Deer Season Wrap Up

It is hard to believe that deer season is officially over. I did make one last trip down last weekend with my neighbor, Brent, to try and fill a couple of more tags before the season closed on Wednesday. The trip was uneventful from a deer hunting perspective but Brent and I had a great time anyways. On both Saturday and Sunday evenings we saw 0 deer while sitting on my food plots. This was a bit of a surprise. However, we both saw some deer on Sunday morning but just did not get a shot.

I'll be the first to admit that it wasn't the season that I was expecting, but we did manage to put 2 deer on the ground including a mature buck that dad shot with the muzzleloader in December. There were a lot of missed opportunities throughout the season that could have really made this season special, but we will hope to turn those into lessons that we can learn from for next year.

Let's start off with the positive and I'll share the "lessons learned" in a separate post. When dad shot his buck in December, it made for 3 straight years of harvesting at least 1 big buck off the property.

Dad's Dec. 2017 muzzleloader buck 

My Dec. 2016 bow buck

My Nov. 2016 bow buck

My Dec. 2015 muzzleloader buck

I think that this more consistent success shows that our land management strategies are paying off and that we are learning more about how and when to hunt the property to have the best success and opportunities. In addition to our success in tagging deer, we have also seen a lot more deer using our food plots a lot more often each year. Trail cameras as well as sightings from the stands and blinds on these plots have played into that discovery. 

3 of 8 deer that Abigail and I watched feeding in the small field
at the end of October

4 bucks eating the brassicas in the big field

Several deer feeding on clover in the ridge food plot

Another thing that led to high usage of our food plots was the severe drought experienced in SE Iowa. It ended up being a "perfect storm" for us because of the food plot rotation that I use and the timing of planting. The clover on the ridge was frost seeded and had a solid start prior to the rain turning off late in May. With that plot being in the woods, it also received a lot of shade which helped to hold in the moisture. Normally less sun means less plant growth, but it turned out to be good for the clover this year. In the bigger plots we plant brassicas in early August and cereal grains in early September. We started getting rain again in mid-August and then got steady rain throughout September and into early October. This led to lush food plots come hunting season. In addition, a lot of the surrounding crop land and native browse struggled to produce food which forced the deer to my food plots even more. 

In addition to my food plots, the property that borders us to the North left in about 5 - 8 acres of soybeans. I still do not know why he didn't harvest them as they seemed to produce well in spite of the drought. Although it ended up being a bit of a double edge sword, I do think it did a good job of holding more deer on or near the property late season. 

Another success came in the encounters that we had from our 3 public land stands. On the first morning of my rut hunting vacation I was able to shoot a good 10 point buck at 10 yards from a stand that we call the DNR-County line stand that sits on a pinch point between bedding areas. Although we didn't recover that deer, trailing him helped us to discover a vast expanse of deer bedding areas on a series of ridges to the Southeast of that tree stand. I also had several other great encounters with cruising bucks from that same stand throughout the season.

View from the DNR-County line stand right where I shot the 10 pointer
in November

Although I have only hunted the stand 1 time, we have also had some decent luck from a stand that is just about 60 yards south of our property line that we call the DNR stand. We have the stand on a trail that loops around the top of a ravine between 2 secondary ridges. Dad had some great encounters from that stand last year and nearly got a shot at a small buck from that stand in November this year. In addition, my buddy, Justin, missed a buck from that stand just minutes into his first ever bow hunt on Thanksgiving weekend. 

Looking North towards the big field food plot from the DNR stand

The 3rd stand, which we call the County stand, was in the exact same tree last year that I shot my 2nd buck out of. It sits on a major pinch point between an extremely deep ravine and a CRP field. I only sat this stand a couple of times this year, but just like last year, I got to witness several chases during the pre-rut/rut time frame. 

Looking to the West from the County stand, this is where most
of the deer come from

Even though deer hunting is a passion of mine, it really isn't even my favorite part of owning my own property. My favorite part is all of the time that I get to spend there with family and friends. So many special memories were made this year and looking back at all of the pictures truly warms my heart. I can't wait to see what 2018 brings, for not only deer hunting but all of the other adventures that we will have. 

Burning off plot screen with dad in March

Family trip to the cabin on Memorial Day weekend

My little helper on a HOT July trip to the cabin

Abigail has to keep grandma busy while grandpa and I get some work done

Justin and I working to put up the public land stands

Abigail and I on our annual hunting trip. We ended up seeing a lot of deer

If you have followed along this season, you know that not everything has been rainbows and sunshine. In my next blog post I will discuss some of the lows of the season and some lessons learned. We are already making plans for next year, so I will discuss some of those things as well. Only 263 days until bow season opens again!