This year's schedule had me planning the latest public rut camp in the season I had tried, but I knew I had the wall tent and woodstove and would be cozy. There was a statewide burn ban on, but my woodstove was legal. Would the deer be active?
DAY 1
I set up for 4 1/2 days of deer hunting in the mountains of Allegheny County. Snow and wind expected but it has been unseasonably warm rut so far. Hoping for some luck. Most of the other hunters I invited bailed out except for my brother and Evan was supposed to be arriving tomorrow. Good to get away into the real world and out of the virtual one. The WX may get some bucks moving.
Nothing at all this evening hunting around camp. Raining now gusts to 45 mph tonight. Calling for snow tomorrow evening. We’ll see. Cold weather should get them moving. Tomorrow will calm and be a good shot. Cozy tonight in the wall tent with smoke dragon fired up!
DAY 2
Had a great morning in a nearby WMA. Saw 6 different bucks and one was a doozy. Unfortunately, the shots never presented themselves. Had a spike at 10 yards and a small 6 at 15 from me in the packseat. The terrain is open now and hunting from the ground is challenging, but the bucks were certainly moving. Supposed to get up to an inch of snow tomorrow and I’ll be back there. Hope luck shines. Evan can't make it down now until tomorrow, so I am in this big wall tent solo. I could have saved a lot of work and stayed in my brother's camper if I had known, but camp would not be the same.
The good news was that the park office called to tell me the burn ban had been lifted so we had fire.
Exhausted, tomorrow is another day.
Day 3
Morning on the mountain had some tracking snow. I found a great set up for the waldrop and there were some fresh beds nearby.
Dang doe came from behind me and caught my wind at bow length away! Later a spike showed up and didn’t have a clear shot through the vines until he was too close and picked me out. After a foot stomp and some feigned attempts to get me to move he moved downwind and that was that.
Evan showed up and then my brother left camp for social engagements. Small camp this year.
This afternoon we hit some clearcut around camp in the sleet. I kicked a 6 point that ran toward Evan, but alas it never showed for him.
Steady rain now but we had some good food and we’ll see how it is in the morning.
Day 4
Weather has been steady, windy and raw. This morning I was set up watching two converging trails on joining ridges in the clearcut by camp nearby where I saw the 6 in the rain yesterday. Then right at 7:20am here come another compound hunter with his bow strapped on his back as his girl walked behind him about 5 yards back. I waved and he looked confused and did a triple take probably wondering why I had a longbow, plaid, and white feathers. Anyway, no action after that.
In the evening, Evan had to return home unexpectedly, so we decided to go to the WMA and target squirrels which were plentiful there and I would push the ridge toward him stillhunting.
I got close to a spike I worked up on sneaking along an edge. He had a bad limp. I couldn’t work closer to about 35 yards as he was walking away. The wind probably tipped him off after I last lost sight of him. I did manage to scare a few squirrels today though. Tough hunting this public land in the wind and sporadic rain.
As I sat there, this campfire stone looked to me that it had a fossil embedded into it? I'll have to research that later.
Tomorrow, I pack up after breakfast.
