Well here we are, once again posting a hunting report after hunting season. Which for those of you just looking for the finished product, and not how the sausage gets made, means I did not fill my bow tag in the metro again this year. Not really disappointed though, as I had plenty of opportunities, just not for the bucks I’m after. Which might be a good starting point, I have been lucky and skilled enough to put a lot of deer down, and at this point in my hunting life I absolutely want meat in the freezer, but with a couple caveats. I don’t shoot little bucks (healthy ones anyway) and I don’t shoot fawns. Even on highly pressured public, I’m convinced this results in big buck opportunities year over year, and this year was no different.
First let me recap scouting, I had virtually no preseason (summer) scouting and I didn’t hang a camera either. You can look at last years report for the camera portion, and the preseason scouting for me is typically walks at daybreak but my 3 year old decided to get on Dad’s early riser schedule this year. And while I could put that on my FW, she is a night owl, and needs her morning sleep…or we all pay for it! (jk if you read this babe) 
. The little bit of scouting I did do, led to another meeting with an absolute moose, that has me looking forward to a whole different approach and effort to be made next September, but for this year it was business as usual in October without my preferred amount of prep.
One benefit of Metro Public hunting is the deer are acclimated to humans, they live amongst us, so in season scouting doesn’t blow things out like it might elsewhere. So late September is when I got pretty serious and started logging some daylight miles. The other nice thing about hunting these big metro properties, is you start to get to know them well enough that you can keep going to new spots and fall back on historic spots when the new ones don’t pan out. At one point I put 4 miles on scouting new stuff, and all I found was cat scat (there’s been Mt Lion sightings on camera in the area fairly frequently) so I marked some stuff to come check out another year and wrote it off for this one. The ironic thing about that, is I think I had a showdown with that kitty when I was hunting about 5 miles away a few nights later. I didn’t have my headlamp or my pistol, so I can’t be sure, but something was close and growlroaring at about 20 yards when I got out of my stand and I’ve never heard anything like that in all my years. So anyways a fat man with a climber and a crossbow can still be pretty quick walking out of the woods! 
Mid October rolls around and I don’t have any good intel on a big buck yet, and my hunts and scouting have been ruined by cats, dogs (yotes) and quite a few real special humans both hunters and civilians. As they say in the south, bless their hearts. I hadn’t been hunting as much as I’d like, but when I got out I was seeing deer, just not the one I’m after. We are approaching the end of October and it was all minutes in the woods that I could spare, and it was going. Grunted a spike in midday, which was cool and would have been an easy shot if I wanted it. Then a day or two later had basket 8, that I think will be ready for the fixed blade next year, broadside in a clear lane at 15 yards. And then possibly had 2 opportunities that were JUST a bit too early, one was when I was on the ground at about 8 yards and was a shooter, the other was at about 20 yards and was either the basket 8 or a shooter. But in both cases it was about 5-10 minutes too early and dark enough that I couldn’t clearly make out the headgear. Plus, while I love my Ravin, the scope takes a few minutes of shooting light off each end of the day. After that I got out a few times up north before rifle season (let 4 small bucks walk), then again a few times in later November and December, but we also had some family travels and work requirements that ended my season a little earlier than I would have liked. So despite not putting one down, I still had a great season, learned a bit more, found a few new spots, had some really fun hunts, and I know there’s a few monsters still walking!
. Musky, I did get a deer during gun season, but there is still plenty of freezer space still available, guess I may need to look into adding a hog to the 1/2 of beef already in there. 
Yes, black bears, cougars and wolves.
