Week Three

Heat, Wind, Chills, Full Moon.

The unseasonably warm temperatures continued through this past week, along with the climbing moon deer movement stayed fairly low. However, my youngest brother arrowing a small doe and my father  witnessed some pre-rut activity.  Yesterday afternoon I decided to hike deep into the woodlands in search of fresh territory and found what I was looking for.  One lone set of tracks perfectly  cut into mud led me to a small area where he had not just created one but 13 scrapes.  Like painting a red X the buck made my search of a new spot easy.  Yet it wasn’t meant to be.  The woods lay still despite the night looking like it could be dynamic.   These scrapes appeared to have been made within the weekend since they were not there earlier in the week when I hiked the same area and due to the wind and rain we had over the weekend were covered in leaves.  The dirt had the glazed over look of being freshly rained on and my hope is, this buck will come back to freshen up his scrapes.  I have never witnessed so many scrapes at one time. By the size of his track, the buck looks to be trying to establish his dominance in the area.  My plan is to use this against him.  Can I use his growing anger against other bucks and soon to be raging hormones against him?  Concocting a plan to play with this buck is slowly taking form.

 

A few ideas:

Rattling:

I’ll be honest, I have never had great success rattling. My father only once successfully rattled in a deer, his first bow buck I believe back in the mid 80’s a small fork horn.  Could rattling peak this buck’s interest if he is frequenting the area?

 

Scents:

Everyone loves using scents.  Putting a drip over a scape is a classic maneuver which has yielded results for countless hunters.  I am contemplating purchasing some doe in heat or even buck scent.  Possibly both since the does have not quite come into heat yet.  In theory, using another buck’s scent in the area may get my mystery buck angry enough to look for a fight.   Grave Digger from Code Blue has worked well for my family in the past.

 

My Own Mock Scrapes:

Tonight I am interviewing a well respected writer on mock scrapes so maybe he can help shed some light on this issue.  If I created my own line of scrapes, could this influence the mystery buck to walk within range of my DXT?  The answer,  possibly.

 

This pre rut phase is a great time to take advantage of bucks beginning to feel the breeding hormones.  While this is nothing new, most people think of the  heat of the rut to  be the best.  Yes that is true.  But with the bucks really starting to move and the does not ready yet, if you have a game plan, keep your eyes peeled, I heard the big bucks are getting on their feet.  A friend of mine was driving back to school last night down a long country road and told me she had to stop while a massive mainframe 12  with three  drop tines and trash all over his rack ran out in front of her following does.  And if you are wondering, yes, it was close to the Land of Luckey.

 

This is the chess match time of year I live for.  Time to play a few pieces and try to get this mystery buck. To paraphrase the words of my hero Cam Hanes, “ It’s time to ramp it up.”

 

 

Jason

 

The King of (Freezer)Queens

A candid picture of Groff and myself from a previous season.

Between Austin Groff and myself, we hunt hard.  There is no fancy way to dance around describing the gut wrenching grind of balancing college studies and deer hunting.  Simply put, we lay it all on the line when the leaves change color.  Over the past three years, Austin has had a majority of the punched tags between the two of us, which is completely fine with me.  At the end of the day, we eat really well.

 

Austin seems to break every rule of deer hunting while I seem to follow all the prescribed rules.  I use Scent Blocker, wash my clothing regularly, wear rubber boots and hunt from above.  Austin, does not wash his clothing regularly, wears leather hiking boots and hunts on the ground, sometimes without a blind.  Despite his seeming unorthodox methods, he has killed seven deer in the past two full seasons and what is not even a quarter of the 2013 season.    Every time I get “that call” summoning me for a packing job, I still am in amazement at his abilities to get the job done through his unorthodox ways.  No one can argue with a record like that.

 

Thursday, October 10, 2013 dawned at a stinging 38 degrees.  After an actioned packed two hour set, I saw a total of 15 deer, mostly doe, skirt just out of bow range from my climber position.   One freezer queen  blindsided me appearing from the morning dew with such stealth, I did not see her until she stood at ten yards.  How often does one guy go and see 15 deer and still not get one?

 

The fact was, I played the contour of the land wrong by setting up too far into a bench.  Every deer filed from a drainage, slipped around the corner of the bench I was sitting on, dumping off into the brush just out of range.  Determined to make things right, I made the adjustment for the evening hunt.  However, due to the warm weather, I could hear bands of people shouting while hiking the trails above me, not to mention someone driving a golf cart up the hill.  Not to mention my phone died.  Shaking off the disappointment of having a ruined hunt I hiked out to the parking spot to find Austin.

 

 

Just as I left the darkened canopy of the trail, a dark figure was lying on the ground to the left.

 

Groff:“Hey dude.”

 

Kicked back and relaxing, propped up on his backpack, his squeaky little voice told me something was up.  Although I have only known him for a few years, I have learned enough about him to know, his voice only squeaks when he is excited.

 

Me: “Dude my phone died sorry, Did you see ann………”  My voiced trailed off as I picked up on the unmistakable white under hair of a deer, dead beside him.

“NO WAY!”  My heart jumped in unbelief  and I immediately gave him the hunting buddy congratulations tackle.

 

Every time one of us kills one, we instantly become the most loved people on campus.

Austin arrowed the 100 pound doe right after my phone died and as a result of someone driving a golf cart through the woods.   He had been set up at the base of a tree next to a corn field with no blind.  This deer is Austin’s seventh collegiate deer, Sixth freezer queen,sixth doe with a bow on the ground!

 

For all the nicknames we here at Houghton have given Austin Groff, I am giving him one more.  Austin Groff truly is the King of Queens, and I know your Dad is smiling at this.

 

 

 

Jason

 

On an unrelated note, some exciting things have taken place in my life over the past few months which I will be sharing soon. Stay tuned.

Eight Yards

 

Tuesday October 8, 2013. Fading daylight of the high blue sky day finally brought deer into the small clover plot.  The night before had been the first cold break in weather we had  had in over a week.  Wind, low clouds and rain  dropped the Indian summer temperatures to a reasonable 52 degrees.  Posting on a vantage glassing point  over the small clover field I counted over 12 deer filter through from several different corners over the course of the night.  My mission was just to figure out where they may be entering the field.  After watching the field I didn’t need to be told where to sit however, along the edge of the field hosted no climbable trees.  My only chance was to duck into the tall weeds along the field edge.  As my afternoon class on the ropes course wound to a close my anticipation teetered on insanity knowing my chances of breaking my four year archery kill-less drought could be broken.

 

The field remained barren and obviously due to the high blue skies causing the deer to feel uneasy in open terrain.  A text from a pretty girl caused me to look away from my vigilant stare hold on the wood’s edge only to be greeted with the ghost like appearance of a mammoth doe no less than 40 yards away.  Her dark chocolate winter coat and broad chest confirmed she was without a doubt  worthy of my tag, and a complimentary stay in my freezer  Slinking as low as possible into the weeds, I knew my only chance at releasing an arrow would be with one quick surprise motion rising from the weeds if the deer fed close enough.  My faith in my location drained faster than a crushed bottle of wine.  With no wind or possible movement to reveal myself, the animal locked onto my position.  I  must have been an un-natural shape in their natural surroundings causing the freezer queen to hone in on me like a mosquito to bare skin. Yet, her curiosity seemed to get the best of her, she started walking right at me! Watching her every facial  expression and body movement from the low fractured view of the  weeds, I knew time was short.  I held onto the hope she would turn  and begin feeding offering a shot now well under 20 yards.  She kept walking soon standing directly facing me at less than ten yards.  Freezer mamma would have none of it, snorting and blowing out of the field.  I paced her tracks off at eight yards.   I learned with hunting on the ground, simply sitting in the middle of the weeds may not break up your outline sufficiently to keep deer at ease within bow range.

 

As is archery, even the closest  of encounters can leave you empty handed.  A fantastic encounter for early October.  One of these nights, I’ll put an end to this drought, it’s bound to happen sooner or later.

Deer Season Week 1

 

Ten eyes lit up the scrub apple orchard under the beams of our head lamps. Five deer guarded the entrance to our stands.   Austin Groff and I switched to the red light phase of our lights and through some miracle; we were able to walk right through this small group of deer without blowing them off the mountain.  With an hour to light and deer spotted near our stands, opening morning probability for reddening an arrow was looking up yet, it wasn’t meant to be.

Early October bow hunting is hit or miss but if done properly, can produce big results.  Weather fluctuating from cool and crisp to warm and muggy by the afternoon largely limits the deer activity to the first and last hours of light.  Traditional early season tactics are based around hunting food sources such as apples and acorns.  However, with so much greenery left in the woods, these mast crops may take a few weeks to begin getting hit.   Although the conditions have been less than ideal, the call to the woods has been strong and my little rodeo team of collegiate archers and I have sat a few times with few deer sightings.

One of the largest challenges in early season hunting outside of deer movement and conditions is our own anxiousness.  After months of waiting it is easy to hunt to hard too fast and potentially ruin an area  before a truly ideal day.  At least this is my problem.

With weather un-ideal for deer hunting this coming weekend, a different adventure is calling.  Duck hunting.  Although warm temperatures  are the forecast, precipitation also will heavy the air creating ideal situations for waterfowl.  My brother and several friends are heading to the Northern Zone here in NY heading in deep onto state swamps.  Despite countless Google Maps scouting trips,  hunting state swamps hold countless variables.   Fingers are crossed but heck, BANZI! Duck swamps here we come ready or not.

Jason