2019 Live from the tree

Decided to take a break from working on the garage today. Just over an hour hike in the hills but I finally made it. It will have to be big to take a shot because no matter how you do it getting deer out of here will be a LOT of work! Pic from the way in…

And the destination.

Beautiful evening in NW MN.
DT

Good luck guys! Work went a little to long for me today.

Not exactly live but should have been…Decided to be an adult last night and get thing done around the house so I could hunt the cold front…done with adulting the rest of hunting season

Got blanked two nights in a row. Never don’t see deer. Not sure what is going on
DT

One lonely small buck this morning. Sat morning was better; three sets of eyes glowing at me walking in, a five point buck, doe and two fawns(likely those glow eyes again), an Eagle, a woodpecker, two grouse, and two turkeys all by 10:30. BRAVO Mother Nature!

Went to one of our plastic molded rifle stands tonight as it looks over a corn plot. I thought I would be able to shoot my bow out of it. Now that I’m here, it doesn’t seem possible. My son dropped me off and it’s too long of a walk to get to one of my bow stands. Guess I’m just going to observe tonight.
DT

Evening sit.

My son just texted me that he shot a doe.
DT

Been tracking this thing for over 2 hours. Had great red blood to start. Ended up going to just a drop here or there to nothing. We did a sweep of the woods and found tons of blood. Long story short I found it bedded on the field edge. Yelled for my son to get his bow. By the time he got there the doe got up and tried running. It looked like it went back down but we backed out.
DT

This guy has been running does all day at the office, tough to get work done with him running by the window!

October 29 has been a good day for me, hoping this guy makes it a real good day tomorrow.

Finally got out. Rubs and scrapes all around.

Out for a great sit tonight. Cool temp, high pressure, west wind. Couldn’t be better. Sitting over some at soy beans.

Going to have to do a delayed broadcast of my “live updates”.

Yesterday (10/29). Sat in the evening on a stand overlooking my Brassicas Bender plot. These brassicas froze hard about 14 days ago and the deer are just starting to hit them with full force this week.

Well, the reason I wouldn’t be doing a live-live update became apparent about 30 minutes after I got in the tree. It was MAYHEM. Deer started piling out of the woods from every direction and filling the plot at 4.00 and then…

Randy showed up. Randy is a 6-inch spike buck that chases every doe / fawn with a tail. As soon as Randy stepped into the plot, it was obvious he was looking for a specific doe that was starting to go into heat. He chased every doe and every fawn and if the turkey flock would have stayed in the plot, he’d have mounted them too.

Randy chased some does west. He came back 20 minutes later and chased some does north. Then he came back 30 minutes later, threw a Red Bull can in the weeds beside the plot, and chased some does out the east side. I could hear him crasing through the woods every time he left. All told, he chased 10 does out of the plot.

Well guess which side of the plot I’m sitting on? Yeah. South. I had him at 50 yards twice, but he just kept pushing the wrong direction and never got inside of 50. Lucky little b@stard. He’d have been on his way to the sausage maker.

Meanwhile, over in the South Plot, my dad is sitting in a ground blind and guess where Mr. Big shows up? In the soybeans. He was feeding literally underneath my soybean stand for about 30 minutes, then he walkd the field circling downwind of the 6 does, then left.

So the chase is on and the bucks are checking the does constantly the way it looks. I’m going to put a scent drag on tonight and get out the good Buck Bomb stuff and go at it again.

Grouse

I can kind of relate to Randy….
DT

Randy sounds like my hero.

Another delayed live broadcast…

Swing and a miss, damnit.

It was not exceptionally pleasant sitting in the stand yesterday, but I took up station on the east sided of a plot that has Mega Clover Plus in the west half and Eagle Forage Soybeans on the east half. The deer have been hitting the soybean pods hard, so it seemed like a good west wind stand.

I barely got in the stand and sat down and 2 does wander in from the north. Then 4 more from the west. Then 17 turkeys joined the party.

Finally, from the south comes a tasty looking forkhorn and I decided to take a shot. He was right on the line with the clover and the soybeans so it was a 34-yard poke, but the clover diverges away from the stand, so if he stayed on the line, he wasn’t going to get any closer.

I took the shot and at the sound, he did the classic duck-n-spin move and I had the pleasure of seeing my lighted nock zip cleanly over his back. He then just walked forward about 10 steps and stood there trying to figure out what had happened, but at that point, he was at 45 yards and quartering away.

The Forker eventually ambled off into the woods, but stood there about 10 yards in and just watched the plot. After about 15 minutes, he came back in and walked about 5 yards behind the lit nock and arrow sticking in the ground. Still too far for a shot I’m comfortable with.

So the Forker starts eating clover and then another deer enters the plot from north and Forker takes one look at this deer and runs right at it. I put up the binocs and guess who? Randy!

So the Forker and Randy spend the next hour and a half sparring and licking each other. Wierd. They just would not knock it off. By now there were 6 does/fawns in the plot and they just ignored the little buck fight going on.

I guess I had my chance, but I knew that was the outside edge of my reliable range, so it isn’t really surprising that I missed. Glad it was clean so I’m not chasing a slightly wounded deer.

Mr. Bigg never showed up. He was probably up in the Brassicas Bender plot…

Grouse

I think we all have a little randy in ourselves

Forgot the phone at home last night so no pics, but it was an exciting sit. I had a young 8 chase a doe around for a while right when I got into stand, and then spent the rest of the night watching a pair of fishers hunting in the trees near me. It was pretty amazing watching those critters tear into a squirrel nest. Does anyone know if it’s normal to see them paired up like that? I always assumed they would be more solitary animals.

My second week of hunting vacation starts today!

The Fishers….maybe young of the year siblings that haven’t gone separate ways yet.

Kicking vacation off on the ground tonight. I’m sitting at the end of a long finger of woods overlooking a pond. Hopefully something gets thirsty on the way out to the picked corn behind me.

Couldn’t post “Live” cause my phone was on the ground at the base of my tree! Had a lot of action tonight. Several small bucks searching around. Had a nice 8 read the script perfectly, except I’ve named him 20/20, cause that’s the year he’ll be a shooter. He got to 22 yards broadside. Then bedded 85 yards downwind for an hour. He’s the bigger of the 2 in the pic. Lots of fun to watch.

With 45 minutes to go I had my #1 shooter buck, “Sticker” show up out of nowhere. About 80 yards upwind. He’s way bigger in person. I legit had a quick hit of “buck fever” set in. I got over that quickly as he walked straight toward me. He turned away for a moment, I ranged him at 51 yards. He walked closer yet and got into the one remaining thicket between us. 43 yards now. 5-10 good steps was all I needed. I am very confident at 40yards. Something upwind of him got his full attention, he then stomped and snorted for 45 minutes without moving, well after legal time. I could barely see him slink off the way he came in. So……close……

Going to be a fun week of sitting in the tree. Lots of deer activity yesterday, but not much yet today. I did get this guy on cam during daylight

These two guys decided to battle.

They are definitely moving. Been hearing a lot of car deer accidents on the radio at work in the Douglas county area.
DT

Basically What Happened Was:
10 points, 18″ inside

Well Kirk, somebody shot something. Then what?