Headed out this a.m. to meet CH and his son to run Sally on some Pheasants ...
Stopped on the bridge briefly , to admire Doemaster's decoy spread ... but soon realized he and his crew were absent from the scene !
Sally did her job and CH did his ... here is a quick shot of CH and his young apprentice , posing with a couple of the birds we got this a.m.
Stopped by a local farm to pick up some pumpkins for my wife ... spent some time chatting up the old gent that owns the farm ... His name is Harold Shiry , he is 81 years old and the farm has been in the family since the land was first cleared ... he stopped for a picture beside the original homestead farm house that was built in 1820 .... what cool guy ... sad to hear the Region will soon be putting a road thru the property ... I guess thats progress ?
PS : The Elm tree in front of the house was planted approx 1930 and survived an Elm desease attack from way before I was born ..
I'm heading out now to hike back and set up on a " Monster " that Randy S. and I saw yesterday .... He didn't get that big by being stupid and I think my attempts to lure him within bow range might fail today , but I'm not going to get him by sitting at home !!
Page Break ... Sunday Oct 14th
No luck last night , so I went back to the same bush this a.m. and came in from another angle .... I was 3/4 way up the tree in my climber , and in a little later than usual when a doe busted me , snorted and stomped off .... I got settled in , did some light contact grunts , and a small 6 point came in approx 20 mins later ( he had a LH side 2 inch brow tine with a LH fork and a RH stub brow tine with a RH fork ) ... he stayed around for almost 1/2 hr .... these are 3 of the best pictures while he walked around looking for the other deer ... At one point he stayed in one place for approx 15 mins ... I was in WMU87 and would have had to use my primary tag since my extra antlered / antlerless tags are for WMU80 ... so he got a pass ... Cool to play with the calls on him though ..
A squirel drinking water from the creek under my stand ...
The buck at 11 yards ...
The buck at 16 yards ...
It was a new tree I went up with my climber this a.m. ... I was a little later getting in than I would have liked so no real time to cut shooting lanes ....
The buck spent most of his time in mixed cover ...
But offered some shot opportunities like when he walked away from the first picture = 11 yards ranged , head down , quartering away ... it is a bit of a blurry photo cause of the low light , 400 ISO on the camera ( should have been at least 800 to make up for the movement ) and I was probably shaking a bit ....
Having whitetails close , no matter what size , still gives me a thrill ...
Just finished downloading the pic's .... heading out to WMU80 to hunt with the rest of my crew .... hope to get some more pic's tonight .
Page Break .... Sunday P.M. stand ...
Headed to my stand approx 1/2 hr later than normal ... Right away I see a problem .... I have turkeys in the front field , so I got to try to sneak by them ...
I hunker in the fenceline for a couple of quick photo's ... looks like a hen and 3 young ones from this year ...
Two start to feed towards me ... ( they look like decoys )
The hen fluffs up to dry out after passing thru the fenceline ..
Eventually the turkeys see me and spook off so I continue to the stand , but I see deer on the path ahead of me ... I have to wait until they pass before I can continue to the stand ...
When I get to the stand I see the backs of some deer already in the field , so I have to be real quiet as I climb up the back of the tree ...
After what seems like forever I eventually slip into the stand ... ( I had to make many moves slowly while they had their heads down ... the wind is hard in my favor so they didn't hear me ... It ends up being a doe , with a button and doe fawn ...
And before I know it , the other group joins up with them ... there are actually 8 deer total , but one stays in the cover ( I suspect he is a buck but can't be sure )
The young fawns get silly every now and then as they race around in circles ...
The older ones duke it out under the apple tree ...
As the light fades I get one frame of 7 of them as a flock of geese fly over , heading to the lake ...
By 7:15 pm I had three of them stop by for apples approx 10 yards from my tree ( too dark for pic's ) ... they fade into the field and I came down to see how the rest of the group did ... All the guys saw deer , and CH got a cool video of a forkhorn behind his stand ... nobody tossed an arrow today , but we all had a great time " Watching the Nature Channel " today ...
