Ohio bound

Well, since my last entry, I have visited Ohio for a 4 day trip. It was a good trip, although I was a little sore. The trip started off in an ominous way. We were supposed to leave at about 4:00pm. My brothers plane would be landing at Philly International Airport at 3:00pm, he would come to my house, load up the truck and we would be on the road. Unfortunately, and predictably, a little bad weather caused huge delays at the airport and he didn't land until after 7:00pm. I shouldn't complain about it though, the rain that caused the delay was badly needed, and it brought cooler temperatures, which were also very welcomed. We finally got on the road about 7:45pm and after driving all night, and stopping at the local Walmart for food and my licenses and permits, we arrived at the house at 4:35am. Daylight would come by 7:00am, so it looked like we were going to miss the first morning hunt. We slept in until 9:00am, then did some quick scouting of a few locations to get ready for an afternoon hunt. Things looked good at a few of my stands, and the woods were full of acorns, but our green fields were starting to shape up too, so it was decision time. We both decided to sit on the field edges the first afternoon as an observation stand to get an idea of how the deer were using the property. It was a good decision, as we both saw several deer, but nothing huge. I spent the late afternoon watching a doe and two fawns, and a yearling buck feed in the field, until a trespasser on a 4-wheeler came through and spooked them back into the cover. At dark, I called it a night and started my trip out. The weather in Ohio had changed for the better, and the overnight low was forecast to be in the 30's. Dry heat had plagued this part of the country as well, and the rain that delayed our departure had also passed through here bringing cooler temps and a nice breeze. Now the bad news about the cold overnight temps...our heater quit working in the house. After a chilly nights rest, we headed back out in the morning. I was only carrying the video camera though as screwing in steps and hanging a few stands the day before really had my shoulders aggravated, and there was no way I could pull back my bow. We had a few double stand sets up for video taping hunts, so we headed to one of those. The morning was slow, but not uneventful as we did see a few small bucks, and that was how the next few days went...me video taping, us seeing small bucks and a few does. On Sunday afternoon, I decided to check out what footage we had aquired thus far and discovered that I was having some technical difficulties. Almost nothing I had been taping was actually recorded to the tape, and the camera would no longer read the time code on the tape. Looks like more camera repair after I get home. Sunday afternoon I set up on an oak flat that was loaded with acorns, and it was also loaded with deer sign. I saw deer all afternoon, with the same four deer staying around me for most of the hunt. I had a small buck come in and feed under me for almost an hour and took a few nice pictures of him. Monday morning I decided to head back to the same area, but down the ridge a little ways to where I had found a nice shed antler back in March. Not long after first light I had a nice doe come in and offer me a 15 yard shot that I took. After the hit I let her scamper off, waited about 30 minutes and then climbed down. I took my stand out as I wanted to move it to another location for my return trip that would be closer to the rut, and this other spot is a good location to intercept a rut-crazed buck. I quitely slipped out of the woods and went and hung the other stand. After getting that spot settled, I returned to the house and packed my gear, picked up my brother, who had not seen anything, and returned to track my doe. She went a little ways, but we found her without too much trouble in a pine thicket. After a quick field dressing job we loaded her up, finished packing the truck, took a quick shower and hit the road for home. After just a quick stop at the check station we were on our way and back to New Jersey by dinner time. Even though my camera crapped out and I had sore shoulders the entire trip, it was still a success and just a great long weekend get-away. Can't wait for the next trip.

Good Hunting-DV

Scenes from the stand

Here is a short video of some scenes from an afternoon hunt last week. Deer activity has been slow, but I did manage to see some game that afternoon. Even though the start of the season has been slow, I did see a few deer and some turkeys on my last outing. It's still too hot and dry, but as I write this, I hear heavy rain hitting the roof and see that the temps will be falling in the next few days. Here is a short video of some scenes from my stand.



The two 1.5 yr old bucks came out and fed in the beans briefly before heading towards a patch of beans that were still green. On the close-up shot of the 3 pointer, you can see what became of my food plot this year. Most of the green stuff you see is weeds. Due to the drought, almost nothing I planted grew. I don't know if this latest round of rain will be enough to get it going or not. This is what my food plot looked like last year when we had corn planted on the farm. Sweet huh.


I had high hopes for this farm, we'll see if the rain can lift my spirits. Funny thing is rain is usually associated with dampening things, bringing doldrums and depressing, gunmetal gray skies, and attitudes to match but I couldn't be smiling wider hearing those raindrops pelt my roof. Now for that first frost...

Good Hunting-DV

Searching for Columbus Day magic.

Today is the Columbus Day holiday, usually one of my better days. I've killed several deer on the Holiday, including a few decent bucks. I got up at 4:00am and was again greeted by very humid, 71 degree weather. I turned on the coffee pot, splashed some water on my face and took the trash cans out to the road as the coffee brewed. After completing that chore, and a quick shower with scent free soap, I grabbed my steaming mug and headed for the computer to check weather.com. They are calling for a record high today of 87, beating the old record set in 1882. I decided to use the black lightning stand hanging in the creek bottom by the big white oak. The wind is light and variable, but supposed to blow from the east when it does blow. The stand sits in a small valley about 40 yards wide. There are hills that rise about 20 to 35 feet in elevation on both sides, and a creek running through the middle of it. The creek still has some water flowing, and there are several white oaks dropping acorns like crazy close to the stand. There is also a huge old beech tree raining down beechnuts about 50 yards up the valley, all signs that point to a good morning... well, except for the weather.

I haven’t been to this stand for a few weeks, and only used it once so far this year, and that was in the afternoon with no deer sighted. I want to give it a try in the morning and see if that is when they prefer this spot. I got settled in plenty early, about 75 minutes before sunrise, and quietly waited for first light. I could hear the buzz of civilization coming to life around me before the first hint of daybreak reached through the trees. Commuters busily making their way down a winding county road towards a nearby highway, the trash truck making it’s rounds (glad I remembered to drag the cans out before heading to the stand) and car doors slamming shut in nearby driveways as people began their work week. At first light the squirrels came to life and started knocking acorns from the trees around me. Not that those nuts needed any help falling…they came down like rain all morning. The only action for the first few hours was those pesky bushytails, and a sharp shinned hawk that nearly took my nose off, as he decided at the last second to change course.

At about 9:00am, I heard what sounded like a deer sneezing about 50 yards away and up the hill. A few minutes later I saw one deer move through breaks in the leaf canopy, up on the hill I walked across to get to the stand. It was the same place I have seen deer twice before from this stand, and I made a mental note to pick a tree over there before going home today. That deer never made it’s way to me, but vanished behind the heavy, early season foliage. At 9:45am I got down and went over to where I saw that deer and looked for another tree. I quickly remembered why I had not set up there when I previously saw deer…there just isn’t a good place for a stand. I guess I need to do some further scouting and find a spot on that hillside that they seem to use regularly. By 10:00am it was already getting hot and I was on my way home.

This afternoon seems like a better day to mow the grass than hunt, so that is probably what I'll do. Can't wait for this cooler weather and rain they are calling for by weeks end.

Good Hunting-DV

Week One of Fall Bow

Well, the Fall Bow season opened for me on the 29th of September, no more earn-a-buck. It was a tough early season, hot, dry temps, and no does killed, so I didn’t want to hunt my better spots because I just knew a buck would come in. On the morning of the 29th, I got up at 4:00am to begin my morning ritual, but first went for my bow to give it a pull. I had been having trouble with my left shoulder for about 15 months, and in the last week, my right one went bad on me. Sure enough, couldn’t get the bow back, so I went back to bed. I hunted in the afternoon anyway, hoping I could get the bow back if I needed to but, you guessed it, I had a shooting opportunity and couldn’t complete the draw.

Saw the doctor later in the week so he could read the MRI…torn rotator cuff in both shoulders, and torn bicep tendon in one. That is not what I wanted to hear, but he gave me a couple of shots to dull the pain and by today, I can get the bow back without too much pain. I’m down on strength a little, but can do it for a few practice shots each day and for the moment of truth if needed. So, the season started off a little rough for me. The hot dry weather, pain in the shoulders, and slow deer movement had sapped some of my motivation to get out and hunt. That has, however, allowed me to get a jump start on this blog because I’m not spending every minute in the woods like usual this time of year. I’m sure the first cool breeze with recharge me and I wont be able to get out enough. Looks like they are calling for rain and those cooler temps by the end of next week, we’ll see…

Good hunting-DV

The Early Season

I got out about 8 times in what NJ calls the Early Bow Season, which this year began on September 8th. I saw a few deer, and had some shooting opportunities, mostly fawns. The stage I'm at in my hunting life is not one where I feel the need to shoot spotted fawns, even to fill an earn-a-buck requirement, so I didn't take a deer in the early season. I still have some venison in the freezer from last year so we don't really need the meat, but I am sure they provide very good eating, even if it is only one meal.

On September 29th, Fall Bow season opened for all zones statewide and the earn-a-buck requirement was no longer in effect. A friend of mine took advantage of his first morning out and killed this nice 8-pointer on public land in South Jersey. The buck was coming to his bait pile on a regular basis, and he had plenty of trail camera photos to prove it. Just after 7:00am, he took the shot and ended his quest for a buck until the end of the month, when the Permit Bow season begins.

I don't hunt over bait. I do run a few bait sites for trail cameras, just to get an idea of what is walking around where I hunt, but in my experiences, most mature deer do not come to bait in the daylight. Yet each year, bucks like this one, which is at least 2.5, maybe 3.5 yrs old, get killed over bait. If you care to comment, I wonder how many others have had luck hunting over bait.

Good hunting-DV

Hot times.

Well, New Jersey's fall bow season has been open for about one month now, and it's been hot! I have been keeping hunting journals since 1989 and, looking back, we have not had a season that has stayed this hot, for this long. We would get a few hot days mixed in with normal temps, but not consistently 80+ degree days like this year, and it's been dry. I have almost 4 acres of food plots planted in a few different spots, and everything has dried up and died. I planted them in late August, right after a decent rain, and there was enough soil moisture to get them growing, but no rains came and now everything is about dead.

On a positive note, there is a tremendous acorn crop in the woods this year, so even though much of the crops and browse has died off early from the drought, the deer still have plenty of food to get them through fall and, with the amount of acorns I'm seeing, probably winter too. I've heard different theories on this, but a forester friend told me that mast crop will be heaviest in times when the trees feel stressed, like a drought. Unless a late frost kills the buds, in time of severe drought, he stated the acorn fall is big. This year he seems to be right, as acorns from red oaks, black oaks, post oaks, pin oaks, white oaks, and chestnut oaks are all over the ground. It can make for tough hunting because deer can find food just about anywhere, and often times do not bed too far from it, but if you find the right spot...where they are currently hitting the acorns, you can have a good hunt. Find those trees they are hiting right now, and set up on them.

Good hunting-DV

Trying to put into words what being an outdoorsman means to me...

Well, I guess the best way to start this blog is to say a little about myself. I'm 40 years old, currently married with a 10 yr old daughter and 13 yr old son and probably the best wife a guy could have. I'm in Law Enforcement, formerly worked as a social worker with at-risk kids, and served in the Navy and Army.

I have been addicted to whitetail hunting since about age 13, when I started hunting with a bow. At age 15, my parents allowed me to hunt with a shotgun, and I enjoy that too but bowhunting is my passion. I also enjoy off-shore fishing, fresh water fishing for just about whatever I can get to bite, and fishing in the Delaware Bay for weakfish, bluefish, flounder and striped bass. I recently bought a kayak for accessing some small fishing holes and find fishing from the "yak" to be alot of fun. I enjoy just about anything I do outdoors, from wading a local stream or river with ultralight tackle, to sitting in a treestand on cool October evenings or crisp November mornings with either my bow or video camera, to the thunderous gobbles of a wild turkey at daybreak, on a cool and damp spring morning, it's all great.

For those of you who have never experienced these things, you don't know what you are missing. There is so much to see and experience outdoors it amazes me every time I go afield. To watch the sun rise or set across a hardwood ridge, ablaze in Autumn’s finest glory…to observe a whitetail buck, steam pouring from his nostrils on a crisp November morning as he strides along the edge of a frost covered, cut cornfield where it rushes up to meet the firery oranges, reds and yellows of the maples and hickories that grow at the woodline, well, you just have to see it to fully appreciate it. To see the flashy colors of the brook and rainbow trout in the cold April streams, or the violent eruption as a largemouth bass bursts through the glassy still surface to grab your lure, as the sun sets across the calm lake on a hazy, late summer evening… You know you are among just a few of Gods wonderful creations.

I guess I’ll end this post with a word about our Creator. I have been very blessed in my life with a great family, good job and good health, and have only God to thank for it. Every time I go afield I see His greatness everywhere, and do my best to preserve it. Please do the same, bring home more trash then you take into the outdoors, and always respect the natural wonders and wildlife you encounter in your Days Afield.

DV

Just getting started

Well, I'm just getting started with this blog today. I'm still trying to figure out how to get it all organized, but plan on using it to keep an up to date hunting journal through the season. Hopefully, I'll be posting pictures and videos to go along with the journal entries.

We'll see how it goes, finding the time to keep it up will be the tough part, but I hope to be able to stay on top of things.

Good hunting-DV