

The dark side of bow hunting

Well today was another great day to be hunting. The weather was perfect for deer movement, as was the moon phase.  Within an hour of me getting to my new favorite spot and climbing a tree, I began seeing deer. About an hour before dark (around 6pm i think) I got a shot opportunity at a doe only about 5-10 yards in front of my stand. This sounds like an easy shot, the only problem is that I was 25 feet off the ground so the shot was at an extreme downward angle.  This kind of shot is not that unusual for bowhunters.  So I took the shot, heard the arrow hit and watched the doe run away.  First problem, as she ran off I could see my arrow still stuck in her, this is odd. So I wait a while and then climb down to track her. Second problem, I didn't see any blood. But since my arrow was stuck in her, I knew I had hit her. So I continued to follow her tracks for about 50 yards and started to see a lot of blood, this is good.  About 50 yards further and the blood stops, this is bad. At this point it is pitch dark out, I had a flashlight of course but still tracking in the dark is hard.  So I continue following the trail that I would guess she followed and never saw any more blood, never found my arrow, and never found a dead deer.  This happens sometimes, I know, but I can't help but feel like crap.  I have absolutely no problem killing an animal I'm going to eat, but wounding one leaving her to die, that's no good.  Which maybe she won't die, maybe the arrow will come out, the wound will heal and she'll be back to normal in a few days.  But I somewhat doubt that. And if it does heal, I still hurt her and slowed her down from carrying on with her life for a few days. So basically I cause harm to an innocent animal, an animal that I have a lot of respect for, and in the end it happened for nothing. I suppose these things happen. Should I have passed up the shot and let her continue moving and feeding and tried to get a better shot? Did I just not aim where I should have? Did I shoot too quickly and cause a bad shot? I don't know the answer to any of these questions, but figuring out the answer is the next step in my progression as a bowhunter. I guess tonight is just a case of my hobby, which I dedicate a lot of time and resources too, raring it's ugly head and teaching me a valuable lesson. As always, thanks for reading. I'll leave you with a couple of quotes from great hunters of the past.


"I have never felt that a hunter is morally qualified to hunt a noble animal if he has not prepared himself to overcome reasonably forseeable problems" -William Negley


"A peculiar virtue in wildlife ethics is that the hunter ordinarily has no gallery to applaud or disapprove of his conduct. Whatever his acts, they are dictated by his own conscience, rather than by a mob of onlookers. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of this fact."
Aldo Leopold

Just some pictures

My tree stand, ready to climb

My bow, a Hoyt Striker, kinda old technology at this point

A rub, probably from a smaller buck

My tree stand, packed and ready to carry

Today's Hunt

Well today was a good day to be hunting. The weather was great, a little cold this morning but not intolerable, no noticeable wind, and a crescent moon only 5% full. I saw 3 bucks this morning, which is kind of unusual, but even more interesting, I saw all 3 of them at the same time. A younger 6 pointer, an old 6 pointer, and a very young 4 pointer. The young 6 pointer was the only one who even came close to giving me a shot as he came out of the thicket to my left at about 40 yards, but he immediately headed away from me. The young 6 pointer and old 6 pointer met under a white oak tree about 65 yards from me and began to spar a little, not too serious as I discussed in my first post it's not the time of year for them to fight seriously yet.  The young 4 pointer only wanted to keep his distance and watch, but he quickly got scared away as he didn't want any part of what was taking place. This took place in an area I've been hunting for a the past few days, where there is a clearly defined scrape line that looks to be very well maintained, so I knew this was the home territory of a somewhat mature buck. So now the question is this, how do I know which of these bucks that I saw is the one responsible for these scrapes, and therefore lays claim to this area? This is important, because the buck that controls this area is the one I'm most likely to see there again, and therefore is the one I want to try to set up to kill tomorrow morning. Let me give you an analogy that will help solve this puzzle of who's home area it was. The young 6 pointer was probably 2 1/2 years old based on what I saw of him today, so we'll equate him to about a 16-18 year old human, not quite in his prime but getting there. The old 6 pointer is probably 5 1/2 or 6 1/2 so we'll equate him to a 50 year old human, slightly past his prime. And the 4 pointer is basically just a human child. As I discussed before, during the pre rut the testosterone production of bucks is going through the roof. So the young 6 pointer, equated to a 16-18 year old man, is a good looking young stud with his hormone levels through the roof.  He wants to mate, badly, but does aren't yet in estrus. So all of his sexual frustrations have to be taken out somehow, what better way than to scrape the hell out of the ground every few feet and rub your antlers against trees as if they stole something from you. This impresses does, so once they are in estrus or "in heat" he'll be in a good position to obtain a lot of mates. That's the name of the game for a 16-18 year old human. The old 6 pointer, equated to a 50 year old human, has far less testosterone production at his age, but perhaps more importantly he has been around the block, he's seen it all. He doesn't need to spend his time scraping or rubbing as much, he knows mates will come to him, and he's right. Females just can't resist his gray hair and his "swagger" from having been around so long and having so many mates in the past. The young 4 pointer, equated to a human child, has hormones raging but no real shot at mating this year. He still has alot to learn. Unless the does greatly outnumber the bucks and begin to get desperate, he'll spend the rut watching and learning. Not to mention if he tried to control prime territory, an older buck would run him off and take over. So using this information, I think it's very safe to say that the young 6 pointer lays claim to this land and I can probably bet I'll  be seeing him again in this area, hopefully tomorrow morning. Thanks for reading :)

Some hunting related thoughts

Well today is Sunday, and I'm at work. My job tends to be a little boring, especially on Sundays so I have plenty of time to think. And of course this time of year, how could I be thinking about anything other than hunting? So I figured I would share some of these thoughts.

First, as a friend of mine pointed out to me yesterday, I left out a fairly important detail about the pre rut in my last entry. As I stated, during the pre rut, it is the easiest time to see where the mature bucks are because they are leaving scrapes and rubs. I failed to add that even though they are easiest to locate or "pattern" during this time, you will rarely actually see one because they are primarily nocturnal during the pre rut. You'll have to wait until the rut sets in before the mature bucks will start spending any significant ammount of time out and about in the daylight.

Next, and most important thought of the day. It is dumb that in Virginia we can't hunt on Sunday. What is the point of that law exactly? I've heard that it is so other people can have one day a week to safely go out in the woods for hiking, horseback riding, etc.  In a way I would like to say that's dumb, but when I really think about it, it's really the fault of hunters who shoot at anything that moves. We've all heard stories about people or farm animals getting shot by irresponsible hunters. There's no excuse for shooting at anything that you're not positive about. If these irresponsible hunters would be more careful, maybe we'd get to hunt on Sundays and maybe less people would be injured or killed by hunters.

That's all I really have for now. I'm considering giving an overview of various hunting equipment/gear for my next blog entry. We'll see how that goes. Thanks for reading.