A Hunter in the Making!

Sometimes I find it hard to believe that today's youth can become passionate about hunting and fishing, or trapping.  Pay attention to any budding teenager equipped with electronic gear and you will notice that their available time is spent talking through the push of buttons.  In a sense it's as if they feel alive because they are electronically connected.

That's why, several weeks ago, Chand's call came as such a surprise.  July had just begun and Opening Day was three months away.  Thoughts of deer season were gnawing away in the back of my mind like a fox squirrel cutting on a hickory nut, but were not yet devouring my thinking like a starving coyote on a fresh gut pile.  (This typically happens when September rolls around.)

Chand's voice held an anticipating excitement that I had forgot existed.  In his hands he clutched his first hunting license, and as he informed me of all the legal requirements he was bound by and the game and limits he was allowed to take, my mind drifted back to August 15, 1984 and I was once again in the squirrel woods with my dad and brother for the first time.

Chand talked of the coming deer season with unmatched enthusiasm, and recalled events of past seasons with a clearness and clarity that left little doubt how important those few days in October and November are to him.

Then and there I decided this deer season would be dedicated to Chand.  For years now he has been a part of deer camp.  Patiently he has waited his turn, quietly listening to the stories -- his time in the woods limited to a noon-day squirrel hunt and the occasional deer drag.  But for Chand, this year is going to be different.

Battleship Rock

With the heat wave and drought punishing Southern Indiana it may be hard to think about deer season.  But, if you look close there are signs of autumns approach.  For starters, the summer solstice has come and gone and the evening sun will be disappearing sooner and sooner.  Several weeks ago I noticed some of the lower leaves of the buckeye trees losing their color.  In my region these trees are always the first to leaf out in the springtime and the first to lose their leaves, too.  Of course now with this heat they are just wilting away and dying.  Yesterday, I saw squirrel cuttings underneath a walnut tree, though the nuts are not yet ripe.  Tuesday night will be the buck moon.  October is slowly rolling in.

I don't know how this drought is going to affect the deer.  Several years ago when this happened an EHD outbreak decimated some of the areas I hunt (including the area where these pictures were taken,) and those places have not even recovered -- let's hope the disease doesn't hit them this year, too.

The late spring frost hit my area three times this year and the white oak mast and persimmon crop were hit hard.  To make this even worse it seems this heat is cooking some of the nuts on the trees.  Yesterday I walked under a pignut hickory tree.  Scattered on the ground below it were dried, brown, heat schorched nuts.

These pictures were taken at an area I call Battleship Rock.  Every year I scout this piece of Hoosier National during the pre-season and post-season, though I have never gone in with a bow or gun. Some years there is big buck sign, some years there isn't. The flat is woodland edge habitat. There is a good stand of matures oaks on the level, but when the hill begins to climb a dense pine thicket takes over. A well used deer trail runs the edge between the pines and oaks. Every year there are scattered scrapes and rubs along its' length.

The shelf these deer are walking drops off into a steep ravine that even a noisy machine can't climb.  For me the place fullfills all the requirements for most places I hunt on public land: it's a tough climb in and in the event of a sucessful hunt -- it's a tough drag out.  As a matter of fact this may be one of those places that can really test the bonds of a hunting camp.Who knows, maybe I will never hunt this place, the years are beginning to add up, and this spot might be a young mans hunt.

But, just in case I feel a little froggy this autumn, the steep ravine offers a well concealed approach and there are plenty of tall, straight trees along the shelf for my old, trusty, loggy bayou climber.  

It All Begins Again!

When the season of great anticipation began, with its hopes of possibility that the big buck from from the year before was still out there sauntering through my hunting grounds,

and an early autumn picture showed indeed he still was, only now much bigger, with an immense thick chest and blocked head with graying muzzle,

and I knew this aging buck living on public land was a cagey, crafty old fellow, because for many seasons he had figured out what it took to survive on pressured land, and I spent the season wondering where he was hiding, trying in earnest to find him, sacrificing time and money to be where I thought he might be, calling in sick to work, jeopardizing job and relationship,

sitting on stand for long hours waiting for that one chance, listening to the echoing booms of the hunter over on the next ridge and the defiant report in return from the hunter across the big woods, wondering if somewhere the monarch had fallen, hoping against all odds he had somehow made it through.  And the fleeting months passed without one chance sighting of him, then on a late January day on my winter trapline a scrape popped up where one wasn't the day before, then another, and a trail camera went out and I hoped that just maybe it was him,

and when the picture came in it wasn't the best, but by all accounts it could be, and after all this was said and done it's then I realized -- it all begins again.

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!