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