November 30, 2010 -- Kevin's Public Land Non-Typical



Checking in at the Sulpher General Store



Two years running Kevin gets a nice public land buck!






Battling Bucks

 


Hitting the Scrape Line



The Tale of the Twelve

Kevin walked in with me to a piece of public land he had never hunted before.  One hundred yards from the public parking area I already had us lost. 

"What in the world have you got me into here?"  Kevin hissed.  "I've never stepped foot into this place, and now you don't even know where we're at, and this is the best morning all year to kill a buck!"

At that moment my headlamp cast a glow on the biggest rub either one of us had seen this year, and a scrape the size of a small kitchen table.

"I think I'll just wait here and see what walks past," Kevin whispered, "You keep going wherever you're gonna go -- this place looks good to me."

Forty minutes later, just as the sun was breaking the horizon, two other hunters stumbled in right on top of him.  Kevin waved them off with his light, and they posted up thirty yards from him.

"You boys take this spot," he told em', "I'll move down the line a little further."

Moving into the woodline a little further, Kevin's speed scouting ability made the difference.  He found a heavily used doe trail with a couple of fresh scrapes, checked the wind direction, found a nice deadfall to hide in, and two hours later he was standing over a nice non-typical twelve pointer any public land hunter would be proud of.

What Made the Spot Good 

The public land we hunted opening day borders a major highway, and the busy sound of traffic drifted through the bare trees all morning.  By the amount of people sign in the parking area the place appeared to be heavily hunted as well.  Despite all the things telling us this was the wrong spot to be opening morning there were a few things going for this high traffic piece of public ground. 

For starters, the entire woodlot had been selectively logged within the past couple of years and plenty of tree top snags remained on the ground, providing plenty of secluded, thick bedding cover.  With some of the upper canopy removed a lush understory was growing and provided plenty of browse for any deer moving off of the cut corn fields in the area.  Some of the remaining oak trees were still dropping acorns, adding to the attraction of the area, and a small stream meandered along one side of the property providing a good water source.  This added attraction checked off all the essential survival items a deer needs and we figured this was as good a place as any this year.

On the back side of the public property a tall, remote ridgeline rises from the surrounding private property, acting as a nifty little barrier to the area.  An impenetrable thicket of thorns and briers lays down in the valley the tall hill creates and provides a small sanctuary where a cagey old buck is certain to call home.

On top of that I had placed a couple of trail camera's the weekend prior to our hunt, and within a matter of days, the pictures showed plenty of does hanging in the heavy cover and three good bucks.  A good majority of the pictures were snapped during daylight hours to boot. 

Despite the fact this is a heavily hunted piece of public property the place definitely didn't let us down.  We had deer crawling all over us that morning, and at sunup, if a lucky old buck had veered right and walked up the saddle I was hunting on instead of veering left and moving into the small, thorny sanctuary there would be two pictures of public land bucks on this post. 



Wednesday, November 17, 2010

The Big Eight at Stonehenge

Another nice Stonehenge Buck

I try to make my way to the riverside place I call Stonehenge a few times each year.  The trip down the river from the pull off is quite a haul, but the place is well worth the effort.  Every year there is at least one big buck prowling the river bottom trail, and this year is no exception.

Staging areas -- I don't know if I've ever hunted a staging area, but who needs them when a man has a place like Stonehenge.  Stonehenge is what I call a community social area.  The variety, and amount of wildlife I see around this remote river crossing is something else.  Someday I'll be able to buy a video camera and show you what I'm talking about.

I am yet to kill a deer this year, but there's plenty of time for that.  However, for the second year in a row Kevin has dropped a nice buck on public property (a non typical twelve you will see soon enough.)  Finally, we smarted up enough to buy a deer cart with wheels -- if you're a deer hunter and you don't have one . . . ,  well, you're a bigger fool than we are!

Rutting Activity is Heating Up

Over the years I have spent plenty of time hunting over scrapes, and along scrape lines. Often, I walk away from these spots wondering how I could hunt an area so full of deer sign and not see a single deer. Even after reading article after article stating study after study reveals the majority of buck activity in scraping areas take place at night, I still continue to hunt these places. I guess you could say I'm a slow learner.

It makes sense; if I was a big buck, a survivor from years of hunting seasons, then why in the world would I want to walk around in the daylight pawing the ground and raking leaves -- messing with two of my most essential survival skills (sight and hearing.) The answer is: I wouldn't -- unless of course I was in an area I felt absolutely secure in (I'm talking Fort Knox secure.)

The point I'm trying to make is this: The buck pictures above were taken over a scrape along a scrape line that runs for several hundred yards down a hard to reach bench in a secluded thicket on a remote hillside of heavily hunted public property. What's more -- this wasn't the only buck using this scrape (there were several other nice bucks as well,) and over three-fourths of the pictures this camera took were daytime pictures. Maybe the reason this scrape was visited so much during the day was because it was located in a doe bedding area large enough to accommodate several small family groups, remote enough to be rarely visited by hunters, and thick enough where a buck could easily disappear from view by doing nothing more than sliding off the bench into the dense, tangled, mess of briers and brambles on either side of the shelf.

If you're a public land bow hunter it's time to pull out the stops and move into the bedding areas. Gun season is only days away and an army of orange will be moving in. Use these thick, remote, areas to your advantage. Don't give up on them either. Even after opening weekend, when it seems hope may be lost, my cameras show mature bucks still move during daylight in this thick cover.

November Begins

I am closely paying attention to where the red oaks are, and the amount of acorns individual trees are producing, because the way my season is going I will be climbing a tree during the late bow season trying to fill my buck tag.

Saturday was a good day: I saw five does, and walked up on two otters sleeping in the tall grass along the river bank. I almost stepped on them before they busted out from beneath my feet like a covey of quail -- nearly giving me a heart attack. During the afternoon Kevin and I placed a ladder stand on the hillside where he killed his big buck last year. We used Kevin's deer cart to get the ladder stand in location, and considering the terrain we went through, the whole thing was pretty easy, even nestling the stand into the lower branches of a nice mature cedar tree, where a hunter should be able to blend right in. The stand overlooks the only opening in an overgrown, wooded thicket about twenty acres in size where does like to bed. We're hopping to pull another buck out of there this year.

Today I made my way to Stonehenge, a remote river crossing that is always good to hunt this time of year. I brought in a small six pointer, by aggressively rubbing my rattling antlers against the tree I was in. Later in the morning I called him back in with a hard, loud, series of clashing, grinding antlers, but I am waiting for something a little better.

Year after year, in this spot, bucks open a large scrape under a small dogwood tree. This year is no exception, the scrape is about the size of a pickup truck bed. The main trail it is located on runs for miles and miles down the overgrown, brushy, river corridor. The place is made better by being on a shallow, narrow, water crossing, and by a saddle that drops off a tall wooded ridge where deer travel. I have never killed a deer here, but I have had plenty of close encounters. Two years ago, a true trophy buck began crossing the river straight for me. Unfortunately, I carelessly placed my paddle in a shallow pool of water in the river and the buck walked right to it, sniffed, and slunk back into the thicket he had came out of. Some of the trail camera pictures I get from this area always keep me excited about hunting here, too.

Here's a public land tip: Look over the topographic maps of a large tract of public land and try to locate a spot where multiple terrain features converge and you may find your own, out of the way, hidden little hot spot.

Wildlife at the River Bottom Crossing

Digging for muscles

A bad drought year -- everything needs water

My first bobcat picture

A shooter in my book

August 15, 2010 Squirrel season opens

The good news is this: I have spent two days in the woods moving trail camera's and familiarizing myself with some new territory I plan to hunt, and I didn't get a single mature deer tick or lonestar tick. The bad news is this: I came out covered in turkey ticks.

When I got home I did a little experiment. When I took off my shoes turkey ticks were crawling over my lower legs and ankles. I doused each leg with a beer and I watched as the turkey ticks died away. Who would have thought the solution was so easy.

Though this summer has been hotter than normal we have had a fair amount of rainfall so a lot of the woodland vegetation is still green. In several areas I walked through deer had browsed heavily on stinging nettle and jewelweed. Both of these plants are loaded with vitamins and nutrients and deer seem to enjoy the taste of the plants. If you're crazy enough to walk through a big patch of stinging nettle during the late summer you will stumble upon deer bed after deer bed where all the plants within a bedded deers reach are browsed off -- especially those nettle patches that are miles away from the nearest crop field.

There are quite a few acorns beginning to drop, and some of the oaks are having bumper crops. I noticed some persimmon fruits on the ground too. This is the second year in a row where we have had a good mast and persimmon crop.

News from the Indiana DNR

Roush Lake will become a fish and wildlife area, giving Northeast Indiana deer hunters another 8217 acres of public land.

Wabahiki Fish and Wildlife Area near Terre Haute opened today. This property is part of a state initiative to acquire 43,000 acres of river floodplain that will stretch from Shades State Park to Fairbanks Landing Fish and Wildlife Area. A property map is available at the Indiana DNR website. Call Marty Benson (317) 233-3853 for more information.

Like I said in my very first post -- Indiana is getting serious about wildlife management.

August 01, 2010

The Full Buck Moon is waning, but it is still lighting up the night sky brightly. August is here, and squirrel season is only fifteen days away. Soon trail cameras will not be the only excuse for heading into the woods.

I went to the woods several times last month to place trail camera's. The heat and humidity were both bad, and the chiggers were, too. The good news is the mature ticks are starting to decrease in number, and the turkey ticks haven't come out yet. But, I'm sure they will be out in force for the squirrel season opener. I read an article several years ago from a wildlife biologist declaring these miserable things as immature deer ticks. Some people claim they are their own seperate species, but whatever they are you had better be prepared to deal with them from now until the first frost. I know a lot of hunters who simply refuse to go into the woods anymore until the first frost. In a sense I'm glad I have learned to deal with them, or at least tolerate them, but I know I will be spending plenty of time the next couple of months scratching the skin off my ankles.

My brother has devised his own way of dealing with them. He heads into the woods with his shotgun, wearing nothing more than sandals, and a loose fitting pair of joggers shorts. He throws a cooler bag of cheap beer over his shoulder and heads to the hickory grove. Every half hour or so he doses himself with a beer. He claims the beer causes the turkey ticks to get drunk, and then all he has to do is brush them off. I have to admit he is able to stay in the woods a lot longer than me, and he does a whole lot less scratching, too, though his aim seems to be a little off since he started this turkey tick prevention trick.

Look close at the second picture, there are a couple of nice bucks.

A summary of proposed deer season changes is available. Submit comments here.

May 22, 2010

Of course these pictures are not from Indiana. They are from a Montana Mule Deer Hunt my buddy Travis recently sent to me. I feel privileged to be able to put these pictures on this blog. Travis is as strong as a grizzly bear and as quick and agile as a rattlesnake.  He is also one heck of a shot with a rifle. He was tempted to take this buck at 800 yards, because he knew he was running out of time, but he opted to move in closer and take the shot at 350 yards instead. Before he shot this buck he passed on two bigger deer because he thought they were on private property. It was only after he got back to his maps that he realized the bucks were well onto public land.

Travis has one complaint about us eastern hunters heading west for deer season. We shoot small deer thinking they are actually big deer. He has invited me west to hunt with him. After seeing these pictures I believe I will take him up on the offer.

April 25th, 2010

It is no secret Indiana is considered a sleeper state for deer hunting. Every deer hunting magazine has mentioned Indiana as an overlooked big buck hotspot. The QDMA website says this about Indiana: "I believe Indiana is one of the most overlooked states . . . , the southern half of Indiana is terrific, consistently producing some great bucks." The good news for Indiana hunters is things are only going to get better -- especially for public land hunters.

The Indiana DNR is serious about improving wildlife habitat. For years many of the fields on public property were left idle, and maybe cut once every five years. The state is doing a lot of hard work to improve these lands for the sportsman. Controlled burns, strip mowing, and plantings are taking place on just about every piece of state controlled property that I know of. The DNR is also conducting surveys about hunting seasons and harvest changes as well.

The DNR 2009 Biological Deer Report shows good numbers. In 2001 56% of the bucks killed were 1.5 year old bucks. Over this decade that number has steadily fallen to last years harvest where 36% of the bucks killed were 1.5 years old. In 2001 14% of the bucks killed were 3.5 years old or better. Over this decade that number has steadily risen to last years harvest where 24% of the bucks killed were 3.5 years old or better. Hunters are opting to pass on smaller bucks, and as a result there are more bigger bucks. Last year's harvest had fewer young bucks killed than any year this decade. Hopefully, this means more bigger bucks will be roaming Indiana this year.

The pictures on this post are deer killed on public land. The first four pictures are of a buck I killed several years ago. I have let plenty of bigger deer walk past me, but this buck is one I will remember for a long time. I stalked him for over an hour as I waded through a marsh and killed him at ten yards. The drag involved half a day of field work for me, my brother, and hunting buddies. I could fill up two pages telling you how we got him out of the woods. The other picture is a big buck my buddy Kevin killed several years ago in the Hoosier National Forest. This buck has a story as well. Both bucks will be talked about for many deer seasons to come.