Enough already
I swear, I can’t buy a break.
So today I’m sitting home, contemplating my actions for the next phase. I will probably miss tomorrow as well. Standing in the pouring rain or driving snow until my fingers, toes, and… other extremities are numb doesn’t appeal a lot. Last night it took me two hours to stop shivering. And I don’t get cold easily.
All to see four deer out of range of any arrow.
Rifle season is open, but i can’t even see a doe in range let alone a buck. Hell, I haven’t seen a buck (except dead ones!) anywhere I’ve hunted in the last five years.
I am quiet. I am very careful about the clothes I wear and the scent I have. And noisy, fat bastards smoking cigars walk into the woods and come out five minutes later with eight, ten point bucks. What the hell i’m doing wrong, I have no damned idea.
Dad was a fisherman, and liked his quail and rabbit. What I learned of those skills- from him- are OK. But deer hunting I’m learning alone, and I have no idea why I was successful the first couple years and not the last two.
I’m fidgety, and have almost no ability to sit still- so this is all torture to me, and I put myself through it, and it’s not paying off.
I’m starting to get annoyed. And that’s not a good thing.
20 comments Og | Uncategorized
Know the feeling well. Guy at work started this year and has one already. I know he does the sneaky pete on the ground. I’ve seen plenty and some in range I just can’t get them to stop long enough to be shot. they are looking up as well. I know they are aware of stands now. I’ve thought about leaving a large bag stuffed with leaves in the stand so it looks occupied all the time. Also be sure, at least for does, your stand is near one or over some heavily traveld trails. One of the guys I hunt with has got a deer out of all my stand locations so I know I can place them. I’m probably going to give it a go this afternoon and see if the luck changes.
I’m usually puffing away on a readyroll when Bambi walks into my sights.
Don’t know why, but that seems to be the norm.
[…] Cigars wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptAnd noisy, fat bastards smoking cigars walk into the woods and come out five minutes later with eight, ten point bucks. […]
Think about this. Deer are there 24/7/365 and are accustomed to people waling in behaving like they own the joint, walking around, talking, smoking cigars and cigarettes. This is “normal” behavior for the people deer see most of the time. Then in the fall people come in sneaking around hiding behind things, smelling funny and acting generally crazier than shithouse rats.
There are dozens if not hundreds of animals and people you see every day who act “normally” so you pay them no mind. If you meet one guy wearing a tutu and swim fins, blowing a slide whistle, you will cross the street and call the cops.
You are the guy on the deer’s “street” dressed in the tutu and fins, blowing your slide whistle. Whaddaya expect ’em to do, walk up with a tray of lemonade?
Camouflage youself from the deer’s perspective, not the sales clerk at Cabela’s.
So, I should act like a car?
Og, I hear you. I started hunting deer about 10 years ago and, not only have I not shot one yet, I hacen’t even seen a legal buck to shoot at!!
I hunt on the western slopes of the Sierra and our game regs set the season to be over well before the rut and there is no doe season. There is a 9-11% success rate most years, but I know a couple of guys who get at least one buck every year. Not me.
Gerry N. : I’m listening…
“You are the guy on the deer’s “street†dressed in the tutu and fins, blowing your slide whistle.”
You been hanging around my office again, have you?
I feel your pain Og. Hang in there buddy!
My family owned 60 acres of private swamp/woods in Newton Co. east of Thayer bordering the Kankakee river where I killed and saw tons of deer over the years with my .50 cal TC muzzleloader.
Dad sold the property to a private duck club to help fund his retirement. Oh well, when you can sell swamp land for the of money he got, WTF?. Go for it, Pops!
After hunting the local public land (Willow Slough) for deer the following two seasons I just put it away. Way too frustrating for me.
Now I’m just for the birds and lovin’ it.
Keep trying and hang in there but my advice is to make friends with a private landowner if you want to see and kill bucks on a regular basis.
I would absolutely love to do that again myself. Oh, for those days!
Og, You have to get out of that place and come south, people who are still free, we have three months to shoot five deer and if you want more an extra three weeks in January to kill spikes. It is bullshit for anyone to tell you what gun you can hunt with!
Moved from Minnesota thirty years ago to Texas and have not looked back.
The hardest thing to do on opening day is to decide which one to shoot.
Larry
Larry: If I could do my job from there, and still get this much vacation, I’d think harder about it.
The deer are HERE. I got four in my backyard as I type. The town, in it’s infinite wisdom, has decided that they can’t be hunted here. Only by cars. Kingsbury is thick wiht them. I can’t get one to come in my crosshairs.
Mount crosshairs as a hood ornament.
Og, I have trouble beliving you all can live in a place like that a friend of mone moved there for two years and when he found he needed a permit to go into a gun store, the emails I recieved where clasic. I allready have a buck and a doe processed and given away, and about a dozen quail in the freezer. My favorite time for quail is in Feb. then sometimes I get to wear a jacket.
I have a concealed carry license and can go any where in the state and buy what I can afford, they bypass the fed check as the Texas license is sufficent.
Larry
We’re back to that job thing. And I have a concealed carry. A lifetime one. And the deer are healthier and bigger here. You don’t need anything to go to a gun store, Indiana gun laws are about the same- if not better- than Texas. It’s just about the deer not being where I am. If I came to Texas I’d have the same problem. But then I’d be looking at 120 lb 12 point deer instead of 200 lb eight pointers.
Back when I cared about killing a buck, all I did was find the does and watch the wind. No amount of money spent on scent, calls or camo made a bit of difference. Also I found that if a bottle neck could be found that forced all the deer to move through a small area, success could be found there as well. Now I hunt at the grocery store. I still go hunting but if I do kill one, it will be the smallest one I see. Nothing bigger than a german sheperd for me now, I’m way to lazy to kill and clean a big one.
Tomorrow I go for the day, and then again, maybe, next weekend. I’m not going to obsess anymore.
Sorry about that I thought you where in Illinois. As for jobs it is impossible to find any one qualifed to do NC or robotics work have to pay for out of state, been in heavy manufacturing all my life and if I did not know how to fix things would not have been fun
Larry
Good luck, Og. Deer season is closed here, so I am hunting birds (Llewellyn Setter, LeFever Nitro Special 12G). Well, at least I *was* hunting birds until my Alfa started acting up. Pulling the head tomorrow…
Yep Illinois gun laws blow- and the ISP neighbor of my parents wants stricter laws-in Indiana- because the Chicago gangbangers buy guns in NW Ind. I miss living in Indiana. As for deer, we get at least 3 a season in Jasper County Ill (2 miles from Sam Parr- IIRC you’ve fished there) at my dad’s cabin. Although the neighbors will shoot you if they catch you on their land (they need a big herd given all the jacklighting they do. Effin’ Hillbillies. Although I are one too. Digression over. )
Difference between hilbillies and white trash, N5. Any chance I can finagle an invitation to that cabin? I’m a pretty handy guy. Might could be useful to have come around, say, in deer season.
Me too, there with you. Its frustrating to no end.
Do you have a tree stand?
I’m convinced my problems are the inability to hunt private land. Virginia has a serious overabundance of deer on private land, but up around here at least, they are all off limits (and even if you know someone with land, chances are they lease out the hunting rights for big dollars). Public land hunting meanwhile, just sucks!