Finally!

  I think I found the canyon all the decent bucks are in.  It's about time.  I put the camera over a well used scrape I found last weekend and was happy to see these guys.

 What's this guy doing out so early?  He's the one I'm most excited about so far.  Nice mass and dark antlers!  It doesn't really look like he's very old though.  Doesn't matter, if I see him he's dead.   Any thoughts on age or score?

A nice ten with a cool tine pointing inward on his right side.  Would definitely be cool to see him next year, but I'm not sure if I could hold off if given the opportunity.

 



Here's a big 7 point with a little character.  I had an encounter with him over this same scrape tonight (Halloween) and passed him at about 33 yards.  After looking at the video, it appears he's the oldest buck of the bunch.  He's got a big ole' body on him.  I'll post the footage of that hunt Monday night.

Check out our Animals Gone Wild Blog Monday night for a few more pictures of these guys. There's a link to it on the right-hand side of this page.

Treestand Profile: Riverview Stand

    I'm bored so I decided to post some pics of one of the new tree stands I hung over the weekend.  I'm doing it in a profile format I will use for other stand locations in the future.  It should give a little background to future videos where I'll mention the name of the stand I'm hunting from.

Overlook of Stand Location from Pasture Above

 

 

I finally opted to put a stand here this year.  In the past I had avoided it because I was worried about  busting deer out of their bedding areas.  After watching over the area for several years, I've witnessed a lot of rutting activity on the open area near the stand.  I don't believe the area is as important of a bedding area as I had once thought.

Here is a standing East - looking West view of the stand. Hopefully shadows from the canyons to the East of the stand will keep the sun off me until 9:00 a.m. or so.  In the evenings, the stand will be on the shady side of the tree. 

North-East view from Stand

To the right you will see the view overlooking a trail coming up from the river bottom.

I hope to see a big buck following a doe up this trail as she leaves the crop fields to the North in the morning.

View to the East

    

     

   Looking East over the grassy bench between  the River and canyons.  I envision more than one  seeking-phase buck strolling across this bench 

towards my strategically placed decoy.

Southwest Shooting Lane

  The view off my back-right shoulder keeps me from being surprised by deer coming from the West.  It is also a quartering-away shot opportunity if I have towait on a buck to pass by me heading the other direction.

South Shooting Lane

   I tried leaving as many branches as possible covering my South shooting lane.  I expect the majority of the deer to walk either East or West through this gap. There is a heavy trail just below the gap in the "V" between the tree limbs that is not visible in the picture.

Weekend Report

October Doe

 Climbed into this newly hung stand around 5:30 Saturday morning.  As I quietly waited for daylight, I felt certain I would see some deer movement at first light. 
I was wrong.  But it was a good morning for getting some fall foliage pictures.

Sunday morning I had a little more luck:


     
                                                                                                                                                

Found Her Right Away

Not a Bad Pic from a Broken Tripod

Still Hasn't Moved

Ground Blind, Ninja Style: Followed by Near Death Experience

  Here's some video from Saturday evening.  Enjoy the gay ninja look.  The cameraman could have suggested zipping up the ninja suit, but it was Staab.

Weekend Hunting Report

 Headed back home again this weekend to check trail cameras, hang another stand, and do a little hunting.   I bought 2 new cameras last weekend since my old one went out on me, and I was anxious to see some pics this year.  The Tasco camera took plenty of pictures; unfortunately, they were all of the weeds in front of the camera.  The Bushnell came through though, taking over 1000 pics, including these 2 up and coming bucks.

 















 Below are some video clips from sitting in the ground blind Saturday and Sunday evenings.

Cheney Cats

Wheeled out to Cheney again after work to see if the fish were still up.  A light south wind was blowing in, slowly fading as evening went along.  Perfect conditions, or so I thought.  With the sun up, the water was flat, no sign of fish at all.  I fished my way out, walking further from shore with every cast.  As the sun set behind the treeline, I began working my way back towards shore thinking this would be my last trip of the year.  Then a hookup.  I felt the solid weight bend over my rod, and I was happy I wouldn't be going home empty handed.  I felt the head shakes and rolling over the line typical of a catfish.  The fish made a few big circles about 15 feet around me before finally coming to the net.  The net felt heavy enough as I pulled it out of the water that I decided to put this one to the scale.    

The fat bellied fish pulled the spring down to the 8 lb mark, making it my biggest cat on the fly rod.  There was still a little light left, so I waded back in for a few more casts.  As my first cast hit the water, I saw a boil with a tail flop out of the water.  I pulled back on the rod, picking up the slack, and setting the hook on another head-shaker.  I could tell from the shakes that this was a smaller fish, and I horsed it in as quick as possible.  I'd guess the second one went 5 or 6 lbs, but I wanted something BIG.  



The next cast, surprisingly,  was retrieved without any takers.  But the first strip of my second cast pulled back on the line between my fingers and never stopped.  As the fish ran out, I frantically tried to guide the slack line through the rod ferrules, hoping to get him on the reel before the slack wrapped around my net or something.  The fish had probably ran over 50 feet when all the slack pulled out and the reel's drag system took over.  Once I had him on the reel, I thought I had a fighting chance of finally landing a big one.  Then the hook popped out.  I'm gonna head out next week with a headlamp and a mouse pattern.  Hopefully, I can get one of these guys to suck down a topwater after dark.  Here's a few more pics of the fish I did land.

First Coyote Bow Kill

Shot this guy from the treestand Sunday night.  I first noticed him along the creek across a bean field and tried to make a predator squeal sound with my lips.  I lost sight of him behind some trees, but several minutes later I heard the sounds of crunching grass.  One coyote was pushing out a thin crp strip that parallels the clover plot I was over.  I heard another crunching through the beans behind and to my left.  Eventually, 2 pups came out of the woodwork.  All four Coyotes messed around in the food plot in front of me.  The biggest dog stayed behind some foliage for about five minutes before I found a 4 inch hole in the leaves to put an arrow through.  The shot looked good as I heard the impact.  The 'yote turned and growled as he charged off to the north.  Again, I lost sight of him behind big tree limb.  I waited until dark to crawl down, then went to find a flashlight.  I enlisted Bayes' help, and we picked up the trail where the coyote entered the CRP on the north end of the plot.  Most of the blood was found rubbed up against the grass about knee high.  We followed the blood across an access road, then under the fence to the North .  The tracking was easier now that the coyote entered a bean field.  Large red blots stood out against the big green leaves in the lantern light.  About 150 yards into the beans we finally found the coyote.  The video below shows a little footage of the coyote in the distance before and after the shot.