Rutcation

It has been a wild season in the deer woods (no pun intended) and there is plenty to recap. Luckily, I have been able to take a few days off to spend my “rutcation” in the stand this fall. While the season thus far has certainly been worthy of many posts and stories, the schedule has been busy and I haven’t done as much hunting or writing as I would like. I decided the cumulation of the events would be better summarized in one post as it has been a whirlwind. So here we go.

Uncle Rob and I headed to camp the weekend of October 15-19. This would be my first hunt of the year. While much later than I would have hoped, I was eager to get in the woods. We decided for a mix of early-muzzleloader doe hunting and archery hunting for bucks. After a washout early Saturday morning, we headed for the government road mid-morning. Muzzleloaders in hand, we each saw a few tails on our way to retrieve my trail camera off the first finger. Still raining, we decided to head for the truck and hunt behind camp in the evening.

I was the only one to hunt the afternoon, and it was an eventful one. I tried climbing into my tree saddle for the first time near the Graveyard Stand, but forgot my platform. I made it up the tree with my steps but thought the heck with this and I decided to hunt from the ground. Though it is definitely difficult, I had always thought it would be exhilarating to get an archery deer from the ground. Not long after setting up, I had a spike come in downwind at 50 yards. He promptly winded me and trotted off.

About 30 minutes until dark, I heard some movement from my left. I had a nice brush patch in that direction that I knew would help conceal me should a deer come that way, but didn’t think I would get that lucky. Sure enough, I saw a body moving where the noise came from. I quickly realized there were multiple deer, the first two of which were definitely doe. They were headed straight toward me.

I picked up my bow and aimed in their direction. Then, for no reason, the lead doe trotted a few steps right through the opening I was hoping to shoot through. I drew my bow back in hopes the second doe would enter the opening. However, when she did, she was facing directly away. She proceeded to trot off. With the final deer moving into the opening, I was shaking noticeably. I realized it was a rack buck, and he caught my movement. The group blew and ran off. What an encounter.

We took the chance to hang a few stands Sunday and promptly hunted them Monday morning. I had one “borderline” shooter buck cruise by at around 60 yards and Uncle Rob saw a couple bucks as well. We decided to take an early afternoon walk with our muzzleloaders near the government road.

Uncle Rob, working up a valley, bumped two bucks. One of those was an absolute big woods giant that had both of us excited for rifle season in that area.

I jumped a group of deer early on the push but wasn’t able to get a shot. On our way back towards the truck, I bumped into another group of at least 3-5 deer, and after some frantic scrambling, had my gun steadied on a doe. Finally finding her shoulder through an opening, I squeezed off a shot.

Instantly, I didn’t feel great about it. The deer didn’t react like she was injured and ran off without any struggle. I marked where I took my shot and walked to where she stood. After scanning the area she stood as well as where she ran, I came to the obvious conclusion of a clean miss. While it wasn’t the ideal outcome, I was thankful the deer wasn’t injured in any way.

We hunted the evening behind camp but neither of us had much luck. I did, however, get my first sit in the tree saddle. Overall, the weekend was a great one in the Alleghenies, and as always, we couldn’t wait to be back.

After a few weeks of being unable to get back into the stand, Guys Weekend arrived with much anticipation. I left for camp Wednesday morning (November 3rd) and arrived to snow on the ground. While this was something we would much prefer for rifle reason, it sure was pretty.

I sat Wednesday evening near the Graveyard Stand, this time much closer to where I anticipated deer movement. I saw 13 deer that sit, and was just getting started for the weekend.

Thursday brought much of the same. I sat in the same spot and saw quite a few deer once again. During the morning sit, I had two doe working my direction for what seemed like hours. Finally, when they got to about 50 yards, I decided I would shoot the bigger of the two if she came in range. Once they started getting into bow range, out of nowhere, two smaller bucks came running in on their trail. They proceeded to grunt and chase the two doe right beneath my stand. With bow in hand, I decided to hold off in case one of them was in heat. Unfortunately, no bigger bucks came through the area.

I spent Friday morning in the same spot and once again had a lot of action. It was clear I had the “hot spot” that weekend, but the deer were still moving through the same main area out of range. I decided to finally make my move into their “funnel” for the evening sit, but only had a doe move through while I was climbing my tree.

I spent the final sit of the weekend Saturday afternoon with Robert in the same spot. We set up in our saddles about 50 yards apart, hoping to capitalize on the hot area. Our only deer sighting was a lone doe that never got closer than 50 yards so needless to say no arrows were released.

As always it was a weekend filled with good food, great company, and lots of exciting hours on stand. It’s a weekend that goes by all to fast and is always bitter sweet when it comes to an end. Once again, we find ourselves counting down the days til the ext Guys Weekend.

With one of the top 2 hunting weekends of the year just behind us, I made a last minute game-time decision to go down to Dan’s in Southern Ohio the afternoon of Friday November 12. I arrived to Dan’s new log-cabin outfitter camp around 6:30 PM Friday and we began to plan out Saturday’s hunt. We decided to head out behind the house in the morning, climb down around 9:00 AM, and head over to meet Rob at Lowell’s at 11:00 AM for a long afternoon sit.

Dan and Aiden each saw a couple doe in the morning and we were all back for breakfast at 9:15 AM. After arriving at Lowell’s, Dan planned to head behind the house, and Uncle Rob and I set up about 40 yards apart in the “Honey Hole”. After about 4.5 hours of not seeing anything, we were sure it was more of a “Gahr Hole”. With an hour left of light, I saw Uncle Rob looking through his binoculars aimed right behind me. I slowly turned but didn’t see anything, so I shrugged it off.

Minutes later, I heard a crunch behind me and slowly turned around sure enough, there was a big doe broadside already at 35 yards, and closing. I immediately turned around and grabbed my bow. I lifted it up and over the tree, adjusting my position in the saddle. The doe circled around me and was headed for an opening on the trail just 22 yards away. As her head went behind a tree, I drew my bow.

She took a step out into the trail and I centered my 20 yard pin behind her shoulder. I pulled my release and let the arrow fly. THUMP! Immediately, we could see that the hit was a bit high and back, and the arrow only got about 2/3 penetration. The doe bounded off for about 50 yards but then we couldn’t hear anything.

Both shaking at this point, we made a series of hand motions and texts and decided to wait 30 minutes then climb down. We scanned the area for blood but couldn’t find any. With light fading, Rob suggested we head in the direction we heard her go and hope we find her laying.

It didn’t take more than a few steps to realize this was a much less than ideal approach. Regardless, we pushed on. We made it about 40 yards when I saw a lump on the ground that resembled a body. “Is that a dead deer?!” I said to him. Then I began to make out the shape of her head. “Hell yea it is!” I said. Finally, we began the celebrations. The old doe didn’t go more than 50 yards before crashing.

We gutted and drug the deer out to the field off of Lowell’s drive where the trucks were parked and the real celebrations began. We took some pictures, including one suggested by Rob where I mounted Dan’s rattling antlers on the doe’s head. That fooled more than a few people. We ordered pizza from “After The Game” and had it delivered to the field where we enjoyed some BLT pizza and cold beer. Surely a hunt we won’t soon forget.