2016 - 2017 Deer Season Part 2 - Hunting

This year was by far the best year of deer hunting in my entire life. In total, we killed 5 bucks down at the cabin this year between 3 different hunters. I collected and compiled my usual statistics this year by keeping a hunting log after each sit. The numbers were not spectacular but were in line with the past couple of years. The one noticeable difference was that we saw a significant larger amount of bucks from the stand this year then in the past.

So the year started with a quick trip down opening weekend. The primary goal was to get 3 tree stands put up on the public ground but we did get in a couple of hunts as well. Just like last year, we had some very good sits on opening weekend seeing a good amount of deer. I nearly got an opportunity to fill my doe tag while sitting on the small field the evening of opening day. 

Opening day excitement!

As planned, we left the property alone throughout most of the early season. I did take my oldest daughter, Abigail, down in late October for a couple of hunts but the deer weren't moving at all. We did spook some deer while getting out of the box blind during our evening sit but didn't see anything from the blind. 

We did see a fox during our morning hunt

Abigail watching me from the box blind

Playing Uno to pass the time

Struggling to wake up from a nap to head out for an evening hunt

The following weekend was Halloween weekend. Dad and I headed down to hunt Saturday and Sunday with very few deer sightings. Usually that is a good hunting weekend but the weather was not very good as we dealt with warm temperatures the whole time. 

View from the DNR-County Line stand

View from the SW Corner stand

Overlooking the East food plot

Even though Halloween weekend was a bust, I was excited going into the first weekend in November. It was my first of 2 back to back 4 day rut hunting weekends and although the weather forecast had temperatures running above normal, it was the rut so anything can happen. I arrived to the cabin around lunch time and after getting changed headed to a tree stand about 1/2 mile West on the county land. I settled in for a long afternoon sit and ended up being covered up in deer all afternoon. I had a 1 1/2 year old buck chase a doe directly under my stand and saw 6 other deer. I also ran into several more deer on my walk back to the cabin. It was a very exciting way to start the weekend.

Enjoying sitting by the fire after a great hunt

I had a coworker come down to hang out and spend the night that evening so the next morning I headed to a stand much closer to the cabin that we call The Ridge stand. I wasn't too excited to sit in that stand but I knew I still had several days left and didn't want to burn out any one particular stand. I had been getting 2 large bucks on trail camera throughout the month of October, and that morning was lucky enough to have one of them walk 5 yards directly in front of my tree stand. I made a perfect shot and the buck didn't make it 75 yards before piling up. I sat in the stand for awhile calling my dad and texting a couple of hunting buddies as well as my coworker who happened to be out doing some hiking. This was the first buck that I had ever shot with my bow and he was just as big as my muzzleloader buck from last season.

View from The Ridge tree stand on November 5th

Big buck down!

First buck ever with a bow

Although he wasn't the biggest antlered deer roaming the property, he certainly had the most character of any buck that I have seen. His right side carried a lot of mass and had a triple main beam. As mentioned before, I had several trail camera pictures of this buck throughout the month of October. He had managed to break of 2 points, 1 on each side, which would have given him 13 points, but he was an 11 when I shot him. 

Late September 20 yards behind the cabin

Directly in front of the tree stand I was sitting in a couple of hours earlier

With only a doe tag left in my pocket and another 4 day weekend planned to hunt with my dad the following weekend, I opted to end my weekend early and head home. 

The following Friday I met dad down at the cabin for another weekend of hunting. For the first time ever, I was sitting in the tree with my bow and not able to shoot a bow. Of course that meant that all I saw was bucks for the entire weekend. That didn't bother me too much though as I was excited for us to be seeing so many deer.

View from the county stand

On Sunday morning dad headed down to hunt in the big field blind while I went to the cabin stand. It was a frosty and still morning that felt perfect for deer hunting. A few minutes after shooting time my phone started buzzing. It was dad telling me that he had shot a buck and it went down before leaving the field.

Beautiful frosty November morning

Dad's largest buck with a bow

 It wasn't even the middle of November, and it was already the most successful season at the cabin yet. It was a good thing that we had 2 bucks on the ground by mid-November because my next 7 sits, starting the 3rd Friday in November and lasting through December 18, I did not see a single deer. The 3rd Friday in November was a quick trip down to take my boat to the cabin ahead of an incoming cold front and snow storm. The Friday after Thanksgiving I took Abigail down for another evening sit and we didn't see a single deer then either. 

Waiting patiently for deer that never came out

Dad decided to hunt late muzzleloader with me this season instead of our normal 1st shotgun season, but I did have my friend, Justin down again for 1st shotgun. Just as in years past, we did not see much for deer that weekend. In fact, I sat 4 times without seeing a single deer. Justin didn't see a deer until there was only a couple minutes of shooting time left on Sunday evening. He made the best of his opportunity and for the 2nd year in a row put a yearling buck down. 

Overlooking the deep ravine on the North end

Heavy snowfall Sunday morning

Justin with his 2nd deer ever

The next trip down was Monday, December 19 for the start of Late Muzzleloader season. We were coming off an ice/snow storm that was followed by sub-zero temperatures. With the temps set to rise throughout the week, dad and I headed out to the food plot blinds early with our Little Buddy Heaters in tow. Although I didn't see any deer (again!) I heard dad shoot at around 4:45. He called just after shooting light ended to let me know that he had shot a small buck. Again, the deer didn't even make it off the field (I don't know how he always manages to do that). 

Braving the cold

Dad's first ever deer with a muzzleloader

Dad had just purchased a muzzleloader this year and this was his first time hunting with it. This was also his 2nd buck of the season and our 4th overall. 

Hot soup waiting for us after a cold hunt

The next morning it was going to start out very cold but warm up into the 20s by early afternoon. I was getting sick of hunting in the box blinds after so many sits without seeing anything so I decided to head to the county stand. It had been our best stand for seeing deer this year and thought it would be a good opportunity to break my streak of not seeing deer. With a late muzzleloader (LM) tag and an antlerless bow tag in my pocket, I opted to take my bow instead of the muzzleloader to the tree. It is legal to fill a LM tag with a bow, plus I had plenty of season left to fill that tag so I figured it was low risk. 

I got to the stand a little late, about 15 minutes before shooting time. 20 minutes later I looked up and saw a nice 8 point buck walking straight towards me. I grabbed my bow and drew as he got about 30 yards away. He stood still facing at me for a couple of minutes until I couldn't hold my bow back anymore. After I let down he walked to about 15 yards and turned broadside. As I drew my bow again he saw me and took off. Luckily he stopped about 20 yards away to look back at me. I knew he was quartering away so I aimed for the middle of his body and squeezed my release. I immediately could see that I hit him a lot further back then intended, just in front of his hind leg. The arrow stayed stuck in him and I couldn't tell how much penetration I had gotten. I felt a little sick as I watched him run off. He ran across a ravine to about 50 yards and started walking slowly behind some brush and trees and then I couldn't see him anymore. I thought it was probably a gut shot, but I hoped that I had gotten far enough into him to get the liver. Either way, I needed to give him time. I called dad and told him to wait about 4 hours then head my way with the game cart and my muzzleloader. 

Over the next 4 hours I saw several more deer and nearly got a shot off at a doe as well. By the time dad arrived I had prepared myself for the potential of a long tracking job and possibly not even finding the deer. I put on an orange vest and loaded my muzzleloader. I had dad stay by the stand while I walked over to where I last saw the buck to check for blood. As I reached the other side of the ravine, I looked down the hill and saw him laying right where I had last seen him. I have never been more excited in the deer woods then I was at that moment. 

View from the stand where I shot my buck

Big buck down...again!

2nd buck of the year with my bow

I was a little surprised to find him where we did. As I mentioned, I thought I had gut shot him, but as I began field dressing I could tell right away that I hadn't hit guts at all. The arrow had run across the top of his stomach, through the liver, 1 lung and into the heart. Even though I missed my aim point, it had been the perfect shot. Prior to this season, I had never killed a buck with my bow, and now I was able to get 2 in 1 year. I still am in disbelief at how well the season had turned out.

With a freezer full of deer, I really had no need to fill another tag but I did take my neighbor, Brent, down for 1 last hunt the last weekend of the season. We sat Saturday evening and he sat on Sunday morning without seeing any deer. I wasn't too surprised as the food plots were frozen solid and the trail cameras were showing that most activity was happening during the middle of the night. I spent Sunday morning taking down all of the straps and tow ropes from our tree stands as well as taking down the 3 public land stands. 

Beautiful sunrise on the last day of hunting for the season

Reflecting back on the season, it is really easy to see that this had been the most successful season at the cabin yet. We put 5 bucks down which is 2 more deer then any other season so far (the next closest was 3 last year). We were saw a lot of deer while hunting from the public land stands and we also killed our first deer on public land. 

Even with how successful the season was, I was able to take some lessons away. Going forward we are going to abandon the East food plot and tree stand. This is the 4th year having a tree stand on that side and the 2nd year of having a food plot over there. We have never had much luck over there and it is a lot of work to maintain that food plot. I'm not quite sure what it is, maybe having to walk all the way through the woods to access it, or the conditions that we can hunt it (requires a Easterly wind). Either way, I have decided to redirect the effort and time required to somewhere else on the property. 

After banging our heads against the wall with shotgun season for 5 years, we are also going to be done hunting that season completely next year. Dad is glad that he made the switch to LM this year and Justin is planning to make the jump next year. 

After good success this year, I'm going to try to continue to reduce pressure on the property even more next year. I've been scouting places to hunt near home next year and plan to take on a couple of trips to the cabin in November. It is no surprise that we usually have our best luck in early November during the rut. I'm also hoping that less pressure early will result in even better hunting later in the season. 

Lastly, although the food plots are a very important part of our hunting and have made us very successful over the past few years, I think we have started to hunt them too often. Looking back over the season, we only had 2 evening sits that weren't on our big food plots. One of those sits was on the East food plot with weather that wasn't good and the second was in the county stand where I was covered in deer all evening. Next year I plan to hunt the food plots less and also try to do some all day sits in our timber stands. 

Plans and preparations are already underway for next season which kicks off 8 months from next Wednesday.

2016 - 2017 Deer Season Part 1 - Preparations

So, as you can tell my initial plan to blog throughout the year fell through but I plan to give it another go next year. As for this past year, it was an epic year down at the cabin but most of those details will have to wait for my next blog post. In this post I will review all of the preparations that were made throughout the off season. Unlike years past, I had no real plans for any major projects or changes on the property this year but that didn't mean there wasn't any work to be done.

The first project on the list was to trim out a new access trail to "The Ridge". The existing trail lead directly out into the big field food plot and we often would bump deer out of that food plot going to the stand in the morning or heading back to the cabin in the evening. The new trail would angle to come out behind the plot screen on the big field. The challenge in cutting this path was to work our way through the mess left behind from the edge feathering that was done 2 years prior.

New Ridge access trail

Brush trimmer chewing through the thick stuff

Dad changing the chain on his chainsaw

It wasn't much of a year for shed hunting. I'm not sure if it was due to the times that we were down there or because the food plots were cleaned out before the bucks started to drop their sheds, but we only ended up with a single small shed.

Lone shed antler of the year

While hunting for shed antlers dad did manage to locate a set of ATV keys that I had lost while planting a food plot the previous summer. Considering that I lost them while tilling a food plot, what were the chances of that?

Dad with his big find of the day

Our yearly plot screen burn started out very well, but before we were able to finish it started snowing. Worse yet, it was a very wet snow that kept us from finishing the job.

250 yards of hose run to help keep the fire under control

Things started well on the first burn

The snow starts to cause problems

After the success that we had from the new box blind on the big field in 2015, we decided to assemble a similar box blind on the north end of the small field. The previous 2 seasons we had a ground blind in place on that food plot so we knew it would be in a good spot. Building the blind was a process. I built the platform at home and dad built the walls and roof in his garage. We disassembled them to take them down to the cabin. We then worked on assembling it over 4 separate trips down. The process started in March and ended Labor Day weekend.

Building the platform

Blind all assembled

Blind all painted

Having an apple orchard can be a huge asset to a deer hunting property, not to mention a delicious reason to take extra trips to the cabin. A few years ago we planted a dozen new trees but hadn't done much maintenance since. This year we decided to spend some time pruning and mulching the trees and it resulted in our biggest crop of apples yet (although still not huge by any means).

Cutting landscaping fabric for the trees

Giving the orchard a little TLC

Apples

More Apples

The largest project of the year turned out to be a bust. We planted 40 trees, a combination of blue spruce, red cedar, and arborvitaes in an attempt to grow a couple of permanent screens. The trees were delivered while I was already at the cabin, so I had to drive back to meet my wife and girls half way to pick them up. I had my parents help to plant the trees and it was a lot of work. The bad luck came when we didn't receive any rain for the 3 weeks following. We lost about 60% of the trees in those 3 weeks and the majority of the others by early fall. I learned some valuable lessons from planting these trees but am just writing them off as a loss for now.

Running lines for the trees

Mom and dad planting and caging new trees

Big field  screen all planted

Cabin screen trees planted

Hunting success started early this year as well. In April I headed to the cabin for a short trip to turkey hunt. I sat in the box blind on the big field for a couple hours in the morning. I ended up having a tom come in from the South but stall out at 60 yards. A few hens came from behind the blind and led the tom back the way he came. I headed back out that afternoon and less then 15 minutes after I settled in blind 2 toms came in silently from behind the blind and were directly outside the front window. I let them work out to about 20 yards before shooting the biggest one.

First turkey shot at the cabin

After the success of last year, I kept my food plot strategy the same for this year while continuing to work with the same rotation. With the exception of the brassicas planted on the ridge food plot, everything turned out great.

Plot screen on the big field

Plot screen on the small field

Clover on the small field

Brassicas planted in the small field

Small field brassicas looking good and cereal grains planted

Clover grew very well in the East food plot

Brassicas planted in the ridge food plot

Brassicas didn't come in very well on the ridge

Planting oats and clover in the big field

Planting brassicas in the big field

Brassicas growing very well in the big field

One of the more subtle changes that we made this year was to adjust the placement of tree stands. During the early spring, dad and I spent an entire day scouting sights on the public ground for tree stands. We ended up settling on 3 sites, all of them were based on observations made during previous hunting seasons. More on the success of those stands in Part 2 of this blog. We also made some small moves to a couple of tree stands on my property. The stand on the East food plot as well as the ridge tree stand were on trees that left us too exposed. We moved each of them about 20 - 30 yards SE of where they were. This ended up helping us hunt the spots with less risk on additional wind directions as well. 

Erin helping me trim shooting lanes for the new East stand

Dad and I moving the ridge tree stand

Our last big project of the year was not related to hunting, but instead to providing a different form of food for the family. We planted a large garden that included zucchini, potatoes, sweet corn, pumpkins, onions, and carrots. We ended up with a mixed bag in results as we battled weed and grass competition, but we learned our lesson on preparation of the garden and will make adjustments for next year. The real successes came in the zucchini and pumpkins with moderate success with potatoes.

Mom and dad planting potatoes

Garden planted and marked

Growing well but battling grass

Zucchini plants growing well

Zucchini and pumpkins taking over

Last haul of the year

Potatoes!

It was also a great year for the wild blackberries as I brought home several buckets full. 

Blackberry bushes loaded up

Blackberries!

With my newly found love of running and triathlon over the past couple of years, I spend a significant amount of time training. Combine that with having 2 young children at home and there were not many long relaxing trips to the cabin this year. In fact, most trips were down and back in a day or at most staying a single night. We were able to find a little time to enjoy ourselves though. 

Mom and dad enjoying supper by the fire

I won't bore you with a bunch of pictures this year, but of course, there was A LOT of mowing to be done every trip down and a lot of people chipped in this year. 

Mom mowing the jungle

For the first time since owning the cabin, my wife was able to come down and help out at the cabin on Labor Day weekend and she always makes things more fun. She loved getting to see everything that we have been doing over the past few years and getting the chance to help out. She also took a ridiculous amount of selfies throughout the day, but I simply refuse to post those here.

Erin's turn to mow the jungle

Because I have had issues in the past with certain siblings of mine claiming that I must make everyone else do all of the work I always try to include a picture that helps to show that I actually work just as hard, if not harder then everyone else.

Planting food plots

Of course I can't talk about the cabin without mentioning my dog, Hunter. He just turned 10 and is slowing down fast. He has Lyme Disease and is going blind but the one thing that still manages to bring out the puppy in him is a trip to the cabin. He didn't get to spend as much time down there this year as he has in past years but he sure was happy when he was there.

Hunter ready to go exploring

Supervising us while we planted trees

 Check back soon for part 2 to hear how the hunting season went. Spoiler alert, it was AWESOME!