Author Topic: Archery Season coming up (Read 1067 times)

wsdstan · « **on:** August 19, 2020, 09:42:49 AM »

Archery starts in a bit over two weeks around here. This guy has me interested in sitting in my blind a little bit. Still a little velvet on him but he is pretty good for these parts. He has been coming in with three others a couple times a week but today he was with a couple of does.

imnukensc · « **Reply #1 on:** August 19, 2020, 03:23:19 PM »

Easy to see why you'd want to sit in your blind!

wolfy · « **Reply #2 on:** August 19, 2020, 03:58:59 PM »

I hope he positions himself that nicely when bow season opens.....talk about a perfect shot opportunity!

wsdstan · « **Reply #3 on:** August 19, 2020, 08:42:45 PM »

Me too!

Plumber · « **Reply #4 on:** August 21, 2020, 05:30:33 AM »

That's a nice buck! I'd mount him with the arrow across his antlers.

wsdstan · « **Reply #5 on:** September 10, 2020, 08:07:00 PM »

An update on archery season.

The big buck has been back twice but not for a week. There are six other bucks and two are pretty good. None came close until today.

I moved one blind up to the downwind side of an alfalfa field that they come into two or three times a week. I went in the house to get my stuff for the hunting and when I looked out the window they were already out there. One was a 5x6 and decent, one was a good 4x4 and there was a spike. Then three others came in from the south and stayed up high in the field. The first three grazed to twenty yards of the new blind location and then had the audacity to lay down. No way to sneak up on them so I just watched them for an hour and a half and then they left. Today was a shoulda, woulda, coulda, sort of day. I enjoyed it anyway. Excuse the poor photos as they are taken through the storm door off the kitchen entryway and are telephoto shots.

The biggest of the two good ones:

The smaller of the two:

Sarge · « **Reply #6 on:** September 13, 2020, 01:04:55 PM »

Nice! Good luck!

wsdstan · « **Reply #7 on:** September 13, 2020, 06:53:24 PM »

Thanks Mike, I got the Kephart and the belt knife ready to go but nobody comes close....... so far.

Sarge · « **Reply #8 on:** September 13, 2020, 07:54:30 PM »

Heck yeah!

crashdive123 · « **Reply #9 on:** September 14, 2020, 06:08:25 PM »

Good hunting.

wsdstan · « **Reply #10 on:** September 14, 2020, 08:00:37 PM »

Thanks Crash.

OutdoorEnvy · « **Reply #11 on:** September 16, 2020, 07:05:23 AM »

Those are nice. Especially that big one. He looks like an excellent symmetrical 10 point. Very cool. Looking forward to the updates!

wsdstan · « **Reply #12 on:** September 16, 2020, 08:02:27 PM »

Didn't go out today but about an hour before sunset a bunch of mule deer bucks came down to the alfalfa we cut this week. They came from the West so I think they are on my neighbors place and he hasn't let anybody hunt his ground for about three years. I have lived here twenty one years and this is the best bunch I have seen. Couldn't get a photo of them all together but got a couple of okay photos. I was shooting with the camera at the end of optical zoom and lost a few photos to shake.

They were about 240 yards from my deck and out in the open ground where an archer would have had a tough time with them. Fun to see though. A couple of them might have some velvet left.

wolfy · « **Reply #13 on:** September 17, 2020, 10:04:57 AM »

Does your neighbor or his relatives hunt deer, too? Just wondering why he'd disallow hunting.....& especially to a neighbor of many years.

wsdstan · « **Reply #14 on:** September 17, 2020, 10:58:27 AM »

He does hunt as does some of his family. He like to shoot coyotes more than anything. He bought the place about five years ago and after two years of letting friends and family hunt it he noticed there were no decent bucks at all. The road hunters are particularly bad on his place as there are no houses along some of his borders with the county roads. Anyway, he stopped letting people hunt (friends and family) except in certain areas, posted it, and drives the area a lot during early morning and late in the day looking for road hunters.

We work trades for gravel and rock with him by spraying weeds in the spring and he would let me hunt but would keep me out of the "good" areas. His goal is big bucks and this year his efforts are starting to work I think.

wolfy · « **Reply #15 on:** September 17, 2020, 04:07:29 PM »

OK.....he gets a pass from me then.

wsdstan · « **Reply #16 on:** September 20, 2020, 08:30:58 PM »

If a hunter could screw up a opportunity more than me tonight I would not want to see it.

Went out about 5:30 PM to a set up that has been good over the years. Big tree, lots of grass and a gully that runs up to where the tree is. There is a spring in the gully about fifty feet from the big tree and a lot of deer use that gully as a highway to the upper and lower fields.

Lot of does out the first hour and a couple of fawns came over and bedded down about twenty five feet from where I was sitting. They left for awhile and then one came back and lay down again. About 6:00 PM a buck comes over from the north side of the gully. He is a 4x4 with a small rack so he gets a pass. Range finder says he was at 34 yards when he stood surveying the alfalfa field to the west and south of the gully. A half hour later he comes back and is standing on my left about the same place. Now time to make my first mistake. I shift my legs to the left on the hunting chair and am facing to the north. While watching the buck there is some movement to my right and the big five point walks up through the deep grass and stops twenty feet from me on my far right. If I draw and turn he will be gone before I can get the bow sight on him. He goes up the side of the gully and stops but he watches where I am sitting almost constantly. I think he is going to leave but he turns around and comes back down the side of the gully. Now I am thinking he is going to cross over the left side and I can get a good shot as soon as he crossed the bottom. Nope. He turns back and goes south and out into the alfalfa field. I get up as soon as he is out of sight and start to go up high enough to get a shot if he is range but manage to slip and fall. I make so much noise the buck on the other side snorts and runs off and I can see horns heading west as the big buck gets out of there. I go sit down feeling stupid and old at the same time. Thinking of leaving then but the smaller buck comes back and looks at me. He is fifty yards out. Then the big buck comes back but keeps his angle at fifty yards from my spot which is at least ten yards past my shooting limit. They go on down the field and into the gully.

I go to the house and my wife tells me that the big buck was in the yard before he went over to the gully and I could have got him from the north side of the house.

It seems like Larry, Moe, and Curly could not have made a bigger mess of this thing than I did tonight. Guess that is why I love to hunt.

wolfy · « **Reply #17 on:** September 20, 2020, 10:39:13 PM »

Wish I could have been there to rib you unmercifully, but this will have to do.....

wsdstan · « **Reply #18 on:** September 21, 2020, 05:36:40 PM »

Moe M. · « **Reply #19 on:** September 22, 2020, 05:59:33 AM »

Quote from: wsdstan on September 20, 2020, 08:30:58 PM

If a hunter could screw up a opportunity more than me tonight I would not want to see it.

Went out about 5:30 PM to a set up that has been good over the years. Big tree, lots of grass and a gully that runs up to where the tree is. There is a spring in the gully about fifty feet from the big tree and a lot of deer use that gully as a highway to the upper and lower fields.

Lot of does out the first hour and a couple of fawns came over and bedded down about twenty five feet from where I was sitting. They left for awhile and then one came back and lay down again. About 6:00 PM a buck comes over from the north side of the gully. He is a 4x4 with a small rack so he gets a pass. Range finder says he was at 34 yards when he stood surveying the alfalfa field to the west and south of the gully. A half hour later he comes back and is standing on my left about the same place. Now time to make my first mistake. I shift my legs to the left on the hunting chair and am facing to the north. While watching the buck there is some movement to my right and the big five point walks up through the deep grass and stops twenty feet from me on my far right. If I draw and turn he will be gone before I can get the bow sight on him. He goes up the side of the gully and stops but he watches where I am sitting almost constantly. I think he is going to leave but he turns around and comes back down the side of the gully. Now I am thinking he is going to cross over the left side and I can get a good shot as soon as he crossed the bottom. Nope. He turns back and goes south and out into the alfalfa field. I get up as soon as he is out of sight and start to go up high enough to get a shot if he is range but manage to slip and fall. I make so much noise the buck on the other side snorts and runs off and I can see horns heading west as the big buck gets out of there. I go sit down feeling stupid and old at the same time. Thinking of leaving then but the smaller buck comes back and looks at me. He is fifty yards out. Then the big buck comes back but keeps his angle at fifty yards from my spot which is at least ten yards past my shooting limit. They go on down the field and into the gully.

I go to the house and my wife tells me that the big buck was in the yard before he went over to the gully and I could have got him from the north side of the house.

It seems like Larry, Moe, and Curly could not have made a bigger mess of this thing than I did tonight. Guess that is why I love to hunt.

Did someone call my name,

I guess that's one way to look at it Stan, but I'd look at it another (of course it wasn't my lost meat), I'd say that instead of a lost opportunity to harvest some freezer meat you took full advantage of a great opportunity to create a laughable moment in your memory that you can recount as many times as you like, in reading your past posts and viewing your pictures of the game on your farm it doesn't look like there's any shortage of hunting opportunities, but how often does the opportunity to laugh at ones self and get to brag on it present itself ?

wsdstan · « **Reply #20 on:** September 22, 2020, 09:16:27 AM »

My sentiments precisely Moe, thanks.

crashdive123 · « **Reply #21 on:** September 22, 2020, 06:13:14 PM »

Nothing at all wrong with that hunt. That's why it's called hunting.

wsdstan · « **Reply #22 on:** September 22, 2020, 09:12:34 PM »

I say that a lot, especially when using a bow.

Plumber · « **Reply #23 on:** September 27, 2020, 08:48:21 AM »

I think we have all made some mistakes like this. The one that comes to mind is, the time I was bow hunting (1967) and a big 4X4 buck came out of the tall grass around a creek, and stopped about 15 yards behind a bush, broadside. I was at full draw, and the buck was looking at me. I knew I couldn't hold it for long, and let the arrow fly. The arrow was headed for the middle of the chest, when it hit a twig, and you know the rest. One week later, the land owner's Uncle took the buck over a pile of apples.
It's no longer legal to bait deer in Minnesota.

wsdstan · « **Reply #24 on:** September 27, 2020, 11:49:07 AM »

Yep, stuff like that happens a lot. People usually don't talk about it though.

No baiting here in South Dakota either.

Plumber · « **Reply #25 on:** September 27, 2020, 07:43:55 PM »

In about 1991, I built a tree stand on a steep bank, near a creek, on the edge of an alfalfa field. I cleared a shooting lane to the bottom of the bank, near the creek. There was a good trail there, and I thought the deer would pass that way. A doe, a yearling, and a fawn came along the top of the bank, to feed on a small patch of red clover, but stopped before they got to my clearing. Than I saw a 4X4 buck coming at a fast trot, about 200 yards away. He got to the patch of clover, and started to feed. He came close to my shooting lane, and just as his head came into the clearing, the neighbors new puppy came running across the field. The does took off, with the dog after them. The buck stood his ground, and just watched the chase. I was at full draw, but couldn't get a shot. I let the bow string down, and stepped to the edge of my stand, so I could get a clear shot. When I drew the bow back, the arrow fell off the string, and went clanging to the ground.

wsdstan · « **Reply #26 on:** September 28, 2020, 08:41:11 AM »

I drew on a buck at thirty yards a few years ago and had a similar thing happen. I use a peep site that is inserted in the string. When I drew back the arrow came off of the rest and fell towards the inside of the bow handle so it was no longer aligned in the rest. I didn't know that and when I released the shot the arrow hit a tree ten feet in front of me and two feet to the side of where I was aiming. Took me awhile to figure out what happened.

madmaxine · « **Reply #27 on:** October 06, 2020, 01:11:32 PM »

Kelly, the dog pack, and I hike in the forest pretty much every day. Max is too old to chase deer and Tellico is just a F'n nut case at 7 months and no danger to any wildlife. We jump deer, bear, skunks, squirrel, and those pesky lizards everyday. Tellico tries to jump up and catch birds in flight. I hope he isn't as stupid as he acts. Anyway I sat in a stand a couple times so far. Sorta going through the motion to go through the motion. Kinda.

I'd like one deer this season. I will use all of that animal. I'd like my nephew to take one with his kit build Hawkens. He will use all of that animal. He learned to smoke a hide last year. Now a days its passing down the craft and skills.

wsdstan · « **Reply #28 on:** October 07, 2020, 09:00:32 AM »

That is a good point Tony. Passing things along is important. I often sit in the stand and watch things go by just to be doing it. While I didn't get any help when I was young I remember one of my uncles saying this about hunting; "when you pull the trigger the work starts". Funny how that has stuck with me for about sixty years.

Smoking hides sounds like something interesting to do. I have seen videos of people using stove pipe over a fire but have never seen it done in person.

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Author Topic: Archery Season coming up (Read 1067 times)