by JarHeadTed
January 23, 2012 09:49
SLIDESHOW in this post.
This weekend I decided to start clearing off a small patch of the forest floor for a food plot. I hiked up the hill with a rake, some drinking water, a machete, and a saw. When I got to my target area I picked out where I thought the borders should be. I took into consideration how much sunlight would make it through the trees so the grasses and other greens could grow as well as how rocky the soil was. I started to rake.
After 2 minutes of raking the forest floor, it was obvious this was either a bad idea or it would take forever and a day to complete. Since I plan to have seeds on the ground in late March, I don't have that long. So, I dig deep into my brain to sections I have not accessed since I was a forestry student at Colorado State University and think..."why not clear the organic material with a comtrolled burn." I look up at the tops of the trees and see no wind, this is good. I take the rake and scratch an 18 (or so) inch fireline down to mineral soil around my intended perimeter. I check the wind one more time and pull out a cigarette lighter from my pocket and light a leaf close to the north fireline. I choose the north border because if any wind did pick up, I expected it from the south. If the "fuel" on the north side of a fire was already burnt, then any potential wind would push the fire onto an area that was already burnt, therefore limiting any chance of the fire becoming uncontrolable.
The fire spread slowly throughout the entire area over the next 2 hours. It created a lot of smoke but was never in any danger of jumping the fireline and easily fit my definition of a low intensity fire. Just what I wanted. I couldn't have pulled it off better had I planned this control burn for months before hand. I decide to add another section to my food plot to make it bigger and scratch out another 900 or so square feet of forest floor and light it.
See the slideshow below for pictures as the fire progressed:
Once the fire was out, I had approximately 2800 square feet of forest floor with about 80% of the organic material removed. Next step is to pick up all of the sticks. Remove all trees and seedlings less than 8 inches DBH, and work the soil to prep it for the seeds in March. I have tree stand locations pread around this food plot and a well used deer trail makes up the west border so I know the deer will find it...if they haven't already. Another less used game trail goes out the north east corner. This food plot is actually sitting right on a game trail junction of sorts.
by JarHeadTed
December 12, 2011 09:36
So I got up at 4 on Saturday morning and headed to the deer woods. I was at the property and parked the truck at 6 o'clock. It was still dark. I changed clothes and got the bow, climbing tree stand and pack on my back and headed up the hill. It was cold, about 20 degrees. I got to the tree and it was just turning light. By the time I got the stand on the tree and up to a good elevation, it was more or less light. I pulled up my pack and set the hooks in the tree to hold the pack and my bow. I pulled up the bow and noched an arrow. I was still getting settled in when I heard a deer blow at me twice. BUSTED. I figured I'd blow back at them to maybe make them think there was another deer where I was. It backfired. They made another blow and then I saw 4 white tails running away from me. I next heard a blow about 250 yards from me, exiting the hollow.
I have got to get up earlier and get in the tree and settled before it gets light, and I need to stay in the tree longer.
It was cold....did I mention that. My rubber boots are the cheap uninsulated kind and my toes reminded me of that constantly. If I want to stay in the tree longer I have got to get some insulated boots. My current boots were fine for October and early November but now I need better stuff.
So, after the hunt which was called off early because all I was seeing was tons of squirrels and I was shivering so much I think the tree was shaking, I went down to the future cabin site and broke out the chainsaw. I cleared a few trees from the trail that leads down to the creek that were still down from the storm last May. I then started trimming down the huge Oak tree that is a real eyesore. It'll make good firewood for a couple of winters.
Now that it's 11:30 I remember that I do have a .22 rifle in the car, so I load it up and head back up the hill to hunt squirrel this time. The only problem is that after 30 minutes of sitting, I see about 6 squirrels but they are staying comfortably out of range for that rifle. How do they know my effective range? Amazing. That's pretty typical of my hunting luck. I see what I'm out there to see, but I never get a shot. If I get a shot, I only lose the arrow. At least the trail is clear. I filled the deer feeder and head home.
by JarHeadTed
November 21, 2011 15:11
So Saturday was opening day for guns. I get my daughter out of bed at 4:00 AM and we head out to the woods. We climb the hill just a light is starting to ease the darkness. We settle into the ground blind about 15 minutes before legal shooting time. About 2 minutes after 6:45 we hear the first shot, then another, then another. My daughter is getting antsy as she thinks everyone is seeing deer except her. I mentioned to her that all the shots sounded like they came from the same place and that hunter must be a really bad shot. She said she hoped so because she wants to harvest Steve (The big buck in the scouting pictures from a couple of months ago).
After 2.5 hours, we hear close to 20 shots from about 4 different locations. The closest was probably half a mile away. I think it was from our neighbor's land to the east of us and on the river. Last week I saw at least 10 different deer right here. Saturday all we saw was 2 chipmuncks and 4 squirrels. After doing a little stalk hunting, we head back to the truck and eat lunch. As we sit at the picnic table eating lunch, a bald eagle circles above us and heads to the bluffs by the river. That marked the first time either of us had seen a bald eagle outside the zoo.
Drawing a blank on even seeing deer, we decided we had fun and head back to town after filling the feeder.
by JarHeadTed
November 12, 2011 14:42
Today I decided to follow the offhand advice from the guy we bought the land from. He mentioned that I didn't need to go up the hill to find deer. They would come to me and it didn't matter that my camp was right here.
The spring I mentioned on day 1 is about 60 yards north of the conex box. I am camped about 25 more yards on the other side of the conex box. I set up my tree stand about half way between the spring and the conex.
The wind is blowing pretty good and the tree I climbed into is small enough that it sways on occasion. After about 45 minutes of looking around, I look to the center of what we will call spring hollow. There's a fork buck (4 point) standing right in the middle of it. I don't know how it got there. I just know it's there. I watch it for a couple of minutes and it walks over to a small doe I had not noticed before and grunts at it as if it's chasing her off. He must be angry she's eating all the acorns. The fork buck is kinda small. I decide that even if presented with a shot, I'll pass on this one. He'll be bigger next year if he survives gun season. He walks behind a large tree that was blown down by the spring storms that came through the area and out of my sight.
I watch the doe eat acrons for another 10 minutes before I decide to see if I can rattle the fork buck out from behind the tree. Out comes the rattle bag for a little fun I hope. He never emerges. I presume he went on up the hill behind the tree.
I watch the doe eat acorns for another half hour. Finally I see her walk close enough to me to tell she can't put any weight on her front left leg. Her name is now Gimpy as I decide that I'll harvest her is presented a shot as she probably won't survive the winter anyway.
As I'm watching Gimpy, I sense something behind me. I turn my head and about 15 yards behind me is Forks (the fork buck). He is stopped. He must have heard my rattling earlier and circled around the hollow out of my sight and came in behind me trying to find the fighting bucks. He must have felt something wasn't quite right as he seems kind of on alert, but be proceded to walk right under my stand on the way back to the doe.
Forks chased Gimpy around for a few minutes. She came to within 20 yards of me at one point but wouldn't stop long enough for me to get a shot. She finally headed over to the spring to take a drink. I placed my stand where it was because I thought that might happen, but as fate would have itshe stopped to drink right where a tree was blocking my aiming point on her. Forks came in right behind her and I had a perfect shot at him at 30 yards as he stood there as she drank. I pulled back, then remembered I made the decision not to take him. I don't want to waste a buck tag on such a young buck. Had this been later in the season I might have taken him.
Forks chases Gimpy out of the hollow in the next 10 minutes and they go right under a tree I had considered putting my stand in earlier. In hindsight I should have placed it there anyway because the wind would have been more favorable o me in that position anyway. Had I done that, there might be meat in the freezer.
3 days. 16 different deer sighted. 13 deer within range. 3 deer presented shots. 1 shot taken. 1 arrow missing. 0 meat in the freezer. Maybe next weekend. At least I learned a lot, or I think I did.
Before going home I move the ground blind from the top of the easement to the top of the hill, close to where the tree stand was yesterday. I also reposition the feeder to about 30 yards northeast of the blind and fill it with corn.
Next weekend is opening day of Gun Season and I'll be out here with my daughter.
by JarHeadTed
November 10, 2011 18:42
Great stories start something like this: So I had to take a dump.....well, it's kinda crude but accurate of my first of 3 days in the deer woods this week.
It's the Marine Corps' 236th birthday and I decided to celebrate this year with a deer hunt. I was in the ladder stand by sunrise. It was cold and foggy, nothing was moving. After an hour and a half, the fog had lifted and I sensed something might be coming from the east. I was right. I grabbed my bow and was in the process of standing up when I got busted. A deer snorted at me from about 50 yards away and took off running to the top of the hill to the north of me and snorted again.
So, I had to take a dump. I climbed down from the stand and made my way to the truck which was about 1/8 mile away. When I got there I put down my bow, took off my trigger release and my backpack. I started to the truck to find the toilet paper and glanced at the gate to0 the property. On the other side of the gate, about 20 yards away, was a doe watching me. I slowly reached down and put on my trigger release. I grabbed my bow and nocked an arrow. As I drew back and started to aim, the doe took off with a snort. She circled around to the small hollow to the north of me where the spring is. I walked as quietly as I could to the edge of the hollow and there she was again only 20 yards away, looking right at me and she was conveniently behind a tree. I quickly surveyed the hollow and there was another doe and a fawn watching me as well. The stand off lasted for about a minute but seemed like 10. I heard another deer come up the driveway to the gate which is about 10 yards away at this point. The deer in the hollow finally trot off so I decide to turn and see if I can stalk up to the deer on the driveway. As I turn I step on a twig and it snaps. The deer on the drive snorts and runs. Busted again on the first of three days.
After I finally take care of my business, I figure that it's maybe getting to late to go back up to the laddrestand so I decide to call it a morning. I have a little work around the cabin area I want to do anyway. I take the opportunity to call my wife and tell her the story and see what shes up to. As we're talking, 2 more does come around the conex box we use for storage and start feeding on acorns. They don't care that I'm sitting right there and talking on the phone. They never snort or even look my way. Finally after I get off the phone and take a step toward my bow, they just turn and walk off. They were out of site before I ever get to it.
That was my first day. At least I saw some deer. I call my buddy Richard over in Arkansas. I know he will always appreciate a story that starts with "So, I had to take a dump."
by JarHeadTed
October 29, 2011 15:25
Saturday marked only my 3rd day in the deer woods this fall. 1 month down and I still don't have anything to show for it. Once on the hunting property I changed into my hunting clothes and sprayed myself down with "Dead Down Wind." I was about 15 minutes later than I wanted to be getting to my tree and climbing into the stand. This was my first time in the tree stand. Once I climbed up 20 feet and secured myself and all my gear I sat down and surveyed the surroundings. I let our a coupld of fawn bleats. I listened. I watched. I noticed there was frost on the leaves around me and realized my toes were cold. I was wearing uninsulated boots with only one pair of socks.
After a little while I broke out my Bible and started reading Judges. I've never read that book but I had read all the previous books so it seemed the right one. Then the sun started heating up the frost and there was a stead drip of water in the woods for the next 20 minutes.
At one point I surveyed the landscape and I saw a doe about 150 yards away. She was walking by a mineral lick and another tree stand location I have on the hill to the north of where I was.
After 5 hours I came down. I had honeydos to do for the rest of the afternoon.
It was a good day.
by JarHeadTed
October 23, 2011 12:27
Went out today to check on the deer feeder I put up last weekend. It was about half empty so I topped off the feeder with corn and reset the timer to run the motor for 4 seconds each cycle instead of 3. I didn't see much sign around the feeder, but most of the corn from previous days was gone. It did rain yesterday so that probably took away most of the sign.
I plan to hunt east of this location next weekend. I'll post more then.
by JarHeadTed
October 21, 2011 14:51
Last weekend was Youth Gun Deer Season. This was the day my daughter and I have been waiting for since mid summer. We got up at 5:00 am and put on our scent free clothes. We ate breakfast at the gas station. We started our walk to the deer stand as soon as we could barely make out the trail.
We didn't see anything after sitting in the stand for 3 hours. When we decided to get out of the stand we scouted up the hillside to the southwest of us. I've been wanting to put a stand up there but hadn't gotten around to looking around up there for a while. We found rubs. We found tracks. We found poop. We found every indication that deer are up there. We just didn't see deer.
We did put a motor and timer on the manual "on-demand" feeder that was broken by the racoon earlier this summer. We placed it up the hollow and on the opposite side of the creek from the cabin site about 200 yards. We filled it with corn and acorn rage deer attractant.
I then replaced the batteries in the camera and set it up to oversee the feeder operations.
The camera got rained on real good for the first time on October 10 and I believe it I have a problem with it. The LCD screen wouldn't let me change any settings. I won't know if it's working until I get up there again to swap out SD cards. Maybe I can make it up this coming weekend. We'll see. If the camera fails, I'll definately do a review on it. Granted, it was the cheapest one I could find....and it has taken decent picture up to now, but if it fails after only a few months of service...that just won't work.
by JarHeadTed
October 11, 2011 08:45
With my daughter wanting to go deer hunting this year, I insisted that she take the hunter education class offered by our state's department of wildlife. I took the class with her and we had a great time. She heard (or should I say reheard) all about hunting and firearms safety. That class made me look really smart because it reviewed all the stuff I've been telling her.
On the test she made a 92%. Not bad for a one day class and a 10 year old who didn't do any previous studying, even though she had a copy of the handbook.
With her new hunter education card in hand we went to the sporting goods store and bought her an orange cap and vest and got her deer tags. She's now licensed to kill deer. Youth gun deer season is this weekend. Youth, under the age of 18, are allowed to carry guns into the woods but adults are not. I'll be her mentor on this hunt even though my deer hunting experience is extremely limited. We will be sitting at the head of a hollow. This spot is a major funnel point for deer coming out of the fields in the morning and headed to their bedding areas. Hopefully we'll see something.
by JarHeadTed
October 04, 2011 14:08
I was up at 4:30 and out of the house by 5. Stopping at Quick Trip to get "breakfast," I had an hour drive ahead of me to get to the deer woods. I got there right at 6:00. It was dark. deciding to wait about 15 minutes before I changed into my hunting clothes, I just rolled down the window and listened to the sleeping woods. At 6:20 I was starting to see light on the horizon. I got out, stretched my legs and put on my Realtree, Mossy Oak camo. Is it legal to wear Mossy Oak and Realtree at the same time? I'll have to check out the hunter's handbook.
By the time I got my rubber boots on and sprayed myself down with scent eliminator there was just enough light to no longer need a flashlight. I strolled and climbed through the hollow and up the small ridge to the ground blind (pictured in the Sept 19 post) I have set up close to the small food plot I planted a few weeks ago.
I didn't tarry long at the blind. I climbed straight in so as to not spook anything or possibly leave my scent anywhere. I sat. I sat. I texted my buddy Richard in Arkansas. We texted for a little more than an hour. The loggers showed up. We hired a couple of guys to come in and remove the storm damaged trees from the north side of the property. They are going to run this throught they're saw mill and we will build a cabin on the property out of the very trees harvested off the land. They made some noise but not too much about 400 yards north of where I am still sitting.
Then I heard a crash. I looked out thr west window of the blind (the blind is oriented so that there is no window on the north side, just in time to see the shadowy figures of 2 deer running through the trees. The storm mentioned above knocked trees down all over the property and they are pretty thick just behind the blind, but the deer are still there. At 9 I leave the blind and investigate. There's a well used trail that comes up the hollowto a point not even 10 yards behind the blind and proceeds on to the west. I didn't even notice this trail earlier in the summer and when I set up the blind a few weeks ago because the vegitation was still too lush. It's starting to thin out a little now.
I made the command decision to rotate the blind 90 degrees leaving me blind to the east so I could keep an eye on that trail. I then left to join my dad in marking the additional trees for the loggers to remove for timber. I returned to the stand at 3:00 and stayed until 4:30. I took the opportunity to read and ponder Proverbs 30. In between verses, I heard deer coming down off the hill to the south of me and headed to the fields or at least a staging area. I had to make it home early for a dinner date with my wife and a couple of friends or I would have stayed until dark. I may have missed an opportunity for a shot, but it's only opening day afterall.
I didn't get a shot this weekend, but I think I gained some valuable "most recent information" (MRI) to use later on. There won't be any hunting this coming week as my daughter and I are going to attend Oklahoma's hunter education class all day Saturday. The following week however, is Youth gun season. I'm taking the daughter out at her request. I have 3 spots picked out where we might sit.
by JarHeadTed
September 26, 2011 12:07
Saturday is opening day for bow season in Oklahoma. Last weekedn I went out to put the final touches on my tree stand. I rigged it for safety harnesses to be strapped in quickly and effortlessly. I put up a camo burlas screen to conceal movement. I also checked the area for any sign of deer and to retreive the latest camera pictures.
As you may recall, last week I put out some "Buck Jam." I have no evidence yet that this stuff works. The camera I had overlooking one of the sites showed 2 pictures of 2 does. The pictures were taken just a minute or so appart from each other and the pictures didn't show any interest in the jam what-so-ever. Up at the treestand, There was no evidence of activity around the jam either. My mock scrape that I started didn't appear to have any activity either. I did see some fresh deer poop on the trail so I know there are (still) deer in the area.
Saturday I think I'm going to start the day off in the blind up on the powerline and hunt the tree stand in the afternoon.
by JarHeadTed
September 19, 2011 07:06
So, I went out this weekend to check the trail camera and set up my ladder stand. The camera is set up just west of my blind that I put up 2 weeks ago and brushed in so I wanted to check on the blind as well.
When I got up to the powerline easement where all of this is taking place, I found the blind to be undisturbed. Hopefully the deer will be used to this new addition to their route by Opening day. Seeing how it will be there for a month by that time, I think they will accept it by then.
So, Once I got to the camera, I found 3 pictures on it. They were all of bucks, but the batteries died and the camera shut down after the third picture. That picture was taken about 24 hours after I last checked the camera so I have no idea how much traffic the area has seen since then. Based upon my earlier pictures in the slideshow from the previous post, I can only assume I would have seen a lot of activity had the camera been in operation.
So, Once I checked on all this I put out a new product (for me) called "Buck Jam" or something like that. It's basically a syrup consistancy type stuff that smells like apples and seeps into the ground to create a "sweet" mineral lick for wildlife. With this done O headed over to the other side of the hollow to the north where I got my pictures of the big buck we named Steve. He's the 9 point standing next to the uprooted tree stump with 2 smaller bucks.
So on the way up the hill carrying the first parts of the tree stand, I find a pile of fresh (and I mean fresh) deer poop.This is on a trail that comes up from the east of my stand location. The stand sits at the intersection of an old 4x4 trail and this trail with the poop on it.
Once up at the intersection I see a small elm with a rub on it. Looks like the bucks are starting to shed their velvet. That's a bummer because I was hoping to get a buck in full velvet for my first buck. Maybe next year.
Then I decide to see if there are any more rubs in the area. I find this dead pine only a few feet away from the base of the tree stand tree. I'm encouraged that I've found the right place. Now I just don't know whether I should hunt the blind of the tree stand first. edit: Sorry about the orientation of the picture. That one slipped through.
So at this point I have the stand up against the tree. I plan to spend several hours here so it's a good thing there will be a beautiful view looking up and down the hollow to the south once the leaves fall off the trees. The idea behind the two man stand is that my 10 year old daughter wants to hunt with me this year. I wanted to get a stand big enough for the two of us to comfortably sit. Once I was done with all this work, I started a mock scrape about 15 yards south of the stand just for a little more incentive for the deer to come in close.