Ben's 2020 Semi-live hunt log

I took a day of vacation yesterday and drove out to that same spot for a Thursday mid-day/evening hunt. I was hoping that I would get a turkey and by rights I should have had one. Using the quarry to move east to west through the woods, I managed to pop over the rim within 20 yards of a pair of them. Problem was they saw me as I saw them and I was not set up to make a quick shot.

It was 30 minutes into the hunt though, so I set up and tried to call them back around but after a couple hours they were still missing from my field of view.

I decided to head back to the east and get out of the quarry and up into my stand. And like an idiot, I popped over the rim of the quarry and found the turkeys but again I was not ready for a quick shot and they decided to move off.

In both cases they didn't go roaring off in the brush putting. They just slowly walked away and it was too thick for me to get a shot beyond that initial sighting. It was a big disappointment to me, but I decided to get in the stand and hope that they would decided to come back in time to roost.

I had a buck fawn with velvet nubs feed through under the stand. I was enjoying watching him and then the hook holding my backpack in the tree failed. Boom! My bag falls 16 feet to the ground. Oddly enough that didn't spook the little buck. He came back into the woods and headed of in search of the noise I guess.

I got down from the tree and retrieved my bag. Then I took a spare hook out of it and went back up the tree to put it in for the next time.

I decided that with a couple hours left before legal shooting light, I would position in the corner of the woods where I had last seen the turkeys in hopes that they would want to roost there.

And it almost worked I think. I saw a couple birds slipping in from the field edge and was watching to see where they would next pop into view. Unfortunately, I think they were spooked off by the 5 or 6 deer that came slipping in behind them. So as the light slipped away I got to watch the deer ghost through the woods upwind of me. But no turkey... Maybe next time.
 
My plan right now is to go out and hunt in the morning. There's a full moon and a northwest wind with a 20 degree drop overnight, so I am hoping I will get into the stand while they are still feeding and that they will then want to bed near my stand. It is the southwest corner of the trees so it would be the most sheltered.

This will be the last day for my shotgun turkey tag and I am hoping that the turkeys will be in the trees near me too. I guess we'll see what those thoughts and plans are worth tomorrow morning. Either way, I'm not staying out too late it will be very windy (gusts up to 40 mph) and I have a lot of things to get done back home tomorrow too.
 
I went out this morning, but I miscalculated the time change and was walking in to my stand at legal shooting light. Not good. I bumped group of deer that were in the field I was walking across.

I got in the tree hoping that I hadn't ruined my morning and quickly decided that the 40 mph gusts were a little too much for me to want to be up in a tree. So down I went.

I was feeling stupid for having driven almost 2 hours to try to hunt without properly factoring in the time change and the forecasted winds, but I figured I should probably at least sneak down the quarry to see if the turkeys were in the woods.

On my first trip down the quarry I saw a couple of turkeys scooting out of the way as a decent size buck worked his way through from the north to the south. I watched him turn the corner to start working east and decided it was worth it to head back up the quarry to try to head him off at my stand.

I get to the stand and watch and wait and I see nothing. So back down the quarry I go. The turkeys are still there, but I don't see any deer so I sit and watch trying to come up with a plan to get in closer to the turkeys. Today was the last day for my shotgun season for turkey and I was thinking that if I could sneak in to 60-70 yards I might be able to get a shot, but the sneaking wasn't going to be easy.

And then I saw the buck again. It was almost an exact replay. Buck coming from the north, turning the corner to the east. So back up the quarry I go. This time when I get to the stand and feel ready I pull out my antlers and do a little rattling. And... nothing.

At this point I decide I was more interested in making a move on the turkeys than spending any more time in the stand, so I bail out and head back to the west where the turkeys are.

The problem with the quarry is it only goes so far and then you are exposed coming out of it. I decided to travel along a game trail that parallels the quarry on the north edge the woods, hoping that I can use trees as a screen to get in close.

Over the next 45 minutes I walked as slowly as I have ever walked and made it to a spot behind a double-trunk tree within 70 yards of the turkeys. They have no idea that I am there. I see a few step into a really nice open shooting lane and get a yardage on them. 57 yards is probably doable, but now they are out of that lane and moving closer. But they are behind a mess of brush that I can't shoot through well.

I'm hoping that they will get closer and I am hoping that some of the trailing turkeys will pass through that other opening. Finally I have one at about 45 yards who sticks his head out where I think I can hit it and I pull the trigger. He flops kind of and then disappears from view away and to the right.

All of the other turkeys run off in various directions so I move closer and I can't see any down turkey. I'm looking and I'm moving closer and then I see it - wings flapping, legs up in the air. There is a tree and a fence and a down tree between me and the bird, so I lose sight of him as I move closer and then he's not there.

I cross the down log and the turkey should be about 10 yards to my left. Then I see a turkey 10 yards to my right and it is running. I could have shot it, but I only had one tag and I was positive in that second that I had already shot one and this was not the one I shot.

I look back to the left as the one on the right disappears. And I something run off to the left from much closer to where I thought my bird was. Unfortunately it all happened so fast and it was running along behind another down log. I never got a look at what it even was.

I get up to where I thought the bird should be and I find a blood trail that goes off in a completely different direction, which I attempt to follow, but it Peters out and it didn't even look like fresh blood. I finally decide to sit down and call a little hoping to bring the birds back out of cover, but after an hour there was no movement...

I took a little more time to look around in case my bird had crawled under a bush and expired, but there was no sign of him. I am thinking that I did not hit him hard enough with the first shot. When I saw him flopping I should have stayed where I was and hit him with some more pellets.

It was a disappointing end to the day, but all in all it was an exciting hunt.

Now I am going to have to try and put an arrow in a turkey, which is not going to be easy, but I'll try.
 
Just a quick note. My CWD test came back negative so I can start eating my venison. I saved the heart this time and I think I am going to try that this week. I noticed that the heart has a cut line across it. So while I "missed" it and just had a double-lung shot I actually hit it slightly, although I am sure the buck expired due to the lack of lungs and not my superficial heart damage.

Also, I weighted out all of the meat and I ended up with 101 #s of venison. Not sure how to accurately back in to a live weight but it had to be close to 200 pounds. Sure felt like it when I was dragging him up to the corn field.

I'm planning on taking Wednesday off of work to do a hunt in a new piece of public I have never hunted before. There are supposedly turkeys in this spot. Might try to get out there a few times this year.
 
So there is a new twist in my hunting plans. Apparently we are going to spend a few days at a cabin in Wisconsin the week after Christmas. And the cabin is right on the edge of the Kettle Moraine State Forest Northern Unit. I will be buying a turkey tag and hopefully spend at least a few hours each day hunting. This will be a new area for me so I don't have high hopes for bringing home a turkey but it should be some fun.
 
Well I took tomorrow off of work and I will be heading out to that same stand. We had a warm windy day capped off with some rain and falling temps. It should be about 20 degrees cooler at the high tomorrow than it has been for a week. I am hoping that between that and the rut going on there will be deer on their feet midday.

Im going to have to be very careful as I get into the woods though. I would hate to blow out any deer that are on the edge of the woods and see me coming.
 
It was noon when I got out of my truck to walk into the stand yesterday. It was plenty sunny with a west wind and I was afraid that the deer would be bedded under my stand as it would be in the lee and there would be good sun coming in through the woods edge. So I walked very slowly and spent a lot of time with my Binos checking to make sure there weren't any deer that would bust me. I also used the rolling hills to get to within 10 yards of the woods edge without being seen from anything bedded in the woods.

As I stepped up to the edge I heard some blowing and saw a deer run off, but it wasn't because she saw me. Apparently there were a few doe fawns and a couple of bucks chasing right under my stand.

I waited a few minutes as they worked to the west and then I scooted in and got into my stand and no sooner had a sat down but two of the fawns come running back up my way.

I could see the bucks about 90 yards to the west in some brushy areas. Eventually the whole group joined up near the bucks and headed to the south into the picked corn field.

For about 45 minutes I watched this group chase around in the field. The big buck was chasing one of the does and the other two does were just sort of tagging along and every once in a while the smaller buck would try to flank the bigger buck and he would have to turn and chase him off. It was quite a show.

Eventually they all bedded along the far field edge, stretched along about 250 yards. I spent the next hour and a half watching them and hatching plans to get down and stalk in on the big buck.

Then I hears turkeys near me and I starting daydreaming about the turkeys wandering my way or maybe getting down and sneaking down the quarry to find the turkeys.

Just about the time I was going to do something stupid the deer across the field were back up on their feet. I spent the next half hour watching them run in circles hoping they would come back to my side of the field, but every time the pursued doe was headed the right direction the little buck would flank and turn her to the south.

Finally she broke through and was on a dead run right for me. The little buck stopped pursuing and it was just the doe, the big buck and me with my bow.

Now I had been investing myself in a storyline involving those deer all afternoon, so it is safe to say that when that doe came into ht trees I had already punched my tag in my head. Which is probably a great way to make sure you don't punch your tag.

I was at full draw and the bug was moving into that same opening where I shot my other buck. I tried to stop him, but he wasn't hearing anything and kept running.

The little doe flopped down and the buck was there at 30 yards looking at her. I figured that was a perfect time to let fly and didn't even try to get his attention. But unfortunately he jumped forward. I ended up shooting under him and he ran to the edge of the woods.

The doe jumped up and circled around and came right back to that spot and bedded right down again. The buck stood at the field edge looking for her, but he couldn't see her. He slowly, reluctantly wandered back to the south field edge and bedded down, stopping every 10 paces to look back at the woods.

I spent the rest of the hunt pinned down by this little doe. It was neat to watch, but I felt like an idiot for goofing up on my shot. I should have known that I should wait until the buck calmed down. But I was so caught up in the idea that I was owed a shot at this buck and that if I didn't take it in that moment I would miss my opportunity all together. Lesson learned.

I hope to get back out on the weekend but I'm watching the weather. They were calling for some rain.
 
I went out yesterday (Sunday) and it was less than ideal. There was unexpected (by me) driving rain in the morning, so I ended up hanging out at my parents' house until about 8:30.

I knew it was going to be windy, but I was hoping to be in the wooded area where I was thinking there would be deer and turkey action. But I ended up being in a stand that was at the top of a gully. While there were some deer bedded down in the gully and I could see lot's of sign, my best shot was going to be 12 yards with a 20-30 mph cross wind.

I hung out there until about 11:30 and decided to hop in the car and drive over to some public land and do a little scouting. It was about 40 minute drive and I ate my lunch and warmed up a little on the drive.

When I got there, I hiked down into the woods in a very steep gully and it was much calmer as the wind was shooting up over the tops of the trees. I saw some tracks and called for turkeys just to see if I would get a response, but I didn't hear anything. I do have it marked as a good spot to be in this spring if I pull a tag for that public land.

I also got a look at the backside of a stand of pines that is on a finger between the gully I hiked down and another on the other side. That looks like some good late-season bedding but I am not sure how I would hunt it. The uphill side is where the wind normally comes from and if I shot a deer on the downwind side I would run the risk of having to recover from down in the bottom. That I do not want. maybe hunt it on those weird East wind days...

I drove around a little bit on my back to the place I hunted in the morning. I saw a nice big flock of hens on a gravel road, which was nice. They were on private, but near the southern edge of the public unit. So I will keep that in mind the next time I scout.

Luckily I was able to go back in to the stand I normally hunt for the afternoon. Unluckily there were 15 toms and jakes milling around under the stand when I parked with nothing for cover between me and them except a field of picked corn. I really don't have another way to some in to this stand, so I tried to use the screening of field edge trees and shrubs to minimize my visibility.

That didn't work. They scooted off to the north edge of the woods. But once they were out of sight, I was out of sight so I hoped they would loaf around to the north long enough for me to get into the stand and then filter back in.

Not long after I got in the stand I saw turkeys about 80 yards west of me. It didn't look like they saw me, but they were definitely headed west. I thought about getting down and using the quarry to get to the west and maybe catching up with them, but I was hoping they would come back around.

I hung out in the stand for about 3 hours and I had deer running around, including a doe that somehow got right up behind my tree without me seeing and then took off at a dead run straight underneath me. I was looking to see what had chased her, but nothing showed up... I don't think she caught my scent, but that seems to end the chasing. I saw the deer feed out into the picked corn about 150 yards west of me but after about an hour they went right back into the trees.

All in all it was an ok day. I managed to see some stuff and a learned a little, but ultimately I was never even close to picking up my bow for a shot.

Planning on going out on Wednesday for a hunt but then I'll be hanging it up for a bit. Next weekend is firearm deer season and I stay away from that in Illinois. Then I have Thanksgiving weekend, which I might try to get out on that Saturday or Sunday, but I probably won't because I'll earn some brownie points with my wife if I take a little break. The weekend after that is the second firearm season, so it might be mid-December before I get a chance to get semi-serious about getting out my bow again. Hopefully Wednesday will bring me a story to share.
 
Tonight I made venison fajitas for dinner. And as an added bonus, my fajita meat was the heart from my buck. I have never had heart before and I have to say it was really good. It is nice and firm, but very tender. I'll make a point of saving the heart out of any deer I take in the future.

I offered it to my wife to try but she wasn't up to it. I think in the future, I will cut the heart into 3 or 4 steaks and freeze them separately so that I can cook them up just for me.

I'm taking a vacation day tomorrow and heading out to that stand I normally hunt. It is a south wind, which isn't great, but it is also not terrible. It will be my last hunt for the year during the rut. It would be nice to put an arrow through another deer and even better to put an arrow through a turkey. Whatever happens I will share the story later.
 
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