| DEER HUNTING REPORTS 2006 page 3 GUN SEASON |
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| Dec. 3, 2006
“Lost & Found” On a cold Sunday morning we left around 4:30 a.m. and headed down to southern Ohio to gun hunt again. Piff was still looking to bag one of the big bucks that we know roam the area while I wanted to fill my doe tag. Piff headed to the gate above his treestand while I went back to the ravine where I had shot my buck on opening day. Around 8:30 another hunter came walking down the hillside and walked up to me. He said that he was on a deer drive and that they were pushing deer along the creek back to their property. Shortly after he walked up the hill behind me I heard a commotion to my left. A few seconds later I heard deer running across the ditch in the bottom of the ravine. A good size doe soon appeared on the hillside to my left; she was being followed by a yearling. The doe hesitated for a few seconds then trotted up the hill and ran out into the pasture above with the youngster in tow. I didn’t have a chance to get my shooting sticks and shotgun in position. About a half hour later I saw movement on the same area of the hillside that the two deer ran up. It was a big dark coated coyote. Again I couldn’t get my sticks and shotgun in position for a shot before it walked out of sight. I stuck around until about 11:00 then made my way back to meet up with Piff. I found him standing about 40 yards up the hill from his treestand. He told me that he started hunting at the gate and shortly after daylight a big buck walked right by his treestand. He then moved down the hill and climbed up into his ladder stand and shortly a doe and two yearlings came moseying along the drainage creek and walked 40 yards away behind his stand. He took aim and fired at the biggest deer. When he did they all ran up the hilly pasture. When they crested the hill he lost sight of her, but it looked like she was headed towards a nearby woodlot. He showed me where they were standing when he shot and in the area there were a couple of tufts of white hair. Piff is colorblind and can’t see blood so he showed me the general area where they had run up the hilly pasture. I searched the grassy hillside and the top of the hill and could not find any blood. I then looked in the woodlot for any sign but again I didn’t find any. After a while we gave up the search and went back to the landowner’s house for lunch. After we had a quick snack Piff headed down to the gate again and I walked through a couple of small woodlots to try to push deer towards Piff. We both didn’t see any deer come out of the front woods but we found out from the landowner later that he saw 4 or 5 deer run out of the woods and then run across his backyard and into another woodlot behind his house. They put the slip on us! I met back up with Piff and we then decided that he would stay in the area around the gate to hunt the rest of the day and I would go and hunt the other side of the property. On the way to my spot I had to walk along the top of the pasture where Piff had last seen the deer that he shot at earlier. As I walked I came to a ditch in the pasture where the cattle cross. When I looked down to make my way across the rocky and muddy ditch I saw a big spot of blood! I soon found more blood on the other side of the ditch. I then slowly began to follow a faint blood trail. After a slow, meticulous search the trail led to another brushy ditch. When I peered through the brush I saw a big spot on the other side of the ditch where it appeared that a deer had laid down. There was a big pile of blood and matted down grass. When I took another step or two I saw a light brown outline of a deer that was laying along side of a log halfway down the ditch. I immediately raised my gun and placed it on my shooting sticks. I was sure that any second the deer was going to bolt out of the cover and into an adjacent wood. I looked through the scope and held the crosshairs on the deer. After a few moments I made some noise to see if it would move an ear or turn its head. After getting no response I slowly made my way over to where it was laying. There she was; Piff’s dear that he shot earlier. The doe had run about 200 yards before she bled on the ground. After the first sign of blood she went about 75 yards. He hit her low behind the shoulder and there was no exit wound. Apparently the deer turned to her left before the woods. We were lucky to find her! |
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| Dec. 16-17, 2006 Piff and I took advantage of the extra weekend that the State added to Gun Season this year and hunted both days on the private properties that are located a few miles below Hillsboro. Piff has two tags left and he hoped to fill one with one of the big bucks that we know roam the area. I was looking to fill my last tag with a good-size doe. Saturday was an unproductive day. The only deer that I saw, or should I say heard, were the ones that snorted at me and ran through the woodlot behind the house as I walked across the owner’s back yard! Piff saw a few in the morning but passed up a shot because he was still waiting for a buck to show. After meeting with Piff for lunch I walked a few woodlots hoping to push some deer towards him, but to no avail. We gave up mid afternoon and called it a day and made plans to come back down in the morning. Sunday I hunted the ravine where I shot my buck on opening day. Not too long after daylight I saw a Tom turkey walking the edge of the wooded ravine. It was in the exact same spot where I took my Tom last spring! Not long after that I noticed four or five does and yearlings nervously skirting the very same wood line. They milled around for a few minutes and eventually spooked and ran off through the pasture above. Soon, Piff called me on the walkie-talkie and told me that he had shot a doe. Luckily he said that this time he wouldn’t need any help tracking. She dropped about 50 yards away. I was glad to hear that! About 11:00 I made my way up the side of the ravine to the spot where I downed my buck on opening day. I noticed a few beds in the area and some droppings. As I was looking around I caught a glimpse of a deer with a big body standing broadside on top of a hill just behind the barn. It had spotted me and was looking my way. It was about 300 yards away and by the time I could get my binoculars up it disappeared over the hill. I met Piff back at the house and he told me that he had a heck of a lot of activity in the morning. Between the turkeys and the deer he was covered up with wildlife. Apparently the deer came by him in waves from the neighboring property. There were other hunters moving the deer towards him. All in all, he had eleven deer run by him and in one of the groups he picked out a big doe and decided to shoot her. When he went back to the house to get assistance from the land owner to help him haul the doe out he noticed four more deer in the front yard. After discovering that the owner wasn’t home he made his way back down to the pasture where he was hunting earlier. On his way back there were turkeys all over the place. They had spotted him and they went scrambling in all directions. By his count for the morning he saw 15 deer and who knows how many turkeys! That was it for Gun Season. We hope to get back down to hunt some of the four days of Muzzleloader Season after Christmas. |
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