9 days in the tree

I spent the last 9 days in the tree looking for Mr. Perfect. In short it didn’t work. The first 7 days was every morning and night with the bow. Saw a ton of deer thru this time. Not a lot of big deer but LOTS and I mean LOTS of fawns, a good number of does and roughly 8-10 different young bucks. The only mature buck I saw was the night of Nov 3rd. In the last 10 minutes of shooting time he came up to check the does and fawns feeding near me. He ran them off and started to follow them(away from me). I tried to grunt him back, he looked at me then headed off with the does.

On Friday evening I was sitting between a waterhole and a brassica/rye plot. By 4pm I had 4 deer in the plot, by 5pm I had 12 deer in this half acre plot. One of those 12 might have been a 1.5 year old doe, but I think it was a larger fawn. The other 11 were for sure fawns. That to me was extremely weird. 12 fawns together and no does in sight. They would stay there the whole evening taking turns in groups of 2 or 3 going to the waterhole to drink, then back to the plot to eat. It was a constant parade all night until a 1.5 year old 6 point came thru and pushed them all over the place. These little bucks were the only serious chasers and to be honest, they were not that hard core about chasing.

Now the gun season was here and I had high hopes of seeing some serious chasing. Unfortunately it was more of the same. Lots of fawns, a few does and a few young bucks. The only decent buck I saw was 20 minutes after the neighbor had shot several times. It was noon and I had just climbed out of the stand after he shot. I small buck came thru running a doe hard, 30 seconds later another young buck chasing a doe in the same direction. 300 yards away I see the neighbor coming, he loudly says “hello”, just then I see a decent buck coming toward me so I didn’t respond. Again he says “hello, we are after a wounded deer”. As the buck comes closer I see him limping badly. I wait for a clear 50 yard shot and drop him in his tracks. Then yelled back to the neighbor “Got him”. A 3.5 year old 8 point. I would not have shot the deer myself if it wasn’t wounded, but I am glad I was able to finish it off for them. Turns out if was the boys first buck so he was pretty excited.

I spent a lot of time in the tree and hunted many spots on our farm. I had a great time and was never bored. Got to see tremendous deer activity. 10,15, 20 deer every sit. Very cool to watch and learn there behavior. I came home empty handed, but with some great new memories and hopefully I learned something I can use in the future.

By no means is it over. I have plenty of season still to go, but the 9 days straight is done until next year.

Nice report. I agree, seeing deer is always fun and interesting to watch and see what I can learn from their interactions. Nice work finishing off the wounded one.

I had the same experience with deer in my plots. Young bucks doing the chasing, nothing bigger showing up.

Regarding the fawns being the only ones left on the plots, do you think the does have gone into heat and the bucks have pushed them into breeding areas and locked them down?

I had the opposite last night in the plot I was watching. I had all the does still with their fawns in the plot. A young fork came in and started messing with the does and then a full on chase around the plot ensued after the fork did a little too much sniffing at one doe. They did laps around the plot and then disappeared.

My thinking was that maybe she and the other does aren’t quite ready and hopefully Mr. Big will move in to get the job done when the does are ready. That’s what I’m hoping for anyway.

Grouse

Grouse, that was my initial thought as well with all the fawns. 2 things kind of shoot this theory down.

1. the other parts of the farm have does with the fawns still. It just seems to be this 40 acres of the farm that is covered in fawns without does.

2. there really hasn’t been serious chasing or rut activity. Spending as much time as I did last week and only seeing a few young boys pushing the does around a little. Maybe with the heat they did all the chasing at night and pinned down the hot does. But why just on that part of the farm? Trail cam pics are still showing the mature bucks alone after dark. Each time I went to a stand I would switch trail cam cards of any cams in my path, but did not go out of my way to collect cards.

I wonder, do the other mature does “reject” the fawns that aren’t theirs and that’s what accounts for all the fawns being grouped together on 40 acres? Essentially, the bucks separated them from their mothers and the other mature does refuse to “group” or interact with young fawns now?

I’ll have to watch what happens with the fawns on my place. Currently, it’s like you report on the rest of your farm. I have 4 fawns that are still with their mothers. I’m also seeing the “young buck chasing” activity that you are, so clearly the does are not quite ready yet.

Since I have seen all my does and fawns in the same field and in close proximity to each other, it will be interesting to see what happens when the does get hot and (hopfully) Mr. Big moves in to get the job done.

This is the coolest thing to me about having a property and food plots, the chance to see deer interacting pretty much undisturbed and try to figure out what they do and why.

Grouse

I have trail cam video within the last week of three fawns basically attacking a doe for milk. They were being very aggressive about it.
DT

I’m pretty jealous about having 9 days straight to hunt Sticker! With a 3 1/2 and 1 1/2 year old at home it’s been 4 years since I’ve been able to devote the amount of time that I’d like to sitting in a stand (or boat either for that matter) as well as running cameras and scouting… Not coincidentally it’s also been four years since I put a buck on the ground.

I spent the weekend up in Malmo and things were very similar to what you guys were seeing. More deer than we’ve had in at least 5 years and many more deer than the past couple seasons. A few does and fawns going about their business as usual and a few younger bucks chasing does that weren’t quite ready to be chased. I had one resident spork (half spike, half fork) who I saw at least a half dozen times either pushing does or even walking around right out in the open but always moving with a purpose. For the most part does still had their fawns except for one set of two fawns that I saw by themselves a couple times over the weekend.

My approach for the past couple years of just sitting all day from sun up to sun down in a travel area (Since I’ve been too busy to actually pattern the deer at all) finally paid off as I was lucky enough to put my tag on a mature buck on Saturday afternoon.

Will

I just ended day 4 of my 9 day hunt. I wish most of it would have been before the gun season but its nice to be in the woods either way.
DT

I have bow hunted the week before gun the last 2 years DT and to be honest, next year will be different. I do much prefer to get one with the bow, but timing is everything. Everyone says Halloween is the day to be in the tree, but past experience tells me it’s just a touch too early. Next year I will probably take the Thursday and Friday before gun off to bow hunt…maybe Wednesday too, but going to take more time off in the gun season. I really wish I had had been at the farm these last 2 days. Things were just starting to heat up at our farm for mature bucks Sunday morning. November 7th is THE DAY I want to be in the tree. This year that was Monday I will have to see how the season lands next year, but either way I will be in a tree at the farm on November 7th, come hell or high water

Will, congrats on the buck!!! Where is the pic???

Things get weird around here during the gun season. I hunt almost 1000 private acres but still have to deal with neighbors who shoot ANYTHING that moves. Unless we have snow the shooters seem to disappear. It’s hard to get them on camera even at night.
DT

deertracker wrote:

Things get weird around here during the gun season. I hunt almost 1000 private acres but still have to deal with neighbors who shoot ANYTHING that moves. Unless we have snow the shooters seem to disappear. It’s hard to get them on camera even at night.
DT

Shoot a GIANT today and ask him where they go

The 7th is my favorite day . I’ve shot most my bucks in Nov. on the 7th. From there it’s usually bow opening week.

Hoping to get out after work on Thursday and try for an hour in the tree.

Sticker you will get’em this weekend.

I think Thursday PM or Friday AM are going to be good with the “cooler” weather coming in for 24 hours. Trying to get out of work Friday so I can sit Friday & Saturday looking for an upgrade.

I saw 4 deer over 2 days in stand (actually less because I had to head back to the cities Saturday PM to watch my daughters performance). Spike and something else I didn’t get a good look at Saturday AM. I shot a 8ptr at 3pm on Sunday. It’s my biggest ever which doesn’t mean much since I only have two forks in my ~20 years of hunting (I enjoy the downtime in stand or sleeping in). I then followed it up with a mature doe at 5pm on Sunday waiting until dark to grab the wheeler to grab my buck. Ended up being a doe we have on camera for 3 years. We know this because it has a split ear. We called her Notch! Never seen her with fawns / yearlings, etc. so felt good about taking her.