| DEER HUNTING REPORTS 2006 page 1 |
| Oct. 29, 2006
Piff and I went down to Adams Co. to check on our stands and to check in with the owner. Piff hunted with my crossbow and I hunted with my camera since I had rotator cuff surgery on my left shoulder in August. No bow hunting for me until next year...I hope! Piff didn’t see any deer all day, (except for the buck that ran in front of us on the way down,) while I saw a young buck at 3:45 cross the fence at the property line near the front of the property. He was a young 6-8 pointer. He fed through the woods below the barn on the adjacent property. An hour later 3 or 4 deer came through the same woods, then crossed the road near the property line. At dusk I had a deer run in front of me as I was walking back to the owner’s house. |
| Nov. 10, 2006
"Missed Opportunity " Piff and I went down to Adams Co. Friday for a hunt during the peak of the rut. Once again, Piff hunted with a crossbow while I carried my camera. It was a warm and foggy morning with only about 75 yards visibility. Piff hunkered down by the farm gate where he could watch several different fields, wooded areas, and pastures. After a few hours without seeing any deer he moved down to his ladder stand in the bottom of a pasture next to a drainage creek. I set up along a fencerow that separated the two properties that we hunt. It was a spot near the road where I have witnessed deer travel when they leave the agricultural fields across the road. As soon as I settled in I noticed two antlerless deer in the field between a woodlot and a strip of woods along the road. They acted like they were run out of the woods. They milled around in the fog-covered field for about twenty minutes or so then they returned to the woodlot. About mid morning I headed down the fenceline to the other end of the property where I have seen bucks in the past crossing the fence. On the way I found a chewed up three-point shed next to a cedar tree in the pasture. I also saw the two deer again in one of the wooded draws in the pasture. I didn’t see any deer in the area so after 11:00 I slowly made my way towards the gate to meet up with Piff for lunch. As I approached the gate I saw a small buck jump the fence behind the gate. When I arrived at the gate I looked down the hilly pasture and saw that Piff was in his treestand about 200 yards away. While waiting for him I scanned the area for deer with my binoculars. After around 10 minutes I looked through the binocs at Piff and could see that he was standing up in his treestand looking up the hillside behind him. I then glassed the hillside to see if I could see if there was something that he was looking at. When I didn’t see anything I panned back to Piff’s tree and what I saw caused my pulse to rise! There was a HUGE buck slowly walking towards his stand! He had his head down and when he lifted it up I could see he had many tall tines. He was only about twenty yards in front of and to the left of the stand and was on a path paralleling the drainage creek. I saw him slowly walk to the left of the stand and when he got slightly behind the stand I saw him stop suddenly, I thought that maybe Piff grunted at him to stop. Just then the buck jumped and turned inside out and ran up the hill about 20 yards and stopped and looked at Piff. He then stomped and snorted a few times and ran up to the fence and jumped it and took off through another pasture. When he was running away I could see that his rack was well past his ears! Soon I could see Piff climbing down out of his stand. Shortly he arrives at the gate shaking his head in disgust. He said he didn’t see a deer all morning and was standing up looking behind him when the big buck slipped up on him. When I asked him why he didn’t take the easy 20-yard shot he reluctantly replied, “The crossbow was on the ground!” He said that just a few minutes earlier that he had lowered the crossbow to prepare to get out of the stand. He then stood up to take one more look around behind him. That’s when the big boy showed up. Piff said that the bruiser eventually winded him and that’s when he jumped and ran up the hill. Piff had time to count and least 11 points and he was sure that he didn’t count them all. That would have been anyone’s “buck of a lifetime”! In the afternoon I went back to the fence crossing and rattled in two small bucks; one had half of his rack busted off and the other was a young buck with a basket rack. I stayed until just before dark and then headed back to the gate to wait for Piff. As I approached the gate I saw that Piff was standing there looking down towards his treestand. As I was approaching him I noticed a buck at the fence about 40 yards behind Piff. I lightly whistled at Piff to get his attention and pointed behind him. When he turned around to look I grunted at the buck. He stopped and Piff got a good look at him. It was a young 6- or 8-point buck. I walked up to Piff and he told me that he came up to the fence early because 3 cows came through a hole in the fence and were milling around his stand. He said that he got down because he thought that the cows would spook the deer so he got down and decided to spend the rest of the evening at the gate. He told me that when he got to the gate he looked back down towards the stand and there was a nice buck standing near his stand! He also said that he saw a big buck with tall white tines walk out of the woodlot and down to the drainage creek and that he grunted at him to try to get him to come his way. The big buck never showed up. While he was telling me this a small 6 pointer walk right up to us and stopped to look at us about 40 yards away! When we got back and talked to the owner he said that around 3:00 his wife shouted at him to look towards the front yard. He told us that a buck with a tall rack came across a bare field and crossed the road and jumped his fence in the front yard. He observed the buck run through his yard and head down toward a strip of woods about 150 yards from his house. We don’t know weather or not if it was the same buck with the tall white tines that Piff said he had seen around 4:15. All in all it was a day to remember. Between the two of us we saw two huge bucks and about 5 or 6 young ones with only two antlerless deer. We expected to see a lot more does being chased by rut-crazed bucks. The big boys were definitely looking for does while the youngsters were just staying out of the way. |
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| Nov. 17, 200
“Dogs On The Loose” Piff and I went down to hunt the property in Adams Co. one last time before gun season. Piff hunted on the ground on the downwind side of his tree stand because the wind was blowing in the opposite direction from our last hunt. I headed for the hillside that looks down on the creek where I shot my buck last year. Once again I just carried along my camera. The only deer I saw all morning was a young doe that milled around me for a few hours. As I made my way over to Piff to meet with him for lunch I found a left-side shed antler on the hillside in the pasture. It was probably dropped this past winter or early spring. It has 6 points with the G2 measuring 9.5 inches, the G3 at 7.5 inches, and a main beam of 20 inches. The tip of the main beam is chewed off, as well as, the brow tine and the G3 and G4. After picking up the shed I walked about 30 yards or so and saw where Piff was located. He was between his treestand and the fence that the big buck jumped last week. I took a few more steps and glanced at Piff and I could see that he was pointing up the hillside. I immediately sat down in the pasture and noticed that a young 6-point buck was heading my way. The little buck spotted me and then scampered back into some cover up on the hillside. When I reached Piff I sat down alongside of him and as we were both eating lunch the young buck reappeared on the hillside two or three more times. Piff told me that earlier in the morning a nice 8-pointer had chased a doe along the hillside and that they both ran up into the woodlot behind the landowner’s log home. Soon we heard a noise coming from our left. Then all of a sudden a big buck came running along the hillside in the pasture and ran up into the wooded hillside. He was hauling ass! A half a minute later we could hear another animal approaching. We could hear it panting. Then, all of a sudden, a dog darts in front of us on the trail of the buck. Shortly two other dogs followed. After lunch I pointed out a place on the fence, behind and to the left of Piff, where I had seen deer jump over in past years. The ground was bare and I could see some fresh deer tracks. I then left Piff and made my way back to the same hillside that I was on earlier. Shortly after my arrival I heard dogs barking on the other side of the big creek. The barking soon got louder and I could tell that they were running from my left to my right. Soon the barking sounded like it was getting closer to the creek. Suddenly I observed a doe and a yearling running in the tall weeds across the creek. They were moving from my right to my left. A few seconds later I saw a big buck with a tall, white rack running in the same direction. The dogs were in pursuit. They must have been chasing every deer in the county! Later on I had a young doe walk up to where I earlier crawled through a hole in the fence. She stuck her head through then backed out. She then walked the fence line a little bit and stopped and looked behind her. The little 6-point buck that we had seen earlier was hounding her. She eventually jumped the fence and he lost interest and shortly left the area. When I met Piff back at the gate at the end of the day he told me that he had a doe and a yearling walk up the hill about 15 yards from him and jump the fence right at the spot that I had pointed out to him earlier. He also told me when he got up to the gate he looked back towards his treestand and saw a young deer hanging around it. I know where Piff will be next week when gun season starts. Maybe I’ll hunt in his back pocket! |
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