October 14th Deer Season Journal

Bow season opened here in West Virginia on October 14th. Ryan and I headed to our hunting property on Friday evening after watching half of our local high school football game. This allowed us to arrive at about 11:00PM and hit the sack by midnight. Temperatures in the high thirties made it a bit chilly but we started the fires in the old farmhouse as soon as we arrived and it warmed up nicely.

6:15 arrived early and unlike last year Ryan didn’t have much trouble rolling out from under the covers to join me.

I had planned on going to our oldhouse food plot/mineral lick area where we had been getting pictures of two decent looking bucks. I wanted to see them firsthand to see just how big or small they are. Ryan wanted to go to the mineral lick that is near the middle food plot where we had been getting quite a few pictures of does over the last couple of months. Ryan won and at 7:00 AM we headed to the middle clearing.

My stand location in this spot was determined by my forgetfulness last year. Late last year I left a strap for my full body harness hanging in a tree. Since I had to climb up into this tree to retrieve the strap anyway I put a stand up. I figured I could hunt this stand once and then move it to better spot since this stand location didn’t seem to be a good location.

So much for my stand location ideas. The first deer we saw came directly up the hill across from me and she stepped onto the logging road less than twenty yards in front of me. I couldn’t have been in a better tree.

The doe went to the food plot and dined on the Shot Plot that we planted there this fall for about a half hour before I lost site of her on the other side of the food plot. I returned to my crossword puzzle until I heard something behind me. There she was right behind me returning to the food plot.

She then left the food plot and started on the trail towards the mineral lick where she stopped to sniff the spot where I had put my bow while I climbed into my stand. I could have dropped something right onto her back. She was directly below me. She then continued toward the mineral lick.

Ryan, who had put a little more thought into his stand location was near the mineral lick. As she continued she walked right in front of Ryan and he got a shot at her. His arrow hit her right in front of here back hip and angled forward. She jumped and then walked about 20 yards over the hill where I lost sight of her. Ryan watched her walk away and lie down.

After about 15 minutes I climbed down to talk to Ryan about the shot. When he told me he saw her lie down we went to take a look. We saw her lying there with her head up so we backed out and went to the house.

Two hours later we returned and found the doe dead near the location we last saw her.

She was a 1 ½ year old doe that weighed 76 pounds. This weight is consistent with the weights of the does we have been shooting and tells us that we need to continue shooting more does.

Ryan learned a good lesson. He shot at the doe while she was walking and the arrow hit her farther back than we would have liked. He now knows that he needs to stop them before he shoots. It is interesting to add that I’ve never lost a deer that I hit this far back while I have lost three that I thought that I would see drop. This isn’t any excuse to aim farther back, but it is interesting.

One thing I have noticed this year is a lack of buck rubs to date. I’ve only seen one and Ryan said that he’d seen another but that is all. I can’t remember when we usually start to see more rubs but it sure seems that we should be seeing more by now. We’ll keep looking.

I didn’t get a chance to get out and hunt more. Since we’ve been reviewing digital game cameras I now have 12 of them. It takes a while to download, refresh batteries and get them all set up and put out again. I think I may put out fewer game cameras through the rest of deer season. I want to hunt more; it’s a selfish thing. My 6 best cameras provide the bulk of good pictures anyway so I’ll probably continue to use these and give the others a rest. I now have one behind my house to see what we can get some pictures of.

Since we’re talking about digital game cameras, we put one on the gut pile from Ryan’s doe. It’s going to be interesting to see what visits. Check back next week to see if we get any good pictures of who knows what.

Ryan and I noticed one other thing on Saturday. We did not jump a single deer on our way to our stand and we didn’t see any deer until after 8:00 AM. After Ryan shot the doe we saw five more deer on our way back to the house at about 10:00 AM. The sky was clear and I noticed that the moon was high in the sky. I’ve heard that deer move when the moon is high in the sky and I’ve noticed this before so there surely is something to this.

Opening day of bow season was a big success. Ryan shot a nice doe and the weather was great. We couldn’t have asked for a nicer day.




Return from the October 14th Journal to the 2006 Deer Season main page.