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Whitetail Deer Hunting Season Journal
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Thankfully the rain of last week subsided and the temperature was hovering in the 30’s as I ventured out into the early dawn on Saturday morning. The skies were clear, the moon was just a thin slice in the sky and there was frost on the grass. This is bow season at its best.
I had decided to have a sit at our middle clearing food plot and feeder area to hopefully get a look at one or more of the bucks that we had been seeing on our digital scouting cameras. Even though I do not plan on shooting any of the bucks that we have been seeing there I just enjoy watching whitetail bucks.
It turned into a beautiful morning and I had the opportunity to see five bucks. A spike, four point, five point, seven point and a nine point came to visit me.
The most interesting encounter was when the nine point showed up. It was after 8:00AM when the seven point, spike and doe at the feeder began paying a lot of attention to a noise that was coming from the woods over the hill behind me. Soon I noticed a large deer coming up through the food plot to my right. The seven point left the feeder to go investigate.
The seven point walked around behind the nine point and sniffed him as the nine point stood there looking big and impressive. The seven point then started shoving the nine point from the side. The nine point didn’t seem to want to be bothered with the smaller buck but he eventually dropped his head and just seemed to shove the seven point away.
The nine point then walked over to the feeder with his hair on end and the spike and doe scattered.
This is what gets me out of bed early on Saturday mornings.
This is the nine point at the feeder I was sitting at Saturday morning. You can see the food plot behind him where I first spotted him. This isn’t normally the feeder where this buck shows up.
Saturday was also youth doe hunt day and my son wanted to try to tag a doe. He’s not much for getting up and hunting the mornings yet so we used the evening to try to track down a doe.
In the evenings the deer start filtering into the hayfields and venture up to the apple trees. It’s always fun to try to get close enough to one to get a shot. It always seems that the deer are on the opposite end of the field. I’ve been frustrated hunting these fields many times over the years but always have fun.
We probably saw about 10 does, one spike buck and had one close opportunity. A young doe was getting real close to us when three nice mature does showed up less than 100 yards form us in the field. Unfortunately when the three does were in the perfect place for a shot the young doe had wandered within 10 yards of us and got nervous. She soon spooked and scared the whole gang away. Although we were disappointed we looked at each other and both said “now that was fun”.
This is where Ryan and I were sitting when the young doe walked right up to us. In this picture she is laying out there in the sage brush. You can see how the hilly terrain make it difficult to see much of the field from any one place.
We never got a shot but the weather was beautiful and we had seen a lot of deer throughout the day. I’ll take a hunting day like this one any time.
