opening weekend of muzzle loader

Mike, Brent, and I braved the start of the “silly season” on the first weekend of muzzle loading season. Brent with the hawken, me with the flintlock, and Mike with his MOAB. There were two other trucks in the parking area when we got there in the dark.

We got set up. Mike was in his stand when one guy comes in and he flashes him with the headlamp multiple times to let him know he was there. The guy sets up about 45 yards from him anyway. Later it was light and the guy is sitting facing Mike at 45 yards sitting at the bottom of a tree. Does not see him. A group of deer come by and Mike is worried the guy would shoot toward him! However, he does not. Later his friend, who reminded Mike of a “big orange gumdrop”, stops by and has a chat with the dude and leaves. Finally, the guy stands to pee and then Mike realized he never knew he was there. At noon Mike climbs down and the guy finally sees him. Brent was up his normal tree and had a guy in a big red ATV cruise by his twice through the woods. Not even on a trail! The guy had on no orange and seemed to have on camo clothing. WOW! I was set up in my normal white oak area below Brent. I did not see any action I can only attribute to the orange invasion all over the woods since I had seen the same group of deer at this spot 3 hunts in a row. I did see a fox squirrel that looked like it was piebald. It had a half all white tail. It was light tan in color with a white spot on its head. I nearly cut loose with the 50 cal. on it, but was waiting for a deer. Around time to get Mike back to the house at noon, I had a flock of 11 turkey come in and bed about 50 yards from me. I have never had turkey sit and sleep in front of me. They had a couple alert sentinel birds and the rest where hunkered down in the leaves or perched on a fallen log.

I got Mike back to the house and his car, and headed back to the woods. I had to be back at 5pm so Angela could enjoy October fest at the community center where we had her baby shower. I just brought the gun and sat on the ground at my spot below Brent. At about 330 a guy in orange with a silver ML slung over his shoulder walked past me at about 30 yards from behind, He never saw me. I radioed Brent at 4pm and said I had to leave at 430-445, but if he wanted to he could stay. He started getting down and spooked a big doe toward me. I “baaaad” to stop it in an opening at about 45 yards and it stopped right with a small diameter tree near the vitals. I aimed slightly to the right of it and the hair trigger activated a bit sooner than I was expecting. The deer ran off out of sight. I checked the shot sight and found 2 clumps of hair so I immediately started after it. The woods was pretty open but I searched all the way to the property lines and where the guy that had passed me was set up. I never saw and blood so I left the woods as I was running late. The next day I headed back with the longbow to find out more. I hiked all over the place and really looked hard at the shot sight and direction of travel. No blood, no splatter, nothing but some tufts of white hair. I am pretty sure I just grazed it.

I did see a nice buck running the ridgeline at a distance. The woods was very pretty.

Secrets of hunting - Fred Bear

Good stuff here:

Blackwater Sika hunt

Mike was kind enough to coordinate this hunt down to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge for Maryland’s “little elk”. We arrived Friday afternoon in time to meet Mike’s friend Paul. Paul is a serious and seasoned sika chaser, and was kind enough to guide us into some promising areas and give us some tips. The area we were in was one that borders a private lease and the deer like to come from the marsh toward the feeders in the evening. This was also prime sika rut time, so there was always a chance a chasing stag would run a hind by us as well. Entering into the edge of the marsh we spotted a couple persimmon trees. The fruit was just starting to drop, and there was only 1 fruit on the ground I saw. The area was totally tracked up. No whitetails were in this area so they had to be sika sign. We crossed a ditch, and entered the edge of the marsh area. Paul set us up along another perpendicular ditch where we spotted a rub and a small wallow on the hardwoods side. Mike and I found some trails leading across the ditch and set up about 60 yards from each other covering the corner of the ditch.

As the afternoon turned to evening, the wind picked up. Those narrow pine trees had us and our climbers swaying and fearful. I think I was almost seasick by the time we left! Since this was public land and the blackwater sika season is very short, we soon had much company in the woods. We were not set up deep in the marsh and soon we began to see a parade of hunters march by on their way in, unfortunately upwind of us. Mike alerted one of the hunters who came by, and the man stated he just shot a hind, not far from the lot. He thought he may have gut shot it, and was thinking about coming back for it in the morning. We could hear bugling as evening progressed. The wind made things very chilly, and as darkness came upon us we jittered our way down the trees and headed for some warmth of the trucks. Mike, Paul, and I hit the Holiday inn express and plotted the plan for the next morning over a couple Papa John pizzas. We bumped into a couple TBM guys in the lobby. Huh, we thought their Blackwater hunt was the previous weekend and they were camping? We chatted a bit and they said, “the area we were headed to the next morning was “pounded hard”. Oh well, we were planning on going deep to avoid the crowds. Brent would have loved the next morning! We got up at 4am and headed to the parking area by 4:30. We passed 2 truck loads of guys parked along the road unloading hunters. When we approached the parking lot and trail head, we saw about 5 other guys heading in. Then, in the lot were another 5 or 6 guys getting ready to start out. We donned our waders and started the hour long march through knee high water and 10 foot tall frag grass. Paul toted a small sled/boat he used to pack in some of his gear, and we would use to pull and animals out should we get lucky. Paul had us in a spot he saw a nice stag chasing the morning before. We checked the gps and spread out on a line covering the area. The wind from the previous evening was down, but the temps were cold now. We were steaming and sweating by the time I got to the base of my tree and had to strip off the chest waders and don my wool longjohns and warm clothes quickly. It is always tough to find a tree and set up when you have never been to an area before dark. I ended up right in front of a Y trail in the frag grass….no way to shoot if they came from that direction.

As it turned out, all the other 15 guys marched, like us, to the same area. Paul got bumped twice by headlamps in the trees he was planning to get into. I could hear obvious hunter bugling coming from behind me as soon as the first light began to glow. We were surrounded! It was a cold morning even with the dry wool I had carried in. There was not too much back cover in those skinny pines in the swamp.

A few hours after sun up, I heard a compound shoot followed by splashing in Paul’s direction. I glanced up at Paul, but he had not shot. As it turns out, another hunter had a hind come in range and missed (compound). That hunter did not know a stag was following the hind, but Paul did. They both approached and he focused on the stag, but the hind looked up and spotted him. Both deer bounded away and all three of us got to see the nice tall antlered stag. As they left the area we could hear the other hunters trying to bugle him back in.

We left the tree after the guy that missed walked out under our stands, then after lunch we hunted the evening back in the area we hunted the previous day. We were pooped from that 1.5 mile walk in and out of that marsh. We set up that evening near the parking area, covering the trail out of the marsh where the deer would cross into the private lease and feeders. There were also a couple of white oaks dropping acorns there. About a half hour before dark another hunter came under Mike again (getting to be a habit for him), and he was dragging a nice 3x3 stag out of the deep marsh. We stayed until dark and chatted with him in the parking lot as the stags that got away bugled into the darkness.

We drove back to Frederick at about 1130pm completely bushed, but it was a fun time chasing those cool little elk.

Columbus Day Bowhunt

Brent and I headed out to R farm early Monday. It was the first cold morning. No real frost but I was glad I had my wool on. There was a constant cold breeze. I ducked down over the hill on the way through the top field and set up in a place that watches that trail as well as a crossing to a large poplar tree that used to be the central tree of the field before it became overgrown. At about 8:30 I spotted a 3 point with about 14 inches of spread was about 35 yards downhill of me. I could have risked a shot at one point, but that was not the buck I wanted to fill my tag this early in the year. It passed by going toward beds and cover. I had a kestrel that was chasing a blue jay around, come back in to my movement and dive bomb me a few times. It was really curious and let me take a couple pics.

Around 9:30 a 6 point came from the same general direction of the 3 point. It has a unique rack. It was oval in shape. Tall, with the antler almost touching and only about 5 inches of spread. It went on a path just perfectly by my right side toward the crossing. It paused about 10 yards to my left and proceeded to lick it’s off side. Never a more perfect shot opportunity! I let him go and pulled out the camera again. He crossed right where I had planned him to.

Around noon, I saw another yearling doe (finally) still sporting it’s summer brown. It never came closer than 60 or 70 yards away. Soon after that the rains chased us from our trees. I spent the evening putting a hang on stand in my backyard. I can’t say those things are easy to install or get into. Not the most re-assuring stand in terms of safety I think.

Saturday morning bowhunt 082912

Mike, Brent, and I headed to the "R farm" on Saturday morning. I set up my climber a little downhill from Brent’s tree, where I had the encounter with the decent buck near some white oaks. Like clockwork at 7:30, 4 adolescent bucks came in on a string. There were two smaller spikes, and two fork brothers in the group. One had really nice palmated mass at his forks. Tall but narrow antlers. I decided to pass on them all. Too early in the season to be burning my archery buck tag on those when the rut is not even in yet. Two does with the longbow will be a tall order before November.

They milled about under my stand for about 45 minutes feeding. Sounded like pigs eating. I could have shot any one of them a number of times. The only sharp one in the group was this small spike that kept looking up at me and getting nervous, but he would eventually calm down and start feeding again. Eventually they wandered off toward Brent, and I was hoping he would get an opportunity. They passed him about 50 yards away and he was using his Ben Pearson recurve. After that a large squirrel came by and I shot him at about 12 yards.

Later in the morning I saw a deer far off down the hill and I thought it may approach, but never did. I eventually got down to flush it toward Brent or Mike, but I did not move anything. Then, when Brent was leaving he chased a ”very large bodied deer” out of it’s bed. I am betting it was the larger buck I missed last Saturday. On the way back to the truck, I ran into a flock of 12 hen turkey. They passed my about 40 yards away on the trail.

Mike ended up seeing a doe that played cat-and-mouse with him for a while, but never offered him a shot. He also passed on two small spikes he saw. He had seen a flock of 8 turkey, which I am guessing was the same group I saw, as they were heading from that general location.

missed opportunity 092212

It was foggy and warm when Brent and I parted ways and headed to our respective stand sites. I was going to set up in a multi-trunked tree farther down the cut, but had never approached that area from that direction before. I searched, but could not find it. I was near a good area on a crossing trail to the cut, so I decided to just find a suitable tree here as it was already getting light. As I pulled up my bow, put on my head net, and started to put on my armguard and glove, I saw a doe about 15 yards from me already! I was not ready. As I fought to get on my armguard and glove on, she must have seen some movement. She headed back downwind of me and slowly fed away. Oh well, maybe Brent will see it? I sat for about 15 more minutes when I heard deer approaching. Again, from behind and to the right of me. I could see it was two bucks so I stood and turned to face the tree before they got too close. Turns out, there was a nice group of mature white oaks there! I saw the far buck was a small 6 or fork, but the nearer one had some mass and a big body. It was a mature buck. I managed to get into shooting position as it was feeding on some branches above its head. I saw a good spread on the antlers. It was one I would not regret shooting with the longbow. I had to crouch a little to shoot under a branch, but the buck was about 15 yards from the tree and I saw a few big poplar leaves where obscuring the vitals. I decided to aim at that leaf. I came to full draw, and then released. All heck broke loose and that buck took off like his a$$ was on fire! Tail down and did not stop or slow until he got about 80 yards away and I saw a little white flag as it hesitated for a moment on the crest of a hill, before continuing over. The smaller buck was busy scraping at the leaves with its hoof and did not know what had happened. He had a hard time keeping up. I could not see the arrow and had no clue if I hit the deer, but it sure took off like I did. As I sat waiting, in about 15 minutes another group of small bucks (forks and spikes, two still in velvet) came in along the same trail my buck had lit out on. The one actually came directly under my tree and was eating leaves looking up at me. I had to try to take a picture, but he saw movement and jumped a few yards and blew about 15 times. He eventually left the other two adolescents, who eventually went back to feeding and moved on down the hill. I could have shot at any one of these. I got down to search the site. No hair or blood at the impact site…..but no arrow either?! I finally found the broken half of my arrow about 15 yards father from the hit site. I had fired a blunt into the ground just after the shot, so I knew exactly where the buck was standing. The broken shaft had no hair or blood and was split at the cresting along the grain. I went to where I last saw the buck, but found no blood again. Never did find so much as a pin drop.

So although I cannot figure out what happened exactly, I had to have missed: 1. The shot site had no hair and I was shooting a BIG 4 blade head. 2. The arrow was split along the grain and there was no sign of any blood. 3. I searched the entire area and never found a single hair or drop of blood anywhere between where I shot and where I lost sight. I figure I must have missed, probably high, and my arrow exploded on a rock or tree. I have no idea where the broadhead half went (that bothers me a little), but it was not for lack of searching. I have no idea how the broken half got the total distance of the shot away from where it should have impacted either? Brent and I searched a grid around the area onto the next property but never found a thing. I need to do a better job of aiming next time. That buck is a little smarter now.

Sept. 15th, first whitetail trip of the year

I finally got out to take advantage of my first deer hunting session of the year Saturday morning. I had a birthing class at noon I had to be back for, so I just took my stool and hunted from the ground. When I got to the R farm I noticed that the gate was up and the grasses were about chest high. No one seemed to have been in there yet. I entered the fields just after sun up and immediately saw a deer standing in the wood line. It made me and eased back inside the thick foliage. I circled back above "Bear's" stand and went through the thicket. The trails that were open in the fall were all but choked up. I had great difficulty getting through the ditch area, and there was no being quiet. I set up my stool on the edge of the thicket. After waiting only around 20 minutes, I hear deer walking. I could make out a line of bachelor bucks crossing in front of me about 45 yards out. I saw two forks, followed by a decent 6 point, then a straggler still-in-velvet spike. They passed and in about 20 more minutes they came back closer. The velvet spike initially bedded down about 30 yards from me, then the two forks came and chased it out of it's bed. Bullies! The two forks walked around my position at about 20 yards and I had any number of shots at them as they gazed back downhill away from me. I was waiting for a doe or a bigger buck. They eventually eased out and I saw what they were looking at downhill. It was the larger 6 point. He was just cruising around about 60 yards out.

The velvet spike came back and bedded about 10 yards in front of me for about 20 minutes. I tried to get some decent pics but could not until he got up. It then started to get suspicious of me as I was trying to photo it. I walked about 10 feet from me at one point! Eventually it circled downwind, but I still had to shoe it away! Curious little bugger.

It turned out to be a nice day in the woods!