The Gut Pile

Sorry there's been no activity on here for a few weeks, but I thought I'd kickstart things with an interesting post.

A couple weeks ago I was fortunate to take a mature doe with my shotgun during 2nd season.  Since she was shot along the edge of our corn field I thought it'd be fun to set the trail camera up on the gut pile after I field dressed her to see what might come by to clean it up.

I checked my trailcam yesterday and was quite surprised to find 448 pictures!  I thought for sure many of them would be from the blizzard we experienced last week.  But to my surprise only 3 of them were from blowing snow.

It was no surprise that the first visitors to the entrails were a few crows.  Then it didn't take long for a mature bald eagle to find the pile as well.

 

 

After that, the word spread quickly over the next couple days.  Two red-tailed hawks duked it out over the feast.  As did a red-tail and an immature bald eagle.  Some pretty cool pics.

Then about mid-morning on the 15th of December the real garbage truck showed up!  According to the pictures, this ol' boy showed up about 10:12am and sniffed around for a few minutes.  The real feast started at 10:15am and by 10:20am, the whole pile was GONE!!!

I'm sure hoping that this big animal isn't an inside dog!  It showed back up a few more times over the next couple days to make sure there wasn't anything left, but this dog has to have a digestive tract made of steel to handle the pile it horfed down that day! 

It was an interesting card pull to say the least.  The ground on our farm is now covered in almost a foot of snow or more in places and you can really see where the deer are moving.  It was encouraging to see that their main travel route is taking them across the field and right under one of my treestands.  I'll hope for a warmer day or two in the future where I can get out and maybe try to fill one of the two remaining bow tags I have. 

Tagged Out!

Well as I stated in my previous post, I was planning on filling my statewide bow tag with whatever walked by first, buck or doe.  On Sunday, November 25th, I had a monster doe step out in a cut bean field at 45 yards. It was a tad far but I've made farther shots in my day.  The shot was a bit high and the arrow found her spine, dropping her in her tracks.  I had to climb down and put 1 more in her to finish the job. 
It was a good season in that I filled all my tags but I did not have a single opportunity at a mature buck. Hopefully second season shotgun and late muzzleloader produce more antlers. We will soon find out!

Crunch Time

Here's the deal:  We got about one week til the end of bow season ushers in the beginning of the gun seasons.  I still have my statewide any deer bow tag.  I am not a fan of late season bow hunting.  So here's what I have decided- I'm filling that tag with the first mature deer that comes within range.  Buck or doe.  I'd rather have meat in the freezer than hold out for a buck and wind up eating tag soup.

I haven't been updating the blog lately because there had been nothing to update.  The most exciting thing that has happened this November is seeing 39 turkeys the other morning. 

Speaking of turkeys, thanksgiving is tomorrow.  Happy Turkey Day!

The Slump

I don't have any exciting news to post about tonight, but it's been awhile so I thought I'd bring my hunting excursions up to date.  Last week, what ended up as one of the craziest hunting weeks I've ever experienced, put me in a major slump.

It started Monday morning.  I was hunting along the edge of the picked corn field, in the same stand I shot my early season doe.  A REALLY nice buck came out and into range.  Before he cleared the branches blocking any shot I might have had, the wind swirled on me!  He whiffed a little bit of my scent and that was all it took.  He turned to leave and I stopped him with a "muurpp".  I launched the arrow at was I thought was a buck quartering away at 40 yards.  Turns out he was more like 45 yards and the arrow brushed his underside.  I found hair all over the ground, but not a drop of blood spilled.

The slump continued on Thursday evening as I snuck through the thick timber at to the backside of our property.  I climbed the ladder stand and it didn't take long for things to heat up.  A small buck came out and walked past and on down the hill below me.  Moments later he came crashing back, with a bigger buck in tow.  The big buck was pushing him out of his domain.  The big buck, one of such size I've never had the opportunity to see on stand, let alone shoot at, came into a shooting lane at what I had ranged earlier to be 30 yards.  Only a couple twigs skewed a perfect broadside shot, but the fever caused me to try to "punch" it through. 

I watched as my arrow sailed high, cleaving only air before burying into the dirt.  Without exageration, the buck I shot at had at least 12 points and with the height and mass he carried, he very well could have easily pushed 170 inches.  The dejected feeling that sank in as I watched my arrow sail high is one I hope to never relive.

I snuck back to the same spot this Monday night.  I literally had to sneak my way through 5 different bucks as they were moving!  One was a definite shooter, not as big as the one I missed prior, but a shooter nonetheless.  He was pushing a smaller buck away from him and his doe as I hunkered into what small cover I could find on the ground.  He was well within range as he pushed the intruder away, but the cover was far too thick to risk shooting an arrow through.  After successfully pushing away the smaller buck, he disappeared back over the ridge where he came from.

Though the slump continues, I look forward to this weekend.  My buddy Scott is coming over to hunt with me all weekend & we intend to fill some tags.  With bucks locked down on hot does and the rut seemingly starting to wind down, we may just have to fill our tags with some doe meat if the opportunity arises.  Plus shotgun season is 2 weeks away & it'll all be over by then.

Late October Card Pull- Good News!!

Well I have been out a few times since the doe kill and long range binocular encounter with the Mule and things are picking up.  The bucks are chasing but the biggest buck I've seen is a solid 75 inch 8 pointer.  I pulled a card from a cam I have on the edge of a plot and I got a pleasant suprise.  I got a new mature buck on camera!  That brings the grand total to 2 bucks that are of shootable age class that I have on camera which is a pretty dismal outlook as the rut kicks into gear.  He's a solid 130 class 10 point which is exciting because in my area there is a complete domination of 8 point genetics.  Hopefully he's getting after some hot does and passing on his legacy.

My camera was watching a mock scrape with a scrape dripper over top.  I had made it in a spot where there is ALWAYS a scrape every year without fail.  It didn't look too hot but the card pull proved otherwise.  The lack of scraped ground led me to believe that it's more of a licking branch than a scrape.  I've heard they are two different forms of marking territory and I guess they are right.  I got a lot of other bucks on camera but they aren't worth publishing.  However almost every buck was getting his face all up in that oak branch.  

I did find a mega hot scrape on the ground about 50 yards away so I relocated my camera over there.  I have the 7th of November off to hunt as well as the 9th-12th.  Statistically the most bucks are killed on the 7th and the 11th however statistically the first two weeks of November suck in my areas.  Late October and the last week and a half of November seem to be the times that I have had the most opportunities to kill a mature buck.  We'll see what happens this week.  I'll leave you with some photos of the new buck working the scrape and a few paint-brush-beard-dragging limb chickens. 

Trick or Treat?

Being Halloween, and a full moon, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to hunt this morning.  Not only was it a PERFECT morning, I'm a firm believer that big bucks are shot on big days.  This, hopefully being my big day. 

As morning preparations caught up with me fast, I was 4 minutes late getting into the treestand.  Of course I kicked a really nice looking buck off the picked corn field as I pulled into the driveway.  He looked fairly tall, but not much mass.  A nice buck nonetheless. 

Before I climbed the ladder, I set out my doe decoy.  With her rear smothered in Tinks #69, she was almost irresistable....almost.  The woods were alive during the first half hour of legal light.  2 or 3 deer came up from the timber below me, but skirted wide of my stand, ignoring a few grunts I threw their way.  Moments later a doe to the west was hauling across the neighbor's pasture.  Trying to keep up was her yearling.  Then barreling after them was a buck, dogging their backtrail.  As fast as I saw them, they were gone.

Shortly thereafter a really nice buck stepped out about 3/4 the way down the field.  I'm pretty sure it was the nice tall rack I saw when I pulled into the driveway about half an hour previous.  He turned to start walking away and a couple of my loud grunts caught his attention.  He stared at the decoy for awhile and then continued to walk away.  I started getting desperate.  I bleated a few times but that garnered only a glance.  I then tinkled the rattlin' horns together and that peaked his attention for another moment or two.  But still no luck in getting him turned.  He sauntered off, in the opposite direction and disappeared.

The sun rose higher and higher and nothing was happening. I formulated a plan in my brain.  I was going to stick it out until 9:30.  If nothing happened by then, I was climbing down and stalking deeper into the wood!  I had a ladder stand deep in the timber, along some old ATV trails.  I figured if I could make it there, throw together a really good rattling sequence, I just might be able to draw a big boy into bow range.  In my head, the plan sounded perfect.

9:30 rolled around with no more activity.  I climbed down and started the slow stalk to the deep woods stand.  Between me & the stand was a DEEP ravine.  I made it across the creek in the bottom and started up the other side.  Just ahead of me I caught movement and froze.  It was a small basket rack 8 pointer.  He was coming down the trail I was on...directly at me!  I froze and watched as he approached.  A couple big trees between me and him barred him from seeing me until he popped out 10 yards away!  He stopped on a dime, his eyes got as big as saucers, and he turned, trotting off in the opposite direction.  It was pretty cool getting that close to him.

I sped up a little bit and climbed into the ladder stand.  I got situated, having never hunted this stand before.  I nocked my arrow, got out my rattling horns, and waited a few minutes before staging my fight.  I took some time to admire the view of the Des Moines River valley, it was amazing from this location.

The time had arrived.  I grabbed my antlers and starting knocking them together.  I dragged them on the limbs and leaves around me and continued to rattle.  This mock fight lasted a couple minutes until I set the horns down and grunted a few times on my grunt tube.  The lack of breeze was nice as I could hear anything approaching in the leaves.  I heard a deer crashing through the forest in the valley to the south.  It almost sounded like it was running away from me, and I thought it could possibly be the little buck I spooked minutes earlier. 

I grunted a couple more times and picked the antlers back up.  I rattled for another minute or so, set the antlers down again and grunted a few more times.  Movement to the south caught me eye.  It was a buck, and he was slinking towards me.  Approaching to see who was fighting in his domain, this brute silently closed the distance.  As he turned his head to the east I saw a nice 5 point side!  I instantly recognized the buck as one I'd gotten trailcam pics of earlier this summer.

I connected my release to the string and watched as he closed the distance to 20 yards and stopped.  He was coming in perfectly.  But something wasn't right.  It wasn't until he turned his head to the west that I noticed the cause for my suspicion.  My Halloween Buck proved to be a trick and not a treat as his entire right antler was broken off, 2 inches above the brow tine!  No doubt this buck was a fighter and to have a main beam busted clean off must have been an incredible fight.  The decision to let him go was an easy one.  Especially if there's a buck out there that could do that to him!

I slowly put my bow back on the hanger and got out my cell phone.  I tried to capture a couple pics of him through the brush, but they didn't turn out the greatest.  Here's the best one.

He stood there, as still as a statue for probably close to 10 minutes.  Knowing I wasn't going to shoot and that I had to get my dog to the vet by 11:45, I softly grunted a couple times at him.  His ears perked forward as he tried to pinpoint the new intruder.  A couple times I swear he looked right at me.  After a couple more grunts his instinct kicked in and he turned, melting into the timber he came from.

 

I climbed down after he left and high-tailed it the other direction.  It was an awesome Halloween hunt and was almost as good as if I would have harvested a big buck!  The rut is heating up and if you're not getting out to the stand, you're crazy!  Happy Halloween!!!

On The Board!!!

Last night, October 26th, I raced home from work in hopes of squeezing in a quick evening hunt.  I threw on my camo, grabbed my gear, and raced back up the road to a 40 acre piece I call "The Hill".  It's half CRP and half planted trees with a home right in the middle.  The land owner keeps the edges mowed down well and their house is within 100 yards of my stand so the deer are pretty used to the smell of human scent and it's kind of like a state park setting- that's why I love hunting there!  It wasn't 15 minutes and a doe showed up, just what I'm looking for.  As soon as I spotted her south of my tree the west/ northwest wind shifted to the north and blew my scent right at her.  I could tell by her body language that she had smelled me and was uneasy about it, but she kept coming up the fence line.  She literally stopped at the base of my tree and sniffed around a while.  All she had to do was keep meandering to the north and I could pick my quartering away shot.  Instead she sprinted to the north and stopped at what I thought was 25 yards- it wasn't.  I let one fly and it went right under her belly and she was gone.

I sat back in my stand to reflect.  Missing an easy opportunity like that on any deer is disappointing and the hunter is left to sit there and think about it like a kid in time-out at the baby sitter.  I quickly realized the doe was farther than 25 yards, it was more like 30.  I began to wonder if I would even see another deer.  To the far north is another house at the next road.  I could see a black speck in the front yard.  I pulled up my binos to look.  It was their black lab hunched over taking a dump.  Fitting for this hunt, I thought.  At least I had a beautiful view.

It wasn't long and I saw a deer moving in the next field over.  It was a doe coming out into the cut bean field.  Then I noticed movement on the edge of the standing cornfield next to it.  Through my binos I saw it was the Mule! 

I foolishly got out my grunt tube thinking he would hear me from 80 acres away.  I was so jacked up at seeing a mature buck on his feet that my first attempt at grunting him in sounded like a kindergartener in music class trying to play the kazoo for the first time.  Great, now I'm really not going to see another deer near my stand.  Of course the Mule didn't even come close to hearing my desperate attempt at calling him in.  I sat there again feeling like an idiot.  In all reality, we're on the doorstep of the rut, bucks are staying close to the does they think will come into estrus first.  Did I seriously just think that 2 grunts would entice a mature buck to leave a potential mate and travel nearly a half mile crossing 2 fences and traversing 50+ acres of standing corn just to see who in the hell is grunting at him?  You moron, Seth. 

As I watched through my binos, more deer began filtering out on the bean field.  I counted four does and the Mule.  Then a smaller buck came running in from the south to check out the ladies but the Mule sprinted right at him and convinced him otherwise.  Man, things are heating up!  As I put my binos down I noticed to the north a doe was out on the mowed trail.  Alright, a second chance!  But she jumped the fence in to the standing corn before she was even inside of 75 yards of me.  Just as shooting light was running out I noticed another doe come out of the trees on to the mowed trail.  She was moving south.  Yes, a third chance!  She was moving down the fence at a steady pace and as she came inside 20 yards I drew.  I stopped her at 15.  She was quartering to me but I use a Muzzy broad head and they have proven to me over the years that they don't care what angle a deer is to you, they will blow through anything.  (shameless Muzzy plug I know, but I love 'em!)  I put my pin on the top and front side of her shoulder and let it rip.  This time I heard the familiar SMACK when an arrow finds its mark.

She sprinted 3 quick steps and jumped the fence into the standing corn.  I saw the corn stalks moving as she sprinted deeper into the abyss of maize.  Over the years I've learned that deer never go where you want them to go after you shoot them.  Deep ditches, ravines, wash-outs, rivers, cornfields, thick, tangled, gnarly, thorny brush all seem to be favorite final resting places for fatally hit deer and are all places I have had to go to retrieve deer.  Then about 100 yards out the stalks stopped moving.  After 30 seconds I heard a crash and I knew it was over.  Yessss!!! I'm on the board and ol' dad here is putting some meat on the table!

I texted my dad and he met me at the house.  Joanna and Jeremiah came along for the ride.  Joanna kept Jeremiah busy in the truck while my dad and I searched the cornfield.  Luckily we found her withing 10 minutes but the work was just about to begin.  I field dressed her and the drag was on.  After 100+ yards of dragging uphill through corn and after many stops to catch our (my) wind, we finally got to the 4 ft. tall fence.  We hoisted her up and over and took a well deserved break.  Unfortunately my phone battery was so low that it wouldn't use the flash while taking pictures.  We had to rely on the truck's high beams which explains the poor picture quality and the white-washed faces of the Bartlett Family.  Special thanks goes out to my beautiful wife, Joanna for bringing along our son to experience his first of hopefully many deer hunting experiences.  And also special thanks to my dad, Mike for helping in the search and recovery and the dreaded drag to the truck.