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.