Deer Scouting Satisfaction
This past Friday I took off and awoke early to head out to the new hunting grounds to do some scouting. I didn’t see a thing. As this was the first scouting done at the new place, I was pretty let down. I did take the opportunity to move a stand accidentally placed on the neighboring property back onto the new property and headed back Saturday morning to sit in it - and was it ever worth it.
At 6:15 am Saturday, it wasn’t too bad out in Angola. By the time I got to the woods, the sun was up, but it was obvious it would remain dark out, the wind was starting to whip and rain even began to fall, alternating between a light drizzle and all out downpours.
On the way to the woods, three deer ran in front of me on CR 42 (outside Perrsyburg). Even though it was miserable, I kept myself occupied with the solitaire game on my new iPod Nano and the hopes I’d see some deer in the woods. Around 8:45, the first animal I’d seen all morning (a black squirrel), caught my attention by running across a downed tree 15 or so yards to my left. I picked my head up to survey the surrounding area, and was shocked to see a deer on my right, walking towards my stand, perhaps 30 yards away. He was oblivious to my presence and casually strolled around, but remained at that distance, which allowed me to try and take a picture and also focus the binoculars on him. I almost fell out of the stand when I saw there were antlers on him - a 6 point buck! He remained to my right for a couple minutes and then disappeared behind the brush to the front right of me.
With the binoculars, I could still see his legs and his head when he bent down to eat. To my surprise, I saw a second flash of brown a little to his left and knew it was obviously another deer. Not used to seeing one, much less two bucks in the woods, I was shocked to see another set of antlers when this deer bent down to eat! I had to clear my eyes just to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. Shortly thereafter, a third flash of brown appeared!
I kept an eye on all three deer, but wasn’t able to see much as I was obstructed by the growth in front of me. After several more minutes, I lost track of the deer, but was pretty happy with just having caught a glimpse of three and knowing there were two bucks wandering around the woods. Although I’d had my digital camera with me, I started to review the pictures in it, and became disheartened I hadn’t been able to get a good shot at any of the deer.
Camera still in hand, I looked up from the screen and saw one of the bucks walking straight towards me, no more than 20 yards away. I flipped the camera to video and saw through the view finder the second buck was walking in right behind the first!
The first buck headed to the left of me and mulled around no more than 10 yards away. From analyzing the frames of the video, I’m pretty sure he was a healthy 8 point buck. The second buck headed to my right, first away from me, but then right towards my stand. As he approached, he looked up at me several times, but didn’t seem to care (I did have full camouflage on). This deer’s rib cage showed a little and he was still in velvet - his right foremost antler was bloody. As these two were feeding on each side of me, a third deer (a doe) walked in and fed straight in front of the stand. It was a little odd the doe came last, but I wasn’t complaining…
I recorded nearly two and a half minutes of the deer feeding around me. None of the three of them spooked & the only reason I don’t have more video is because the memory card on the camera filled up. The entire video can be found in this year’s hunting photo gallery.
Bow season starts October 13th - I can’t wait!