December 29th Deer Season Journal

The last week in December was the last chance to deer hunt in West Virginia. The first two days were set as youth doe hunt days while the last three were an extended doe season.

Ryan and I headed to our property late Thursday morning and arrived at about noon. We quickly gathered our digital game cameras and took a quick look at the pictures.

At 3:00 PM I headed to the oldhouse and set up a blind to wait and see if I could see a doe. I gave up a little after 5:00 PM as the light faded after seeing only two turkey gobblers. One deer did come in from behind the blind but it spooked and I heard it snorting as it went over the hill. On the way back to the house I saw seven deer in the hayfield. It seems I'm always in the wrong place.

After not seeing any deer at the oldhouse I wanted to spend the next morning at the middle clearing food plot/feeder area but my blind was already set up at the oldhouse. The feeder wasn't working properly at the oldhouse and the deer had already given up on it so I didn't have much hope for the morning.

I was in the blind at the oldhouse by 7:10 AM as daylight approached. A little after 8:00 I finally spotted a deer approaching through the woods. Five deer eventually arrived including one spike, two young bucks who had already shed their antlers and two does. The last doe was the old doe that had eluded me on a couple other occasions.

They made their way to the food plot. Eventually the oldest doe gave me an opportunity and I was able to get a shot at her. She went down thirty yards into the woods.

She was old enough that she was difficult to age. Her teeth were wore down to the gums so I'd say she was at least approaching 10 years old. Although I thought that she was in bad shape she still weighed 75 pounds.

Ryan said he was tired of being the model for the deer I've shot over the years and went behind the camera for this one. This picture isn't all that bad but I still think I'm a better photographer than model. At least we remembered to take the picture before we took her jaw off.

You couldn't beat the weather with bright sunshine and high temperatures in the low 50's. We spent the rest of the day putting our cameras back out, filling the feeders and we took down the last two treestands. We found out that the feeder wasn't working because it had a small stick in it that had kept the spinner plate from turning. It's an old feeder and no longer has the gusto to turn when met with much resistance.

We also put out some deer feed in a couple of old chicken feed troughs. We put them inside an old building that has a drive through section to keep the food dry. We've done this in the past but really don't know what eats the feed so we put a digital game camera on it to see what visits. I like giving the deer a little extra feed but if the feed is only being eaten by raccoons or other critters, it's not worth it. We'll find out who came to the supper table on our next visit.

Seeing two young bucks that had already shed their antlers makes me think these late year extended doe seasons are tough on our buck population. It's always a shame when we lose button bucks in doe season but it's even worse to lose a formerly antlered buck. The last thing we need here in West Virginia is more bucks killed.

As far as buck hunting was concerned our season was a little disappointing. We had pictures of several descent bucks from the early fall but they seemed to disappear in mid-November. Doe hunting was another story with us taking three does with Ryan taking two of them. We did learn from this season though. Deer will go to and stay where the food is. This shouldn't be a shock but sometimes I have to have things hammered back into my head.




Return from December 29th Journal to the 2006 Deer Season Journal Index.