Evening hunt - Oct. 28th, 2010 - Nice buck

The temperature dropped quite a bit today (compared to the last week), so I decided to head out for an evening hunt. On the way in, I saw a group of about 10 turkeys moving slowly away from me. After grabbing the memory card from the trail camera and adding corn to the pond stand, I headed over to the carpet stand. After about an hour in the stand, I tried some rattling with the hopes of pulling a buck out of the private property that is about 50 yards from the stand. It worked as planned and a nice 8 point (with an injured back left leg) came into view about 10 minutes after I stopped rattling. I watched him for about 20 minutes and although the wind was good, he didn't come any closer than 50 yards. When he started to walk away, I tried some grunting but he wasn't buying it. After he left, I also tried some rattling hoping to draw him in again. No luck. Maybe tomorrow...

Trail cam pics - 10/15 thru 10/28 - Pond Stand

  

Two weeks ago, I moved my Bushnell Trophy Cam from the "pine stand" to the "pond stand" and it looks like the move was a good idea. The trail camera picked up a nice buck - the 8 pointer shown above, a couple smaller 6 and 7 pointers, and a lot of does. (As a side note, the trail camera is on sale for a good price at Amazon right now - click here.) Below shows a chart of deer arrival times over the last two weeks at the pond stand. The y-axis is number of deer and the x-axis is the hour of day. Large bucks are any that are 8+ points and small bucks are < 8 points.

Early rut

This past weekend, we traveled down to southern Ohio for some muzzleloader deer hunting. We weren't successful in the hunt, but I was struck by how many deer were dead on the side of the road. It appears that deer are starting to move more here in Ohio and that the early rut is starting. To back this up, my brother-in-law Pat has spotted a couple small bucks chasing does. Below shows a rut map from versus.com that confirms this. It might be about time to try a decoy...

Time for a change?

Due to the lack of bucks at the pine stand, my lack of hunting success, and because it appears that there is pack of coyotes bedding within 50 yards of the stand, I am considering moving my hunting efforts mainly to the carpet stand and pine stand.

The carpet stand and pond stand are located in same patch of big woods that are adjacent to a large area of private land where hunting is prohibited. A small creek separates the two areas. The In order to get to the bean fields to feed, the deer must cross the creek and travel through the woods where these two stands are located. The carpet stand is an old stand that I rebuilt this year. It's near a good crossing and a natural corridor through the woods to one of the bean fields. I've talked about the pond stand here.

If I decide to move to one of these stands for a while, I will likely try the pine stand again later in the season.

Trail camera summary so far - Pine stand

The chart above shows a summary of when deer have arrived at the pine stand over the past month. The data was collected using a Bushnell Trophy Cam trail camera that I talk more about here. The stand is clearly an evening stand and is visited almost exclusively by does. A few six points have visited, but one of them was harvested last week by another bow hunter. In a month, there has not been one big buck (8+ points) to visit the stand.

Hunting so far...

Unfortunately, I was out of town opening weekend, but got back into town early enough to get in an evening hunt on Sunday. I've hunted the pine stand twice, utilized a ground blind once (picture below), and hunted the pond stand for the first time this evening. Except for two does that I jumped heading in on Sunday, I have not yet seen a deer while hunting. However, the weather has been perfect and it has been nice just being out in the woods.

Others have had better luck in our woods. As Troy described (see his post here), my uncle tagged a nice 10 point, and my brother-in-law harvested a spike. Congrats!

  

My bow

  

My bow is a Browning Fusion II compound bow, which I purchased back in 1994. It's a little outdated, but still works well after 16 years. I've equipped the bow with a Whisker Biscuit Arrow Rest, a TruGlo 3-Pin sight with a sight light, a Tru-Fire release, Easton XX75 aluminum arrows, 125 gr. Thunderhead broadheads, a Limbsaver stabilizer, and Limbsaver string leeches and quads to reduce string and bow noise. I'm pretty happy with the setup overall. If there is anything I would change, I would add a Saunders Pro Deadly Quiet string stop, and maybe switch out the Whisker Biscuit for a Hostage Arrow Rest.

Compared to Troy's 2009 Fred Bear Lights Out Bow (which he talks about here), my bow is definitely a little more noisy, a little less accurate, and a little slower. I will probably upgrade in a couple years using the Hunter's Friend website, but for now I will stick with the Browning.

New video camera

Above are pictures of my new video camera that I will hopefully get to use to shoot some video while hunting. To be able to do this, I wanted a camera that was under $200, water resistant, could be mounted to a tree stand, a tree, or bow, and that had a remote. Basically, I didn't want to  have to move very much to start recording (and potentially spook the deer). After a lot of research, my decision came down to the Drift X170 or
Kodak PlaySport, and I ended up choosing the PlaySport due to price and versatility. I also added a remote, a flexible mount, an extra battery, and a battery charger. Although the camera is listed as black, the back side of it is white. To make it less visible, I added some Deer Ridge ThinSkin Camo Tape. The pictures above show the camera with the camo tape applied. In the right picture, it is mounted to a tree branch during a recent hunt. Hopefully I will get the chance to post some video soon.