Excellent Week

[Art 20]

It's been a good week here in the southeast U.S. for whitetails. Last Thursday I took my 15 year old son out on a morning hunt. About 7 am it was just full light and we were walking to our stand when a nice big doe stepped out at 90 yds. I told my son he could take the doe if he wanted as the farmer told us to shoot anything or he could wait for a buck. Youth and enthusiasm being what they are he opted to try for the one in front of him and made his shot. She spun around just as he fired and vanished in the thick young pines and briars. Thinking he had missed his shot I made a rookie mistake by immediately going to the spot where the deer had stood. We had several deer jump and run when we reached the spot. We found hair and blood and spent the next hour working the scant blood trail. Then we called my brother to bring the dog out. The dog quickly worked out about 200 yds of trail and found more blood all along but lost the deer in thick briars when it crossed over to another property. I'm confident the deer was gut shot and would have bled out close by us if we had left it 30 minutes before beginning the pursuit. I should have known better.

 

Took my 13 year old daughter Sunday afternoon and a doe stepped out at just over 100 yds. With a beauty of a shot she rolled it over with the Marlin 30-30 and it never got back up. This was her 3rd deer and she drops them all right where they stand. She knows where to aim and never misses her mark. Just love to watch her shoot.

 

Took my 15 year old again yesterday morning. Nearly froze in the shooting house for about 3 hours. Had a little patch of sunshine coming through the window and I kept alternating putting one gloved hand then the other in the sunbeam to try to glean a little warmth for my cold fingers. Finally a nice large doe came into the field soon joined by 2 more. My son took the biggest one. She ran out of the field when he shot but this time we stayed put for a while. She was easy to find laying only 30 yards from the field in the pines. While we waited in the shooting house 2 more does came into the field 5 minutes after he shot and I could have added another one to the sausage but opted to let them go on their way. I'll not pull the trigger again this year myself unless I see some decent antlers.

 

We have a shooting house behind the office and my son and my 2 brothers jumped 18 while walking the dogs at lunch today. I had stayed behind to sharpen my knives thinking they wouldn't see anything. My brother said one was the biggest buck he's ever seen. Only a 10 pointer but very wide spread and excellent tine height. Got this one on camera last year when he was a six point. Nice to know he's still around and doing so well. Might drag myself out of bed early enough tomorrow to sit in the shooting house for a bit before I have to be in the office at 8. I'll be taking my 10 year old son Saturday morning to try to get his first deer.

 

Good hunting all!

[sussex 5,777]

Shame about the lost one , it's a mistake that most of us ,if we're honest, have made at some point in our stalking lives. I know never stalk without the dog but that twenty min or so wait before going to look seems like a an age.In most cases you know the reaction to the shot you have got it right but its still a relief when you find it.

Your daughter sounds like she's spot on ,well done.I've got two kids(adults now) neither has any intrest in shooting first or last...!good luck for the rest of your season

Ps how long is your season.?

[seprim 32]

nice write up Art, shame about the lost one.

thanks for posting

 

Andrew

[Art 20]

Bow season is from mid October until January 31. Gun season runs from about November 21 until January 31.

 

By the way, my son's doe weighed 96 lbs after field dressing.

 

Took my 10 year old son this afternoon. Slipped out of the office a little early to dash off to the woods for a short hunt. No luck but nice day to be out. Unseasonably warm at 60 deg F when we arrived. I'll be stuck working all day tomorrow. Will try again Saturday morning. If my son can bag his first Saturday AM then I'll have a little season left to take my climber out on a scrape line to try for a good buck for myself.

[sussex 5,777]

Thats a short season Art, is that bucks & does ?Whats on the menu feb through to mid nov ? you cant spend nine months cleaning & dreaming of whats to come ,Is that season just the whitetails ,do you have the pronghorns & mule deer,are the seasons the same.? Climber ? Scrape line?

[Art 20]

Thats a short season Art, is that bucks & does ?Whats on the menu feb through to mid nov ? you cant spend nine months cleaning & dreaming of whats to come ,Is that season just the whitetails ,do you have the pronghorns & mule deer,are the seasons the same.? Climber ? Scrape line?

Last year that was bucks and does. This year they shortened the doe season. In my area does didn't come in until mid December.

Squirrel and rabbit are in season from late October until end of Feb.

No pronghorns or muleys here. You have to go far west of here for those. Not sure what the seasons are. Varies by state.

I think you can hunt hogs year round but I've never tried it. One of my brothers has 2 dogs that he worked on hogs up until last year and he loved it. Then he got his captains license and started running salt water fishing charters and didn't have time for hogs anymore. Had hoped to try it with him sometime but now he's moving to the Cayman Islands in August.

Not sure exactly what your question is about climbers and scrape lines so I'll explain based on the assumption that those terms are completely foreign to you.

A climber is a 2-piece device used to climb a tree with a good straight trunk and no low limbs. It consists of a seat and footrest joined by a strap in case the bottom portion becomes disengaged from the tree and tries to fall out from under you. If you look up Ol' Man Multivision on the internet you can see the one that I use. I usually go up only 15 to 20 feet but some brave gents go up as much as 30. The most effective ways to hunt from a climber are to find a heavily used game trail with good buck sign or to find a scrape line and climb a tree 40 to 50 yds down wind from the trail or scrapes. A scrape line is a series of scrapes made by a whitetail buck just prior to and during the rut. The buck paws up the dirt in a patch 1 to 2 feet across under a low hanging branch and rubs the glands at the base of his antlers on the overhanging branch. He usually makes quite a few of these scrapes at varying distances in series forming a "scrape line" along the edge of fields or in the woods along the edge of the thick brush. He will generally check his scrapes once daily for doe scent and to clean the fallen leaves out and freshen his scent on the branches. The trick is to figure out what time he generally works a portion of his scrape line and get set up at the right time with the wind in your favor or climb high enough to get your scent far above him. A friend in the club bagged an 8 point this week that field dressed 180 lbs and had a massive set of antlers (in spite of having only 8 points) by climbing over his scrape line.

Climbing is my favorite way to hunt whitetails but a climber is a one man rig so I have to hunt the shooting houses on the green fields when taking the kids.

[sussex 5,777]

Got you ,like a light weight mobile high seat,seen them on cabbellas site,that is the mother of hunting/fishing shops ! we do a bit better season wise,the fallow are in nine months of the year in total ,& when the fallow bucks finish the roe buck are in ,so if your lucky & have both you can stalk all year, rabbit squirrel,fox are classed as vermin & taken all year.Hope you finish with a good buck.

[Art 20]

In this part of the country it's too hot from May to October to even want to deer hunt. We just go fishing then anyway. If I had the climate and season to hunt deer all year my yard would look like a jungle, my house would be in disrepair and my wife would leave me.

[sussex 5,777]

Art,mine does, it is , she has .....!! Ps the new one is more understanding .....i like the warm weather fishing idea .

[seprim 32]

That Ol'Man climbing seat is an ingenious high seat Art - never seen anything like that before and its a good idea too if you can find a tall branch free tree to shoot from

 

Andrew

[Art 20]

Around here tall branch free trees are no problem. We have thousands of slash pines, loblolly pines, and long leaf pines whose first branch is often 40 ft up or more. Also quite a few hickories that have lost all of the lower limbs with age. Pines are the first choice because the teeth on the climber bite into the soft bark and soft wood so well. The hardwoods are OK if no pines available where you want to hunt as long as the trunk is not icy . Trying to climb an icy trunk and stay up it for hours can be a little nerve racking, especially on a windy day. When hunting alone I almost always opt for the climber.

[sussex 5,777]

HI Art we would have a problem finding suitable trees,whilst there are plenty of them finding one in the right place that was useable would be almost impossible.I have about 20 high seats scattered about on various estates that when you put out, have to have a prune up of the lower limbs to give a decent shooting window.

Some of the guys over here probably fair better,but where i'm at just dont seem to get straight tall high limbed trees.I do have a couple of lightweight portable seats that come in usefull from time to time, but still need a pruning saw in the kit.Every year its a long job going round all the seats doing the maintenance , cutting back new growth ,moving the odd one or two to new locations. The climber would be so handy if i had the trees to use it. good luck with the buck !

[Squirrel_Basher 17,100]

GOOD TO HEAR ABOUT OTHERS EXPLOITS MATE .KEEP THEM COMING ,THANKS.