Wet And Muddy

A trip to the cabin this weekend was suppose to include a visit from some coworkers and a lot of fun (with a little work mixed in). Instead a pending rain/snow storm cancelled those plans and resulted in a solo trip where I spent more time battling the rain and mud than I did actually getting work done.

I went into work early on Friday so that I could leave after lunch and get a jump start on the weekend. I made it down to the cabin before 4:00 pm and was greeted with very light rain. The ATV battery was dead so I hooked up the charger, changed into my mud boots and headed out on a long walk to check the 2 trail cameras that I had up on public land. I was happy to see the first camera on the tree from a ways off, but quickly noticed something was off. One of the latches was open and when I opened up the camera I discovered that someone had stolen the card from it. Although I was happy that they left the camera (it was locked to the tree), it made me angry that someone would do that. The camera had been there for a month and I was hoping to gain some information on a new spot. In the end, I figure it was most likely another hunter that either didn't want me to see what deer were in that area or was mad that someone else had discovered "their spot". Either way, the joke is on them because it confirmed what I already suspected, that it is indeed a good spot.

It made me nervous as I walked more than a mile to the 2nd camera. I was relieved to see the camera on the tree but noticed it had been turned. At first I wondered if the card would be missing from this camera as well, but it wasn't. The cable lock was actually just a little lose and upon inspection of the pictures later, a deer actually came up to the camera and nudged it to the side. I did get a series of pictures of a man and woman out hiking and was thankful that there are at least a few decent people out there that left my camera alone. The pictures on this camera were very good and showed consistent daylight movement nearly every day on a trail that moves through a pinch point. Another new stand spot!

I took a different way back to the cabin in an attempt to find some entry/exit routes to this stand site and to look for shed antlers (of which I was unsuccessful). The ATV still wouldn't start when I got back, so I grabbed a rake, clover seed, and a spreader and headed for the ridge food plot. We had expanded the plot last year and most of it had a very good clover stand but we never raked it off before planting it and there was a lot of sticks, bark, and other matter covering the ground in several spots. I spent the next 2 hours raking off the plot.

A lot of sticks/bark covering portions of the food plot

All cleared off and ready for planting

After clearing off the plot, I over seeded the areas that were bare with fresh clover seed. Clover is a hard seed and does very well when frost seeded. With a few nights below freezing in the forecast as well as a couple days of rain, it was the perfect time to get some seed on the ground to allow the rain and freeze/thaw cycles to work the seed into the ground. 

I then pulled the card from the camera on the SE corner of the ridge food plot and was very happy to see that it had a lot of pictures. The coolest series of pictures was of a big piebald buck. This is the first time that I have had a piebald deer on camera. I'm hoping that he sticks around all year so that I can see him in person next season. I also noticed that he already has quite a bit of antler growth for this early in the year.

Piebald buck on the ridge just a few days ago

Before heading in for the night to dry off, I walked over to check the last camera that was on a ravine crossing to the East of the small field food plot. I was disappointed to find that the camera had malfunctioned and didn't write any pictures to the SD card. I decided to move the camera up the ridge to where 2 deer trails meet just South of the food plot and put a new card in it. 

Thunderstorms moved through during the night so I didn't sleep very well and it was pouring rain when I woke up in the morning. I opted to stay inside for awhile and watch a movie before getting bundled up to brave the rain, wind, and mud. I grabbed a chainsaw and bucket and headed back to the ridge to cut up a tree that had fallen across the ATV trail. After getting it cut up and stacked into a nice pile (to be used for firewood later), I headed for the big field food plot where I spent nearly 3 hours removing cages, posts, landscape fabric and staples from our failed tree planting 2 years ago.  In an attempt to build a permanent screen for the big field food plot, we planted nearly 50 blue spruce and red cedar trees. Over a month without rain after planting the first year and a severe drought last year killed all but 10 of the trees. Those 10 I actually dug up and transplanted to a couple of different places near the cabin. I wanted to get the cages out of there so that I could plant my plot screen closer to the blind this year again. 

Cages all stacked to the side of the food plot

Last surviving trees

After 2 straight trips to the cabin with inclement weather, I am ready for some warmer temperatures and sunshine on my next trip. I don't like to complain about my cabin trips as I always like going down there, but this one was plain miserable and I was hardly able to get any work done on top of that. That being said, I will take my lumps now if it means having a great hunting season. 

Until next time! 

Memory Wall

So I finally managed to get the last set of antlers up on the wall today. Erin gave me an antler mounting kit for Valentine's Day and I finally got around to mounting my 2nd buck from 2016. To me, these antlers are so much more then trophies, they are a valuable reminder of all the good memories that I have had in the deer woods since I was young.

Deer hunting memory wall

Although I don't mount the antlers of every buck that I kill, the ones that I do mount hold some sort of special memory or significance. Below I have included a short description of each.

• Bottom Right - December 8, 2002 (1st Shotgun Season)
• This was the first ever big buck that I shot. I'm not certain on the age, but he was for sure 3 1/2 years old or older (I'm guessing older) and was a fighter. As you can see, his right main beam was broken off along with a few other small points. He also had a lot of scars on his cape from fighting and was carrying a very swollen and infected hoof. That season, I had taken a friend from high school up to shotgun hunt at my uncle Bruce's farm. We didn't get any opportunities to shoot a deer on Saturday, so on Sunday we both headed for a neighbor's property to a spot we call "The Finger" which is a wooded draw that sticks out into an agricultural field from a larger block of timber. The buck came in across the draw from where we were sitting and my friend did not have a good angle for a shot. I took a shot and dropped the buck in his tracks. Although not a monster, he was one of the biggest antlered deer that I had seen at that point in my life. 
• Bottom Left - December 1, 2007 (1st Shotgun Season)
• It didn't take long for me to end my season this year. On Saturday day morning I headed for "The Finger" and sat on the opposite side that we usually do because of the direction that the wind was coming from. It started to snow as we were headed out to hunt and we were all excited because historically the deer move a lot on my uncle's farm when it snowed. Shortly after shooting light, I looked up the other side of the draw to see this buck headed straight towards me. Although not running, he was walking at a quick pace and I did not want to take a head on shot at him. He didn't notice me until he was 5 yards away. As he turned to run, I took the opportunity at a perfect broadside shot and he didn't make it more than 20 yards before he died.
• Top Middle - December 22 - 2015 (Late Muzzleloader Season)
• It was my first time ever hunting Late Muzzleloader season and the conditions were perfectly wrong. It was a warm, calm, and very humid evening so I really didn't expect much. I was sitting in the Big Field box blind (which was new this season) and around sunset deer started to pile into the field. I was lining up to shoot a smaller buck that had come into the plot when this buck showed up right behind him. He was at about 60 yards and quartering towards me. After the shot, deer were running everywhere and it took awhile for the smoke to clear. It did appear that I had hit him as he ran from the food plot but it took me a long time to find the blood trail. It was dark by the time I followed it into the woods and lost it so I made the challenging decision to stay overnight and wait until morning. The next morning I was greeted by pouring rain and thus no remaining blood trail. By chance, I stumbled on the dead deer about 150 yards south of my property line as I was doing a grid search and I broke down crying right there. I managed to drag him back through the mud and get him loaded in my truck (which was no small feat). Because I was due in the Quad Cities for a Christmas celebration for my wife's family, I met my dad half way to his house to give him the deer to start processing. This is by far the oldest, biggest, and largest antlered deer that I have ever killed and my dad says probably the biggest one that has every hung in his garage. His antlers were very unique and I think the European mount really does him justice.
• Top Left - November 5, 2016 (Bow Season)
• Temperatures were unseasonably warm, but I had 4 days off work and was not going to waste them. I had seen a lot of deer from the stand on the afternoon/evening of the 4th and then had a buddy from work come down to spend the night and do some hiking. I decided to hunt the Ridge stand, which is my favorite tree stand on my property, because it was close to the cabin so I could get back quickly if needed. The hunt did not last long at all as heard a stick break to the north of me, looked up and saw him as he walked into 5 yards just below my tree stand. I quickly drew back and shot him straight through the front shoulder. He only ran about 50 yards and I watched him fall over dead. This was my first ever buck with a bow and the first big buck killed off of my own property. In addition, it was a deer that we had been getting a lot of trail camera pictures of all fall. I was so excited that I spent about 45 minutes texting and calling family and friends to share the good news before getting down to gut and drag him out. With a triple main beam on the right side and sticker points everywhere, he is one of the most unique deer that I have ever seen.
• Top Right - December 20, 2016 (Late Muzzleloader Season w/a bow)
• In stark contrast to the prior year, dad and I were greeted with very cold temperatures and snow on the ground for Late Muzzleloader season. On our first evening down, dad shot a yearling buck on the small field food plot and that was the only deer spotted between the 2 of us. With an antlerless bow tag in my pocket, and an any sex muzzleloader tag that I could use a bow to fill, I opted to head for our best stand on the neighboring counting land the next morning with the intention of filling the doe tag. About 10 minutes after shooting light, this buck came in from the west very slowly. I drew on him a couple of times but he just wouldn't turn broadside. On the 3rd try, he spotted me and bolted to about 20 yards but was quartering away hard. I aimed for the middle of his body but ended up hitting him just in front of his rear leg. My heart sank as I thought that I gut shot him. I watched him trot off to the west and lost him behind a brush pile. I called dad, told him to wait 4 hours and head my way with a muzzleloader and orange vest (just in case we found the buck still alive). I freezed my behind off for the next 4 hours and nearly got a shot at a doe during that time. Once dad arrived, I grabbed the muzzleloader and headed over to the brush pile where I last saw him. To my surprise he was laying dead right where I last saw him. When I gutted him I found that my shot was perfect as my arrow had slid along the stomach without puncturing it, went through the liver, one lung, and the heart meaning that he died very quickly and didn't suffer. The sick feeling that I had sat there with quickly turned to joy. I had never killed a buck with my bow, and now I had done it twice in a single year. 

Off Season Scouting

I'll be the first to admit that we have never done a sufficient amount of scouting. Most of the work and management projects that we complete are based on in season observations. Those projects are usually designed to alter the habitat or food sources of the deer in an attempt to get them to go where we want them to for hunting purposes. In addition, those projects tend to fill up most of our time spent at the cabin meaning that we don't leave enough time to scout. As part of my off season plan for 2018, scouting moved a long ways up the priority list.

The trigger for me came on November 4, 2017, the morning that I shot a buck from a tree stand on the public ground about 1/2 mile South of my property line. As we tracked that buck for most of the day we followed a huge ridge that lead down to a small lake on the DNR property that is South of mine. That ridge contained more deer sign than anywhere else that we have been down there. From rubs and scrapes to deer beds and pounded trials. I've owned this property for 6 years and I had never set foot on that ridge before. As I spent more time thinking about it, other than studying aerial maps and walking to the few locations that we have put tree stands, I really had no clue where deer bed and feed around our property or how they travel between.

During late season, I actually did some walking around with my muzzleloader during a couple of morning hunts so that I could start scouting as I hunted. Our first official scouting trip was February 24 - 25. I had spent countless nights in my recliner at home studying aerial maps to decide where we should start. A storm that came through early Saturday morning left the roads coated with ice. Luckily the roads that I take down were well treated and just wet, but dad ended up delaying his trip down until temperatures increased to above freezing. I spent 5 hours out walking/scouting prior to dad's arrival and covered a lot of areas closer to our property. I also put up a couple of trail cameras on areas of my property that I haven't had cameras before. It was a miserable 5 hours with rain drizzle and everything coated in ice but I loved every minute of it.

Following a deer trail on a ridge about 1/4 mile west of my property

After dad arrived we walked for a couple of more hours before heading into town for mass and a stop at Happy Joe's for dinner. Both of us were looking forward to dryer and more pleasant conditions on Sunday. 

Time to replenish all of those burned calories

Sunday morning greeted us with a beautiful morning as promised. We covered a lot of ground before lunch including the ridge from November 4th mentioned earlier in this post. We also managed to spook deer out of a bedding area that I had identified the previous day. Better yet, I had marked them as beds for a southwest wind, which is what we had that day. 

One of many large rubs that we came across

Not the end of the earth, but pretty close

After lunch it was time to break out the bow and shoot some arrows. I haven't shot a lot since last season so I spent some time shooting at 20 yards and 30 yards. By the end I was very happy with my groups out to 30, but definitely need a lot of practice during the off season to maintain form and continue to improve. We then headed out to scout a very large and deep drainage that starts at the northeast corner of my property. I would say that we saved the worst for last as I was very disappointed in the deer sign and with how wide open the woods were all the way down through that drainage ditch. Although at the end I was still happy that we took the time to scout it because it gave us a large area to cross off the map for future stand locations.

Rock ledge with waterfall

Surrounded by steep and muddy ridges

As you can imagine, we were getting tired and decided to head for home in the early evening. In addition to the 2 cameras that I put on my property, I put 2 cameras up on the public ground to scout out potential stand locations. My plan is to move those cameras to different locations and leave them for a month at a time all the way up to next hunting season. This should help us decide where to put tree stands next year. 

It was a very successful trip and I look forward to doing more scouting throughout the off season. One tool that I used heavily while we were scouting was Google Maps on my cell phone. Using GPS, I was able to mark deer trails, deer beds, potential stand sites, rubs and scrapes, along with any other features that I found important. With that information I was able to come back and evaluate more on my laptop at home. This proved extremely valuable because it is easy to lose track of exactly where we were and it would have been impossible to remember everything that we found along the way. 

Snapshot of the area that we scouted

My next trip is planned for March 23 - 24 and I'm really exited to check the cameras and get started on off season work. Although we don't have any large projects on the list this year, there is a VERY long list of small items that we want to accomplish.