Final Trip And Season Wrap Up

Last Friday evening, Brent and I headed to the cabin for one last chance at filling a tag for the season. Dad had hunted on Friday and didn't see a deer. Coupling that with the crazy warm weather, neither of us was expecting much. On Saturday morning, Brent headed to the ridge stand while I took the muzzleloader and headed for the ridge above the lake. I ended up seeing 9 deer that morning and 5 of them would have been within bow range. Sadly, they were all bucks and I only had an antlerless tag in my pocket.

View from the ridge above the lake

We moved the fence gap stand to the other end of the ridge after the morning hunt to provide a good spot for the evening and morning hunts. I sat in the stand that evening while Brent headed back to the ridge. We opted to not hunt on the food plots because recent hunts and the trail cameras have shown that deer have not been using them in daylight. I believe this is due to the large number of acorns remaining in the woods as well as the unseasonably warm weather and no snow cover. Brent saw a lone fawn while I was blanked for the evening. I'm pretty sure we could not have had better weather for sitting outside though. 

Beautiful sunset on Saturday evening

On Sunday morning I saw 1 deer but it was through a lot of trees and brush, while Brent saw nothing again. We took down the final public land stand, packed up, and headed for home. It is always a sad feeling as I drive away from the cabin for the last time each season. 

It is hard to believe, but this was our 7th season hunting at the cabin. Each year has been very unique, and this year was no different in that respect. As a whole, it was a fantastic year, in fact, I would say it was one of the best that we have had. Justin was able to kill his first deer with a bow and his first deer with a muzzleloader. At this point, I don't think that I can call it beginners luck anymore as this is is 4th year hunting. In addition to hunting, it was great to just spend some time together throughout the fall. 

I was also able to kill 2 deer, although the doe I killed in November was hunting with my neighbor, Brent, near Grimes. That was another unique part of this season for me as I didn't spend all of my time hunting my own property. Both the new property near Earlham and the one near St. Mary's proved to be great spots. My one regret is that I didn't hunt them more often this year. 

Of course, for me, the highlight of the season came on my first day hunting late muzzleloader season when I killed a half rack 3 year old buck from the small field blind. This was the 4th straight year that we managed to kill a 3+ year old buck off of the property during late muzzleloader season.

Another highlight for the season was getting to take my youngest daughter, Bridget, hunting for the first time. We saw some deer and had a lot of fun hanging out together at the cabin. I also got to take my oldest, Abigail, on a trip again this year and am really starting to think she is getting close to being able to do the hunting (something we are going to look into for next season)

There were also some low points this season. The saddest part for me was that my dad was not able to kill a deer this year. He did have some good hunts, especially during bow season, but he had a horrible late muzzleloader season and struggled to even see deer. This is his first year not getting a deer since our first year owning the property and it definitely put a sour footnote on an otherwise great season. In fact, the entire late season after Christmas was pretty disappointing this year.

Another low point came as I once again had trouble with making poor shots on deer. On the first weekend of November, I took at 10 yard shot at what would have been my biggest buck of my life. Sadly, I rushed and made a horrible shot that was very low and back. After spending the night and next day tracking and searching for the buck, I ended up seeing him alive and well later that same week. I have not seen him since nor have I gotten anymore trail camera pictures of him since. I hope that he fully recovered and survived the season to be around next year.

Buck that I shot on November 4th

Another picture of the same 10 point

If one bad shot wasn't enough, the following Sunday I managed to make a bad hit on another buck. I don't feel quite as bad about this shot, however, because I took my time and actually made a good shot. It was a 40 yard shot and the buck ducked and wheeled out of the way and my arrow hit him high in the neck (above the spine). At the time, I was about 90% sure that the shot was not lethal and the blood trail and search that dad and I did turned up nothing. The buck was a 2 year old 8 pointer with a high and tight rack that I don't have any trail camera pictures of. I can't be 100% sure, but I think that he may have been one of the bucks that I saw last Saturday morning on the very same ridge.

I once again kept hunting logs for each hunt at the cabin this year. The numbers showed what I already knew, that it was a great year of hunting. The numbers were very similar to those in 2015, another great year of hunting. The one number that stands out more than the rest is 41, which is the number of times that I hunted at the cabin this season. Add in 10 hunts closer to home for a total of 51 hunts this year! I will admit that I had A LOT of fun hunting that much but also it is probably a number that I will not be replicating next year, at least not at the cabin. Starting the first weekend of October and running through last weekend, I took 12 trips to the cabin to hunt over the course of about 13 weeks. It wasn't the case for everyone that hunted down there this year, but personally, I saw a lot of deer as well. In fact, over the course of those 41 hunts, I saw 94 deer with 45 of them being bucks. I passed on a lot of opportunities at smaller bucks throughout the season but I have no regrets. 

Combined, we hunted for more than 277 hours at the cabin, beating out our previous high of 206 in 2015. Our most productive hunts came from the county fence gap ridge and the DNR lake ridge (both spots that we found while scouting in the off season) although we only managed to put down deer on my own property this year. 

I'm already planning for next year to be a little different. For starters, I will be running my first ever marathon on the 3rd weekend in October. Due to training and preparation for that race, I will most likely not be hunting at the cabin before the last weekend in October. In addition, I have been talking with my niece about her interest in hunting next year (she has been asking about it for a couple of years) and I may also see if Abigail is ready to hunt as well. This means that I may be taking some short trips down for hunts during youth season in September. 

Although I will most likely have a lot of vacation time to take again next year, I am planning to stick around home a lot more. I had a lot of luck at the property by St. Mary's as well as the couple of hunts that I had out by Earlham. In addition, Brent and I have been discussing scouting out some public land near home to hunt a bit during October. My plan right now is to save trips to the cabin for the best times and weather next year which will allow me to spend more time at home with my family throughout the fall.

Another thought that I had this year was how consuming deer hunting has been for my entire fall each of the past several years. While I truly love deer hunting, I have other fall time interests as well such as attending UNI football games, playing with my girls outside, camping, squirrel and pheasant hunting, etc. I have decided that next year I am going to stick with my 2 any sex deer tags (1 bow and 1 gun) and skip on the extra antlerless tags. I will try to hold out through the first full week of November for a good buck but then will be willing to take a doe or any 2+ year old buck after that in hopes of finding time to do other things. Also, the seasons are shifting with the calendar a bit next year, meaning that the week before Christmas will be 2nd shotgun season instead of the beginning of late muzzleloader season. Over the past 4 years, the week before Christmas has been our best week of hunting each season so I am seriously considering hunting 2nd shotgun instead of late muzzleloader next year. 

We have no big projects planned for the off season but I will be practicing a lot more with my bow and hope to get a 3D target to help me with more realistic shots. We are planning to do more off season scouting, including identifying specific trees or spots to hunt from the ground next year. I have 2 portable stand sets (1 ladder stand and 1 hang on stand with sticks) that I put together late this year and am hoping to use a lot next year. My hope is that staying more mobile will help to adapt to where the deer are moving and also allow hunting more places without the work of setting a bunch of stand ahead of time. There is some cleanup work to do on the ATV trails and other paths in the woods to clear trees that have fallen and we will be making some slight modifications to a couple of tree stand locations on my property, including moving the ridge stand a little further to the northeast. Oh, and I can't forget the food plots. My plan for the year is to return to the standard rotation on both fields. 

I hope that you enjoyed following along this season. I'm already looking forward to hunting next year, the season opens in 266 days! For now, my focus is shifting to my racing season as that kicks off with an indoor triathlon on January 20th.