Animals Gone Wild Blog Update

Just a reminder to check out me and Staab's other blog "Animals Gone Wild" for some updated trail cam pics.

The Hungry Eyes of "No Shoot Phil"

  My favorite week of the year just ended.  The 5th annual get together of a couple of friends to go chase whitetails out in West-Central Kansas.  This year had a few twists.  Aron Goodman, one of the three patrons of Deer Camp, went off and got a real job and didn't think he would be able to attend this year.  We needed a third.  So we called up hard-core-stand-sittin' Phil Hewins.  Phil has become known around the Riley County area for putting in many long hours in pursuit of elusive game, but hardly ever bringing himself to drop the string on anything.  The plastic beverage cup glued to his hand around the house all weekend was labeled "No Shoot Phil". 

Fortunately enough, Goodman's job mysteriously required him to be in Hays on the Friday of our trip. That made four.  The other twist was that the trip was scheduled earlier in November than usual.  The usual 15th through 18th of November was now the 4th through the 7th with the hope of getting a pre-rut, cold-front to trigger insane, whitetail chaos all four days.

A weak cold-front did move in Wednesday night, but by Friday afternoon it was gone, replaced by a hot and windy weekend.  The usual lunch-time stories about all the action of the morning were much shorter than usual.

    



Around Noon on Saturday, it was decided that arrows needed to fly.  There were plenty of eager hunters around the table, all claiming they'd come through.  But it wasn't until I dropped him off on the ridge that afternoon.  Not until I watched him move like a prairie ghost across the rolling horizon, that I saw the hunger in his eyes.  The hungry eyes of "No Shoot Phil."

 I never knew it when I picked him up after the evening hunt.  He didn't let on until the rest of us admitted to empty-handed failure that night, that a beast walked out of the forest in front of his stand that night.  And the beast went back into that forest holding an arrow. 

Phil didn't mention too many details, but under the cover of darkness the story was revealed....

                                    

First Hunt in West Canyon

  Friday afternoon I finally got the South wind I needed to hang a stand in the West Canyon.  This was the canyon I had been getting the biggest bucks on trail camera over the last two weeks.  Roll that beautiful bean footage.

                         

Halloween Buck

Here's some video from Sunday night.  Strangest thing, when the the buck stepped out of the canyon, weird music started playing. 

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