DEER HUNTING REPORTS 2004  page 5
Dec 27, 2004  

Piff and I went down to Adams Co for the first day of Muzzleloader season.  We left around 5:15 in the foggy morning and when we arrived at the property we discovered that ice had covered everything.  With each step we took it sounded like broken glass.

Shortly after daybreak I spotted 6-8 deer just outside of the patch of woods that I was standing in.  They seemed jittery as if something had spooked them.  After standing for about an hour and a half I took a few steps to reposition my self and when I did I jumped a few deer that were bedded about 75 yards away from me.  There was no way you could slip up on anything.

About 10:30 I heard a shot in Piff’s direction and when I caught up with him he said that another hunter on the adjacent property had pushed 3 deer towards him and that he shot at one of them.  Since he is colored blind I helped him to see if there was any sign of a hit.  After following the tracks and finding no blood or hair we determined that he had missed.

I then tried to swing around and drive an area that had some cedar trees in it and when I crested a hill just above the cedars a doe was already on the alert.  After a few minutes she and about 6 other deer jumped up out of their beds and hopped the fence and ran onto the neighbor’s property.

After a lunch break Piff walked through the woods behind the owner’s house and tried to push some deer towards me.  None came out.  Later on Piff walked the back fence line and pushed a little doe right to me.  It stopped broadside about 30 yards from me.  It was and easy shot but I passed it up.  Still waiting on a buck…
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Dec 29, 2004
Piff and I went back down to Adams Co. again and hunted until noon.  The ice was gone and the temps were in the upper 30’s.  We hunted different ends of the property until 11:00 without seeing any deer.  I pushed a few woodlots where we saw deer a few days before but they weren’t around today.
Dec 31, 2004
Craig and I drove down to Hocking Co. early in the morning and hunted the last day of Muzzleloader season.  We didn’t see any deer until we stared walking the hillsides towards each other around mid morning.  On the way back to the cabin for lunch I walked along an old log road around a finger and ran 2 deer towards Craig who was set up between two trails that paralleled each other along the hillside.  The deer ran right up to him and he had a good shot at one of them but he passed because the deer wasn’t a big one.

After lunch we both walked a point from opposite sides hoping to run deer to each other.  Craig jumped a big deer and it ran down the point ahead of me but I didn’t see or hear it.  When I got to the point a deer below me snorted and ran low along the hillside towards Craig.  When I met up with Craig he said that he thought that he heard something run below him but he didn’t see anything. 

After that we walked back to the head of the hollow and hunted until dark.  We spooked a few deer that spotted us from one of the hillsides as we walked back along the creek.  We didn’t see any more deer the rest of the evening.
Jan 26, 2005
The weather has been between 0 and 20 the last few weeks and we had snow off and on since Christmas.  I haven’t been out since muzzleloader season.  Today I went out to Trebein road and sat under the large maple tree at the corner of the picked bean field.  There were a few tracks in the 4 day old snow crisscrossing the field.  At around 5:30 I noticed movement in the brush and tree covered fence line to my right.  A doe and her yearling appeared and made there way towards the back crop field.  That was all the movement I spotted.