Hunting Season is over -- Time for a Trapline!

Unless you are lucky enough to have hunting grounds in the states urban zones the deer season is now over.  And if you are one of those lucky hunters the season is open until the end of January.



I ended the year with a hunt on the last day of the season.  Despite the gusting winds (sometimes over thirty miles per hour) I saw deer.  I hunkered down in a patch of briers watching over a river bottom trail.  As I carelessly ate a granola bar a doe walked up on me offering a clear shot at fifteen yards, unfortunately my bow was on the ground in front of me, and she didn't stick around long enough for me to pick it up.  I saw five other does that day, but they stayed just out of range.

When these pictures were taken most deer hunters had either tagged out or given up on the season.  But, it's pictures like these that give me that little bit of encouragement to keep hunting, and shows me bucks are still exhibiting rut like behavior late into the season.

For the past week I have ran a small trapline covering parts of the Hoosier National Forest.  Believe it or not the secondary rut is still in swing, or at least there are bucks still trying to find receptive does.  Monday, January 09, and again on Wednesday, January 11, I found freshly opened scrapes.

This is a great time to be in the field scouting for next year, too.  With all the vegetation gone the woods are an open book just waiting to be read.  All the sign from this fall is there to decipher -- rub lines, scrape lines, bedding areas, trails -- are all just waiting to be found.  Now is a perfect time to learn more about your hunting area or a new area you would like to hunt next year without worrying about pressuring deer on your hunting grounds.

Some bucks will have begun to drop their antlers, too, though I suppose prime shed hunting is still months away.  Several years ago, in late December, my brother walked my trapline with me.  He watched me walk right past two sheds from a big ten-pointer and then he casually strolled over and picked them up.  They are now his rattling antlers.

This week I have also picked up several cameras I put out after the end of muzzleloader season, so I am anxious to have the film developed to see what may be roaming my hunting grounds next year.

Pictures are still coming in of the bucks in these pictures.  Somebody is going to have a long wait until October rolls around again.

Late Muzzleloader Comes to an End!

Sunday afternoon found me walking to the marsh.  I didn't expect to see anything really, I just wanted to end the season in the place I love to hunt most.  From a wooded hillside I looked down on the marsh until the shadows overtook the sycamores that grow along its edge and dimmed their snowy bark. 

I turned home, waded the creek, walked under the sycamores and made enough noise in their dry leaves to awaken the dead (they're noisy.)  As soon as I made the hardwoods I sat on the trunk of a fallen maple a beaver had dropped, emptied the water from my boots, pulled off my socks and wrung the water from them.

With the sloshing sound in my hikers gone I felt more like a hunter.  I slowly began moving along the logging road that bisected the river bottom from a tall wooded ridge.  I rounded a sharp bend in the trail, looked up on the ridge and saw two does scrounging acorns from underneath the leaf litter.  Twice I counted coup: I eased off the safety, looked at the rear doe in my sights, wrapped my finger over the trigger, eased off, and did the same to the lead doe.  Just maybe a buck would show.

For twenty minutes I watched the deer nose into the wind.  For twenty minutes I nosed along behind them.  A possum walked across the trail in front of me.  A grey squirrel jumped off a tree beside me.  My heart skipped a beat.  The evening was warmer than it should have been, the rut was gone, and I suppose the bucks were as tired as me.

Bow season is in for a few more weeks.  I know of a spot where the red oaks dropped a heavy mast.  Maybe the deer will be hungry enough to eat them and maybe I will be up a tree there when they do.

I am pretty sure this is the buck I saw in the marsh during shotgun season.  I had him in my scope three times, but I couldn't quite get the shot.  Maybe he made it through the rest of the season.



A Tough Season So Far (But There's Still Time)

The Pro Staff at Indiana Whitetail News is having a tough year, even the regulars like Kevin and Mike -- guys that typically kill out on opening weekend -- have gone home without filling a tag.  But we will be back in the woods this weekend.

Sure there have been some close calls: Ronnie missed a big bruiser with his bow early in the season; Kevin, an Army Marksman and a one shot one kill man has missed three times; and the biggest buck I've seen in years stood less than forty yards from me, but I couldn't get the shot I wanted, even though I had the buck in my scope three times.

The good news is our trail camera's are now snapping pictures of the biggest bucks we've seen all year, we're still finding fresh big buck sign, and we're still seeing deer.  I think it's only a matter of time.

This little nine-pointer seems to need a nap, but a yearling button buck has another idea.

A Day at the Scrape!

A Day at the Scrape!

 First the doe pays a visit.

Next, skippy comes to investigate.

Finally, the Boss moves in.

(Keep an eye on the rub just to the front of him.)

Happy Hunting!

The Big Thicket

The Gully Point

For years the gully point was just a place I walked past on my way to somewhere else.  I ignored the obvious as I made my way to better hunting spots.  The gully point ran out of a corner of an overgrown field down into a steep, wooded, ravine.  I never gave a second thought about how the top of the steep ravine the gully formed or the field corner by themselves were perfect funnels, much less how great they were together.  I never thought twice about how every year there was at least one scrape located on the point, I just looked down and kept walking.  I was always certain the camera I posted here every year was going to have at least one good buck picture, though I never thought about hunting the spot.  I just kept walking past the gully point, oftentimes watching deer race away in front of me as I passed through -- I didn't care -- I was going to better hunting grounds.

For several years a three-inch cedar tree seemed to be the spot where every passing buck left his calling card. A wicked ice storm bent a bigger cedar over the top of the small cedar, so now the bucks use the tulip and sumac saplings at the gully point as their calling card instead.  The tulips and sumacs aren't as tough and resilient as the little cedar, but every year there are new ones taking the place of the ones the bucks shred. 

 

But this year I have finally wised up.  I have picked out a long, tall, tulip poplar that is just perfect for my old loggy bayou climber.  From my perch I can look down onto where the gully point and the field edge meet, and the old cedar tree sign post.  Tomorrow morning I will be up in the tree.