Opening weekend shutout

Well, I escaped from the woods for a few hours tonight and thought I should post an update.

The camp is deerless... though one of our hunters shot a five-point buck on another piece of land.

I have only seen three deer, which is shocking considering how many I saw last year and that there is at least twice as much activity near the stand I'm using this year. Deer hunting is unpredictable and I had no way of knowing that four hunters on the northern border of the property built stands right on the property line in a row right near me. One of them is only about 100 yards away from my stand. They don't show up to their stands until about 7 a.m., though I can hear them talking loudly as they walk into the woods between 6:15 and 6:30... Basically, they announce to all the deer within 500 or so yards they're entering the woods and tell them exactly where they're sitting. That just happens to be the same area I'm sitting in. One of them also uses a grunt once or twice about every 15 minutes after 3 p.m., but he's terrible at it and it sounds like a cow. So all of my pre-season preparation was pretty much wasted. I've seen the same small fawn sneaking out by my stand both mornings. That's it. Hopefully they won't be here during the week and my stand will be useful again.

This afternoon I decided I had enough of those four and threw together a little blind just off one of our food plots. I saw a nice doe at about 3:45 p.m., but she saw me too. She didn't make it all the way out of the sticks and I didn't have a shot. I'll probably go back there again tomorrow afternoon. I'll try my stand in the oaks one more time tomorrow morning in hopes that I won't have four late and loud neighbors again and then swing by the food plot in the afternoon.

Everyone in the camp has been seeing deer, but mostly does and fawns. We need to shoot some does, but I think we were all hoping to have a few bucks on the buck pole first. Plans change and I'm going to shoot if a nice doe walks by me for now on. Rick, who is one of the landowners, shot at a nice six-pointer on the west side of the property opening morning. He says might have been an eight-pointer. He hit it and the guys tracked it for over a mile, but then lost it two properties over. They did find a drag trail near where they were tracking though and suspect someone else shot it, which would be good. My friend Joe shot at a doe this afternoon but missed. He wasn't too upset about it. Good thing it wasn't a nice buck.

The camp has shrunk noticably. There will only be four hunters in the woods tomorrow on the property. Hopefully someone brings home a deer. We had high hopes and have struck out so far. The weather has been great, the food has been outstanding and the camp has been a great success so we're not too worried about deer, but we'd all like to take home some venison too. There is a lot of hunting left and I suspect we'll find more success as the week wears on.

The woods have been surprisingly quiet while hunting for me. I've seen a few woodpeckers, some crows, squirrels, some mice and that's about it. Usually I see some turkeys and bald eagles and always hope to see coyotes or other forms of wildlife, but it's been a little slow. Not sure why.

The photos I posted above are of the land. The top one is sunrise this morning. Yesterday's sunrise stunk because it was overcast. Today's was a bit better. The second photo is of the deer superhighway that runs near my stand that has been completely empty all season. Hopefully traffic picks back up.

On a side note, I'm not too upset I missed that Packers game today. That got UGLY. I picked a good game to miss I guess.

Despite being off work, I have thought about it from time to time. You have a lot of time to think sitting in the woods deer hunting. I don't miss it too much yet though and I'm looking forward to having the rest of the week off. I'm sure I'll be ready to get back into the swing of things by the end of the week.

I'll probably post another update on Wednesday night or on Thanksgiving day because I think that's the next time I'll have an Internet connection. Hopefully there will be some more positive news then.

Until then, good luck again hunters and stay safe!