2021 Live From The Tree

Harvested this buck 3 minutes into legal hunting opening morning. He must have watched me get into my stand.

Nice deer everyone congratulations.

That’s a good one wildfan!

I’ve been out a few times earlier in the bow season and now the past 2 weekends for the gun season. First time deer hunting for me so my goal for this year was just to basically get on the board.

I’ve got some woods on my property with a lot of nice bucks on trail camera but I can’t for the life of me get them to show up during the day. So my plans have changed and I’ve had to move more to state land during the day. It’s beautiful woods with steep ravines and drops 340 feet in elevation in just about a half a mile’s distance from my house to the Cannon River.

I don’t have a stand and yesterday I really wanted to push farther away than I’d gone before. Found a spot (the attached picture) with a pretty wide span of view. A short few minutes before it would’ve been too late to shoot I saw two does walk about 100 yards away and I was able to take a shot and hit one. Unfortunately that’s where the story ends because I couldn’t find her. I probably rushed going down to the area she was because it was getting dark. I looked as long and as much as I could and then had to make my way back up some pretty steep and dangerous ravines in the dark with falling snow, wish I would’ve had more time. Definitely a learning experience, I like to think of myself as a conservationist who doesn’t take killing an animal (or pulling it out of the water for good) lightly, so pretty bummed about this. Plenty of local coyotes that should be able to take advantage of this unless she somehow lived.

Anyway, long post, sorry, but really one of my first “experiences” and this thread and hunting section on here has been a lot of fun to read and go through. I’ve learned a lot from all of you and I’ll learn from what happened yesterday and hopefully be on the board with a picture sometime. Still gonna try and do a few bow sits before the end of the year too.

Did you find any blood Dan?

I didn’t. It was dark by then and I looked with my headlamp but didn’t see anything. Thicker snowflakes were coming down by then which made looking for blood and fresh tracks hard. Went back and looked this morning and couldn’t find anything. Not happy at all about it but there are multiple topics/areas I’ve reflected on that I will be looking to improve.

We’ve all been there. All we can do is learn and move on.
DT

Got this tank on Saturday morning. At 70 yards he decided to be real regal and stand broadside without a care in the world. His antlers definitely don’t match his body. I’m 180 with 3 layers on top and bottom, he was every bit as big as I am.

Giant body on that one.
DT

My view for the afternoon. Good luck everyone!

Well hunted a few times in the last week and finally got back into deer after the rifle season pressure. Nothing in range but hopefully can seal the deal in the next few weeks.

hillhiker wrote:

My view for the afternoon

Interesting location. What is your weapon sitting at that spot hill hiker?

I was out with the muzzleloader. There’s very limited trees on that farm, so you’re forced to get a bit creative if you want to hunt some areas of it. Here’s a deer feeding his way into me that night. I tried to pick my phone up for another pic when he was about 15 feet away which finally scared him off.

Hunted with the muzzleloader last night and saw lots of full rut behavior still…two baskets shoved each other all over my food plot for a half hour…chasing every doe around that got close in between clashing antlers…full rut 11 point came out with 5 minutes of legal shooting light left and kicked small bucks off the does…was running the does for a bit while I tried to get him in the scope…finally ended his chasing with a puff of smoke…the 2 small bucks just stood there like nothing happened and continued screwing around until I got out of the stand…strange..

What part of the state Jackfish?
DT

Jackfish wrote:

finally ended his chasing with a puff of smoke

Pics or it didn’t happen Jackfish!

deertracker wrote:

What part of the state Jackfish?
DT

Otter Tail County…
And the full rut buck that’s stinking up
my garage currently…(:

Blast him in the throat?

Not exactly the treestand. My backyard. I haven’t had time to pick up all the pears that dropped last week. Doe and a small fork came out of the swamp to help me – thank you very much

Jackfish wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>deertracker wrote:</div>
What part of the state Jackfish?
DT

Otter Tail County…
And the full rut buck that’s stinking up
my garage currently…(:

Beautiful buck. Nice kill. Throat shot ?

I was assuming that was from gutting it out? Some go way up the throat when they do it.
DT

After a 27 day absence from the woods, I’m back out for an evening sit!!! 🤞

Should have been a beautiful evening weather wise.
DT

My backyard. First pic is last week of a doe that birthed twins in my neighbor’s yard this spring. They’ve hung around all summer. When the fawns were less than two weeks old, she jumped the fence and chased my 2 year old lab when he got too close. She took a chunk of hair out of his side with her front hoof. At least maybe he won’t chase deer when pheasant hunting.
Second pic is her and her twins a few days ago in a neighbor’s yard. Yesterday I bumped the buck. This looked like an 8-pointer so he might have ousted the 6-pointer I’ve seen twice this fall in my neighborhood.
There was also another doe with one fawn than hung around all summer.

Out with the muzzy tonight.
DT

Wish I could post the video. Had 25 turkeys roost above and within 20 yards of me tonight. Saw 1 doe.
DT

deertracker wrote:

Wish I could post the video. Had 25 turkeys roost above and within 20 yards of me tonight. Saw 1 doe.
DT

That’s fun and frustrating at the same time! Cool to watch them roost, but can’t hear a dang thing for a half hour when there’s 20 plus birds! I won’t even bring up getting bird poo on the good camo!

No deer this morning but it was still a beautiful sit. Headed back out soon.
DT

Cool spot DT! I can’t see your bobber though…. Did you catch anything?

No deer or fish. Tonight we saw one deer right before last light. Seemed big body but never saw the head. Never gave us a shot.
DT

Had a nice 8 pointer chasing fawns/yearlings all over the place tonight, and ran off a basket 6-8 pointer a couple different times, fun to watch!