In my last post, I tried to keep things positive but the truth is, I am not happy with how the 2017 season went down. I understand that there are many factors that are out of my hands when it comes to deer hunting , but there are also some things that I can control. My list below contains some of each along with what, if anything, I plan to adjust to avoid the same situations from happening again next year.
- The Weather - The weather is for sure something that is not within my control
- The problem: Most of it was the luck of the draw, but it seemed that most trips down this year the weather was just weird. We had a lot of East winds throughout the season which we are not set up well for. In addition, we just missed on some of the best cold fronts and temperatures during the season.
- Adjustment: It was sort of a trial this year to take fewer but longer trips down to hunt but getting stuck in weather patterns ended up screwing up this strategy. Next year I am planning to take more shorter trips to the cabin. The hope is that I won't end up wasting 5 days hunting (ok, so no day hunting is actually a waste in my book) during a bad weather pattern and I will increase my odds of hitting some good weather for deer movement. I'm also going to try and build in some flexibility to work around cold fronts and favorable weather conditions (i.e. instead of hunting Friday - Saturday, shift it to Sunday - Monday)
- Bad Shots - Mostly within my control, but sometimes the deer do funny things when an arrow is released
- The problem: I am completely embarrassed and ashamed at the fact that I made bad shots on 3 deer this year. Even though I'm certain that 2 of those deer have recovered just fine it still really bothers me for 2 reasons. The first is that I absolutely hate wounding deer, it makes me feel sick to think that I am making an animal suffer unnecessarily and it is always my goal to make a quick kill. The second is that most seasons I only get a few opportunities to shoot a deer and I hate when I squander one of those chances. Furthermore, 2 of those shots came on the first day of a longer hunting trip and we ended up having to miss out on a lot of hunting time to search for those deer as well as spooking a lot of deer and leaving scent behind while we searched.
- Adjustment: Although I could certainly spend more time practicing each off season with both my bow and gun (and I will!), I don't really think that is the core of my issue. I am a pretty good shot with a bow and a very good shot with a gun and can prove it on any shooting range any day of the year. I think my problem comes in with situational shooting. Weird angles, weird distances, having to shoot quickly or hold my bow back for a long period of time. So this year I'm planning to take my bow and a gun along on nearly every trip to the cabin, but instead of just setting up a target and shooting in the yard like I normally do, I'm going to head for the box blinds or climb up in some tree stands and try to mimic real life hunting situations.
- Pressuring the deer - Mostly within our control, but sometimes not
- The problem: Our property is 27 acres and we have a limited amount places that we can hunt. In addition, this year exposed our biggest weakness of not having several stand options for each wind direction. We are surrounded by 100's of additional acres to hunt on public land, but the downside that comes with this is other hunters are coming in and putting pressure on the deer as well. Looking back over the past 6 years, most of our best opportunities and kills have come early in our hunting trips (the first or second day of the hunt) and the good sits that have been later in trips have usually been associated to a major weather change and/or hunting a "fresh" stand.
- Adjustment: The fix here is going to be twofold. The first goes right along with the plan above for weather. In an attempt to keep pressure off the deer, instead of planning 2 - 3 longer trips during bow season and a couple longer trips during gun season I am going to plan 5 or 6 1 1/2 - 2 day trips for bow season and 3 or 4 1 - 2 day trips during gun season. My hope is that it will help to keep pressure off because if we jump in and hunt a couple of stands over a weekend, then don't return for a week but hunt a different set the next weekend, then we will pressure the deer in a given area that much less. The 2nd part of this is to really evaluate where we are putting tree stands and hunting. Staying out of our best stands, such as the ridge stand, until we get perfect conditions and moving or not hunting stands that would blow our scent or leave ground scent where a lot of deer travel and bed (one example is the North stand on the small field). More on this later, but we are also planning on adding at least one set on public ground and trying to spread those sets around more to give us more areas to hunt on different wind directions
- Bumping deer - Within our control to a certain extent
- The problem: A problem that we have had since the first time I hunted my property was bumping deer on the way to the stand in the mornings or returning from the stand in the evenings. The reason this is detrimental is because sometimes spooking a deer can force them to become nocturnal or not return to the area for several days. In addition, deer are social animals so spooking one can keep others away as well.
- Adjustment: This one has lots of possibilities, but the easiest is probably getting out to our stands much earlier in the morning. In addition, staying on stand all day, at least during the rut, when the chance of bumping deer during the middle of the day while going back and forth to the cabin increases. In addition, trying to find ways to access tree stands that avoid deer travel paths as well as routes that won't blow our scent or leave ground scent that could spook the deer when we don't even see them. On our property, clearing brush and leaves leading up to our stands as well as trying to work around the food plots when possible could help a lot as well. I will point out though that no matter what we do, we will never be able to prevent bumping deer 100% of the time. We are literally in the middle of 1,000's of acres of woods and deer habitat. They travel everywhere, live everywhere, and can be anywhere at any time.
For starters, my biggest goal in 2018 is to learn more about where the deer are bedding and their travel routes. I've been watching an online hunting show called Midwest Whitetail for several years and last off season they shared a lot of videos about scouting for deer. Determining food sources and finding bedding areas then setting up a plan to hunt the deer in between. Although we have a general idea of where deer enter our property, we have never really taken the time to back track them to figure out exactly where they are bedding. I think this is key to finding the deer when things get slow and also for having opportunities at deer that only seem to make it to our property in the middle of the night. I am lucky enough to have over 1,000 acres to the South and West of my property that I can hunt on as well and we are going to spend a lot of time walking and dissecting that pubic land this off season.
Dad and I will be heading down at the end of February to begin the process of scouting out all of the surrounding public lands. I plan to use the GPS and Google maps on my phone to mark deer trails, deer beds, rub lines and potential tree stand sites that we find. I'm also going to begin running 2 trail cameras on the public land and moving them to different spots each month in hopes of narrowing down the best places to put tree stands next season. I would like to identify 6 - 8 different possible locations for tree stands although the max we will put up is 3 or 4. Oh, and maybe we will find some shed antlers during late winter or morel mushrooms in the spring as a bonus.
Another change in 2018 is going to be my food plot strategy. There is no doubt that the food plot rotation that I am using pulls the deer onto the property, but I think it would pay off to diversify more and to try some new things occasionally as well. With my neighbor not harvesting his bean field, it became very apparent that as soon as the temperatures turned cold, the deer really headed for those beans. I'm still not 100% sure that I can get a small food plot of soybeans to make it far enough in the season to produce pods for late season hunting, but I'm going to give it a try this year. We are going to plant 3/4 acre in the big field food plot to soybeans. I do have a back up plan and have ordered enough cereal grains and brassicas to plant in late summer if the soybeans don't make it.
I am also going to try to plant some sugar beets this year. I've heard that deer absolutely love them, but they can be difficult to establish. This will be another low risk food plot as I'm going to till a small portion of the big field north of the existing food plot to plant the sugar beets. If they establish well, I plan to put a pop up blind on the East side of the plot to hunt out of. This will give us another option for N, NW, W, SW, and S winds. The small field will remain in my standard rotation of cereal grains and brassicas planted in late summer. I will be replanting the clover on the southern end of that food plot this spring, however, after the drought and grazing pressure did a number on it this fall. Both the ridge and cabin micro-plots will remain in clover. I'm hoping that the extra variety next season will give deer even more reason to visit our property and will help me in finding new items that the deer like to eat.
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| Green - soybeans Red - Sugar beets Black - clover Yellow - cereal grains Purple - Brassicas |
I'm sure I say it every year, but I have a really good feeling about 2018. I'm sure there will be a lot of hard work and some challenges along the way, but no matter what, it should be a good time.
