Blog Entries from the WeHuntSC.com blogging crew
After our football game last Friday night, Ryan (wide receiver/safety on our team), Katie (my girlfriend), and I headed out towards camp. After driving for about an hour or so we arrived and were eagerly awaiting the next day?s hunt. Early that next morning, five o'clock to be exact, we made our way to the stands. Katie and I went to a two-man stand on a row of pines surrounded by hard woods and Ryan went out to the stand overlooking the cut-down / cut-over. We were optimistic about the hunts and hoped to see some big bucks. Katie and I got to our stand early and we kept dozing off and waking up until the sunlight started to shine throughout the woods. After sitting for about an hour, a 6 point walked out. Katie, shaking from excitement, grabbed the camera from my hand and began to film! I thought to myself, I think I have found my new camera operator! After filming the buck for a few minutes, Katie put the camera down to enjoy the sight of the deer. Before this point Katie had only seen two little fawns sitting with me during the pre-season. Getting to watch someone see their first deer in the stand and to watch their reaction is one of my favorite hunting experiences. About ten minutes passed and the deer moved out of our shooting lane to a small track of hard woods to our left. Katie asked, "Why didn't you shoot the buck?" I explained to her that we were managing our property and trying to shoot mature bucks with 8 points or better and a spread of at least outside their ears. It was a neat experience and a good day in the stand! Ryan was sitting in a stand that Nick and I had put up a few weeks earlier. This was also the same stand that I harvested the cow horn from in my pervious blog. Ryan also had a good hunt as he saw 3 does and a 4 point on the corn pile. Having not hunted for a while, Ryan said that he had the "trigger happy fever", but he never did shoot any of the deer, he just enjoyed watching them.
Atsko also has another neat product that I?m using?their UV Killer spray. After arriving to my stand, I took my camo out of the McKenzie Scent fan duffle bag and sprayed it down with the UV killer. I used the UV killer spray to lessen any reflection that may be coming from my camo or gear. Regular commercial detergents have brightener dyes in them that, when hit by light, are visible to deer. Just in case my clothing came with any reflective dye or material on them or had any on them from previous washings, I wasn?t taking any chances.
I truly believe that these products had (and are having) a great impact on my hunts. We had deer walk underneath the stand and not even know that we were there! I?ve been close to deer before, but not as much and as frequent as this year! If you want an adrenaline filled hunt, try having deer walk right underneath your feet! Getting that adrenaline rush is what hunting is all about and scent control can make it happen.
Thanks to Dennis Coblentz For Some Of The Footage
Derek
This weekend turned out to be a pretty good weekend of hunting. I didn't see a lot of deer, but I did have an interesting encounter.
Saturday morning I decided to get in the stand right across the road from my house. Let me take a second to describe the location and setup of this stand. The stand is a lock-on that is 16 feet high, but on the edge of a little ridge. The road to my house is literally about 60 yards behind the stand. I can watch the cars go by while in the stand. If that wasn't enough, my uncle's house is maybe 80 yards to the back right of the stand. So as I watch cars go by, I can also watch what's going on at my uncle's house. Before leaving to go get in my stand, I chained my dog up (more on her in a moment). I got in the stand right at 6 a.m. Not long after getting in the stand, I thought I heard some deer blowing at me off in the distance. I thought to myself, "There is no way these deer are winding me". The only way I hunt in that stand is if there is a Northern wind, which means the wind is blowing in my face toward the road. Around 6:30 a.m. I hear deer blowing, only this time they are not far in front of me down the ridge. I thought my hunt was over, which sucked because I expected the rut was on. After hearing the deer blow a few times, I remembered something I read in a book called 101 Deer Hunting Tips: Practical Advice from a Master Hunter (Peter Fiduccia). In the book, Peter talks about what to do if a deer starts blowing at you. He says you can blow back at the deer. If I knew where my book was I would quote the actual sequence. The gist is that you let the deer blow twice and you blow back once, something to that effect. I blew back at the deer after it blew several times. I traded a few more blows and the deer finally quit. Shortly after, I heard a deer grunting and caught a glimpse of a deer moving through and opening in front of me. I peered through the binoculars and could see horns on the deer's head, but couldn't tell how big it was because it was standing broadside. While maintaining visual of the deer with the binoculars, I reached in my pocket, pulled out a primos estruous can, and let out at few bleats. The buck did nothing. I tried the grunt call, still nothing. He just stood there broadside and eventually walked behind some trees and I thought he had left the scene. Soon as he disappeared behind the trees I saw a doe cross the opening. Right after she left, the buck crossed on her trail trotting and grunting. That was the coolest thing I have ever seen. As much as I have hunted, I had never seen a buck chasing a doe and grunting. Unfortunately, that was my only encounter with deer for the rest of the morning. When I got out of the stand, I quietly went and grabbed my camera that was down by the little ridge. I check my camera and found that my dog, Daisy, has been going down to my corn pile pretty much on a daily basis. On top of the corn, I poured a couple of bags of Buck Grub and apparently Daisy likes it as much as the deer. However, her visits to the corn pile didn't deter the deer from visiting it as well. I got a lot of pictures of yearling bucks with does coming out between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., which is a positive sign for hunting the middle of the day. I only had one picture of a decent size buck, but it was taken at night time. Let me take a minute to say that even though I only had one picture of a bigger buck at night, it doesn't mean he wasn't out there with the other deer during the middle of the day. It just means that the bigger buck didn't happen to walk by the camera.
Saturday evening, I went and sat in the stand overlooking the 2 acre food plot of Biologic. I had a deer wind me right before stepping out into the plot and ran off. That was the only deer for the evening. That night, I met up with Clint and Will to do some brainstorming. While we chatted, Clint and I drank us a Wild Life Energy Drink. I thought it tasted good and it definitely gives you some energy. I think I drank it around 9 p.m. and couldn't get wound down until close to 1 a.m.
Sunday was just a wash, literally. I sat in the rain and cold all evening and didn't see anything. My mom and dad think I'm crazy for sitting out in the rain like that, but you can't see the deer if you ain't out there. So it doesn't matter what kind of weather it is, I'm going to be in the stand! Even though I didn't see but two deer, I had a blast hunting. Anytime I can spend out in the woods is a blessing to me, deer or no deer. I hope to get a lot of hunting done between this coming Thursday and Sunday. Hopefully my next blog will be me telling you about the monster buck I killed, but we'll see. One can only hope. I did get my camera back out and I still have my other camera out that I haven't checked. Maybe I will have some pictures I think are worth sharing next time.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Adam