Back in the stand.

Well on 11/16, Friday afternoon, after work, I slipped in to a stand I have on a small food plot. It was very windy, and pretty darn cold too. I figured this would be a good spot because it’s hidden back in the cover a little off the field, which gives the deer some security and protection from the wind in the open field. I have noticed the past few days that the fall colors are just barely past their peak, and it’s the middle of November. We don’t usually have leaves on the trees this late into the year but I’m enjoying the brilliant display of falls finest these last few days.

My foodplot finally came up and actually grew pretty well, thanks to good rainfall and warm temperatures later in the fall than normal. It’s mostly brassica’s, and usually by this time of year, the deer have really turned on to this food source. However this year they haven’t touched them. I don’t understand it. There are basically no acorns on this part of the farm, the bean fields have been harvested for some time, and my brassica plot seems like it would be a likely place to see a deer, yet the plants look untouched. I quickly climbed the tree and settled in anyhow, thinking maybe today would be the day they decide to start on the plot. The tire tracks through the plot were just a sign of bad things to come, and evidence of why hunting has been very slow on this piece.


The wind whipped the trees around until just before dark. At 5:02pm, I heard a shot so loud it nearly made me jump form the stand. Someone had just fired into our hayfield, probably at a deer. I grabbed my cell phone from my pocket and hit the game wardens number on the speed dial…voice mail, figures. I left him a message and tuned my ears for sounds of a vehicle entering the field. After straining for ten minutes, I didn’t hear anything that sounded like someone retrieving a deer, but I did hear a snap and turned to see a small doe 10 yards away. She had slipped in under the cover of the gusting wind and was now nervously pacing the edge of the plot. Whether it was from the strong wind, or the shot in the field, that deer was extremely wary and she never got up the nerve to enter the open. As shooting light faded, I scurried down the tree and hurried to the edge of the hayfield. I waited there for some time to see if the poacher would attempt to recover a deer under the cover of darkness, but really didn’t even know if the outlaw hit his target. After 20 minutes of no action, I returned to my truck and stowed my gear.

On my way home I stopped at the neighbors house to see if she had heard the shot and noticed a vehicle. She said she hadn’t on this particular day but, according to her, people shoot into that field once or twice a week from the road, and trucks are driving in and out of it all the time, has been that way all year. She related that a few times a week, she sees them drive into the field and vanish into the woods, will often hear shots “back there”, and then see the trucks drive out, sometimes as late as 11:30pm. The road out of the hayfield leads through the woods, through my plot and to the harvested bean field. From seeing the tire tracks through the plot, I can tell the poachers have been visiting this place regularly over the last few weeks while I was in Ohio.


She said she has called the State Police so many times they don’t even respond any longer, and at that moment I understood why our luck on this farm has been so bad. I could do an entire book on how much I despise trespassing jerks like those that constantly plague our leased property, but I don’t feel like getting that angry right now. Hopefully I’ll be writing in the next few weeks about how I caught the poaching dirtbags in the act and got the last laugh.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I’ll be out trying again. Have a happy Thanksgiving.

Good hunting-DV

Looking back at the last 3 weeks...

Well, I’m finally going to slow down a little and take some time to write. I hunted alot between October 26 and November 14th. With the exception of working a few days, I spent every possible minute in the woods in either New Jersey or Ohio. This year I hunted a total of 14 days in Ohio, all but 4 of them in that 10/26 to 11/14 time span. We had a tough time finding mature deer. I saw plenty of 1.5 yr old bucks, and a few 2.5 year olds that would have been shooters in New Jersey, but were just too small in Ohio. I did pass on a shot at a nice 2.5 yr old 10 pointer that looked a lot like the buck I killed last year. This one was a 3.5 year old buck.

The 2.5 year old I saw this year was just a bit smaller, and quartering away at 12 yards. I just couldn't drop the string. He should be a good one next year.


Overall, the rutting activity was disappointingly slim in Ohio this year.
I saw very little chasing, heard only a grunt or two, and never really saw it bust loose like it has in the past. There were a lot of acorns in the woods, so maybe that kept the deer from moving much. One other thing I observed is that in the last 5 years, the amount of hunting pressure during bow season where we hunt has increased tremendously. It’s almost as crowded as New Jersey is during 6-day firearm season during the rut in SE Ohio, it’s really crazy there now. I have to believe that the huge increase in the amount of human activity in the woods has also affected deer movement, especially mature buck movements.

I had a few close encounters in New Jersey during that time. The farm I hunt in Alloway Township was a bit of a disappointment again this year, but I had a good encounter on another small piece of land I hunt. A gusty rain storm had ended just before noon, so I headed to the stand at 12:30. I climbed into the stand, pulled my bow up, placed it on the hanger and then began searching my backpack for my release. Before I even dug it out, I heard a snap and looked down to see a great buck passing 10 yards from me. It was very windy, and the woods were still dripping from the rain, so he never heard me come in and I never heard him walking towards me. He was through my shooting lane in about 2 seconds and gone from sight shortly afterwards. He was a big buck, and I hoped he would come back. At a few minutes before 2:00pm, I saw sunlight glint off an antler and watched as this nice 10 pointer came in the same way as the big buck had.


I decided to give him a pass, hoping to use my tag on the bigger buck and let this one grow another year. He should be a real slammer next year. Other than that, so far the rut has been pretty uneventful for me this year in New Jersey. There is a little time left to catch bucks searching, but it's winding down. Hopefully the late season will be good to us as the deer turn back onto food sources.

Good Hunting-DV

Last minute buck

The last hour of the hunt is just as good as the first hour of the hunt… The last hour of the hunt is just as good as the first hour of the hunt. I kept thinking about that line I read in a magazine article by Bill Winke earlier this morning while drinking coffee at the house. I needed to keep telling myself that as my hunting time in Ohio was winding down. It was very warm, in the 60’s, and windy this last morning of my hunt, and at 8:15am, the rain started coming too. I had planned to get out of the tree at 10:00am, go pick up Brian and head to the house where we would give it a good cleaning, pack up and head for home by noon. We had just arrived Sunday afternoon, November 11th, but both had to return home by Wednesday evening, the 14th, for other obligations, so this trip would be shorter than anticipated. It had been a rough season for all of us. My brother’s buck was the only big one taken and only one or two other shooter bucks seen among our group of 11 hunters over the last 3 weeks. The rut seemed sporadic and mostly little bucks were running the does, we were all baffled and getting a bit discouraged.

As I sat in my stand thinking about that line, I was also going over scenarios in my head about how the perfect hunt would go down at this spot. This season, I have been having serious problems with both shoulders, and drawing my bow has become more than a chore, actually it’s more like an Olympic Powerlifter attempting a deadlift on a world record amount of iron. It takes me quite a bit of effort to get my bow back, and because of that, a few opportunities have been spoiled this season. I cannot draw smoothly with minimal effort, and any deer within shooting distance is going to pick me off while trying to wrangle my bow to full draw. So I sat there, visualizing the most perfect scenario for a shot at this stand…let’s see, if the buck comes along that hillside, and goes behind those three trees growing close together I can draw when he's blocked by them. Then when he steps out, I have a perfect broadside 20 yard shot. Well, it’s nice to dream anyway, there isn’t even a deer trail there.

By 8:55am, the rain had let up a little, but the wind still swayed the trees and it felt more like a spring day than mid November. My cell phone buzzed. Got a text message from Brian…you see any? No, I replied, just a few dogs, how about you? Nothing, he replied, No deer for you, just dogs? Dogs…, I replied. As I folded the phone up and placed it in my pocket, I looked up and saw two deer standing on the hillside 85 yards away. A doe and a fawn had slipped in, it was now 8:58am, and the last hour of the hunt was upon me. I watched them browse over the crest of the hill, and they were joined by a button buck a minute or so later. Well, at least some deer are moving now I thought, so I kept a watchful eye on that hill and just a few minutes later I saw a crown of antlers bobbing towards me. I watched as the buck closed the distance and stopped where the doe and fawn had been, then he looked down the hill. He was looking down the hill and I was looking at him through my binoculars trying to decide if I wanted to shoot him. Then I saw a doe emerge from a clump of trees, and knew what he was looking at. The doe meandered down the hill, and the buck started to follow. It looked like they were going to go off the hill about 70 yards away, then the doe changed course and started towards my stand. The buck came towards her down the hill and she seemed not to be ready for that and sprinted away from him, right towards me, stopping 8 yards from the base of my tree. The buck then started to close the distance and I figured I’d pick up my bow just in case. I still wasn’t sure this was a shooter, but as he got closer, I could see he was a heavy 3.5 year old buck with some junk on his bases, which were pretty massive. I decided he was good enough and watched in awe as he seemed to have read my thoughts from earlier. He stayed about 30 yards uphill of the doe and walked along the hillside…right behind those three trees, as if he had read the script. I came to full draw and decided to complete the story. He did hear something when I drew, and stopped behind the trees. I waited. The buck peeled up the hill a little and emerged from the trees only to walk behind another. I placed my pin right next to that tree and watched as his head and antlers, then neck, and finally shoulder cleared the tree. He stopped, I settled in, and released. The arrow traveled the 22 yards to his shoulder and found it’s mark, center punching both lungs. At first glance it seemed high, but as he ran up the hill I could see the trail would be easy to follow. He covered the 40 yards to the top, lurched into a pine thicket and crashed down about 7 seconds after the shot. He was done. I looked at my phone…9:16am, the last hour of the hunt. My brother killed his buck in the first hour of our Ohio hunt on October 27th, and here I am in the last hour of my last day, putting truth to Bill Winke’s words. Yes, the last hour was just as good as the first. Well, almost, Brian’s buck was bigger.

Brians Buck.