Ben's semi-live 2024 hunt thread

[TheBenHoyle]

The plan was to go out today and sit all day in those same woods. On New Year's Day I tested positive for covid and I have been pretty badly wiped out. Yesterday I felt better and I was hoping I would feel even better today.

I modified my plan to be an afternoon hunt thinking I would feel good enough to handle it and the afternoon is when I have been seeing the best deer movement.

I woke up this morning maybe feeling better than yesterday, but I wouldn't bet any money on it. My head is very stuffy and I'm pretty low energy.

I spent a lot of time thinking about my options and trying to figure out if I could handle the cold temps and the exertion, but in the end I decided to not push it. I'll spend my afternoon watching the Bears improve their draft pick placement and maybe do some woodworking. The deer will be out there next weekend.

 

[TheBenHoyle]

I went out for an all day sit on Saturday. There was fresh snow and I saw tracks in the snow, but they looked like they had been snowed on. So the deer had been in those woods within that past 24 hours. I was hoping they would wander through in the morning, or midday or just before dark.

I was wrong on all three counts. I didn't see any deer until about sunset and the two does were about 400 yards north east of me on someone else's property...

I didn't hear any turkeys, which is always bizarre in this spot. But it has been more common for me this year than it has in the past.

I have until the 19th to fill my archery tag, but I am not positive that I will get a chance to go out. I have a college visit for my oldest on the 19th, so if I get out it will have to be the 18th. I'm pretty discouraged after Saturday, but the law of averages tells me that I should be a little hopeful that I will see deer the next time out.

 

[TheBenHoyle]

I've got one last hunt on the 2024-2025 archery tags on my pocket. Headed out in the morning. I'm going to try basically the same thing I have done the past three hunts, but I might be a little less patient if I'm not seeing deer. I might move north and try to get closer to the creek since that's where I have constantly seen deer.

It's going to be 30ish in the morning and then as the day goes on the temps will just go down, will be near 10 at sunset I think. Hoping that has deer on their feet a little earlier in the day.

 

[TheBenHoyle]

Saturday was cold. Got into the woods about 45 minutes before legal shooting light and waited until sunrise before I slipped down the quarry and still hunted through the woods. I heard no turkeys and saw no deer. I got all the way to the northern part of the L and looked to the north but there was nothing going on, and the wind was howling.

I made note of a couple good climbing trees and then decided to back out and head to some public land about 40 minutes west. I wanted to move my camera since I hadn't seen much action on it lately and have not seen any turkeys. I pulled a spring turkey tag for that public land and I wanted to move the camera to a spot that I have encountered turkeys in the past.

I got over there and hiked in to the camera. Moved it to another spot and then slowly hiked back to the truck. Was looking for sign, but there wasn't anything jumping out at me so I decided I would head back to the place I was that morning with a plan to be in a tree by about 2.

Got back in to the north leg of the L and went up a Hackberry that was one of the two I had seen in the morning. Hackberries are good and bad to climb. They have bark with a lot of texture so ropes have a lot to bite into, which is good. But it also means that sometimes you have trouble positioning ropes because there is too much for ropes to catch on, which is bad. Also, some of that texture is brittle and it will break off and you slip a little bit before something else catches, which is bad. But it was a nice straight tree and it had great shooting lanes, so I was happy to have found it.

One hour before legal shooting light was over, I had 5 does come out of the woods to the north and curl around to the picked beans in front of me. They were about 80-120 yards straight north. I was hoping they would feed around and maybe come to the field edge by me which would be 20-35 yard shot. Or even better, they would decide to come into the woods and be right at my feet for a 10 yard or less shot.

I was watching them pretty intently when all of a sudden 5 more does came from straight west along my field edge. Sadly, as soon as they got into the beans they angled out to meet up with the others. Closest they got to me was 50ish yards. But I was stoked, 10 does and over 45 minutes for one of them to amble my way. I liked my odds.




You can see two of them easily in the picture and if you zoom in you can probably pick out a few more all stretched out about 80 ish yards north of my field edge. They all came from the alfalfa field to the left in the distance.

There were a couple fawn/yearling does that wandered over to the corner of my side of the field and looked like they might start coming in to the woods. They were 40-50 yards west of me and I was getting ready, when one of them blew and took off running west into the alfalfa.

Now I have no idea what caused that, it wasn't my smell since there was a very strong wind coming my way from that direction. Another couple young does came over to investigate and they stood in the field staring at something just into the woods and stomping and sniffing. Eventually one of them flipped out and blew and ran off. Wasn't too long until all of the does had run about 150 yards west in the alfalfa field where they resumed browsing.

I don't know what it was, but I assume there was a possum or some ground animal that was a curiosity to the deer and eventually they decided it was scary enough to want to be away from it.

Just to add a little twist of the knife about the time the does all formed up again in the alfalfa, 4 bucks came out of the woods to the north and made a beeline to join up with them. Had those does not decided to investigate whatever it was, they might have all been in the beans just north of me and one of those deer might have gotten a car ride home...

But that is my hunting season this year in a nutshell. Lot's of excitement but nothing quite worked out as well as I would have hoped. I did have a neat hunt in Hawaii and I shot my first turkey with a bow, but both of those hunts could have gone better and taught me a few lessons I will take with me into future hunts.

I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get any waterfowl hunting in this year, but I don't have very good access so that is always a possibility that it won't work out.

I'm not quite ready to close this out. I will probably try to get a coyote hunt in the next few weeks and then I will close the books on 2024-2025. In April I will start my new thread with some turkey hunting. Always look forward to turkey hunting.