Quick Late Season Recap

Welcome back everyone, we apologize for our lack of posting over the last month; we’ve been busy enjoying the holidays with family and of course spending every last minute in the woods as the season slowly, unfortunately came to a close. I thought I would take a quick minute to recap the last month of hunting season and give you guys a run down of how we closed the season.

The last month of the season found Damin and I focusing on does and this greatly affected our hunting strategy as we focused on known doe groups. However, on the morning of December 19th, with Damin and I in the same stand, attempting to record a doe harvest on film, we had an awesome encounter with a yearling buck. This little guy was overwhelmed by the sweet smelling estrous that permeated the woods, no doubt emitted by a late cycling doe. At first light he chased a doe by our stand at about 30 yards and then chased her out of sight. Three minutes later we see the little guy running circles to our east, and to this day, I’m not exactly sure what he was chasing as there were no other deer in the area. Just a prime example of what excitement the whitetail rut can bring to the deer woods. Realizing that there was an estrous doe somewhere in the vicinity, I hit the grunt tube several times simulating a buck tending a doe, and within seconds, we see the same little spark plug making a bee line right for the stand looking for a fight. It was a blood pumping experience to have called in a deer right under the stand, regardless of how big he was. I just can’t imagine how Damin or I would have acted had he been a shooter.

Damin and I hunted pretty consistently until Christmas day with no luck. We did, however, experience the coldest hunt of our lives on the morning of December 22nd when the temperature plummeted to 7 with the wind chill 25 below. Neither of us saw any deer on this hunt yet we came away extremely satisfied as we went toe to toe (whether we could feel them or not) with Mother Nature and withstood her fiercest punch as neither of us got cold!
After spending the Christmas holiday with family, we soon got back to the deer woods with the focus still on the does. I headed to the woods with camera in hand on December 29th with Dad in hopes of filming him harvest a doe, and for the only the second time in our amateur filming careers we actually did it! Dad and I had seen close to 15 does that morning when a 2 year old wandered by the stand with her fawn and ole Dad made a near perfect shot on her, and best yet, we caught the whole thing on film!

Feeling the pressure Damin and I knew we had to step up to the plate in order to compete with dad and on January 1st, I thought I was about to even the score. I was hunting a stand that I literally know like the back of my hand and I had a nice 4 year old doe wander out into one of our food plots. I was over confident the “easiness” of the shot and didn’t take advantage. I didn’t give my self a good enough rest as I thought the shot would be a piece of cake and I paid for it big time, in two ways. I squeezed off the trigger and knew the shot wasn’t good and was nearly positive I had missed. After watching the doe bound off unharmed, I felt a warm feeling of pity soothe down my face. That feeling was blood. I didn’t secure the barrel of my Pursuit II and she reminded me of it alright. Blood was pouring out of a two inch long gash right between my eyes; boy did I feel small then. Feeling dejected after missing the “gimme” shot an blooding my face badly, I nearly called it quits for the year with only two days remaining. However, knowing I couldn’t’ harvest a deer from the couch watching college bowl games, I headed to the same stand two days later, the last morning of the season, and was fortunate enough to make a near perfect shot on a fat 2 year old doe. I felt extremely blessed by the second chance the good Lord gave me and ended the season on a strong note. Persistence pays, my friend!

Unfortunately, Damin did not harvest a deer during the late season. Against my wishes as a deer manager, he hunted nearly 75% of the time with his bow, which is truly commendable given the conditions and how hard these deer are to hunt during the late season. Still, he stuck with it, and while he didn’t harvest a deer, he earned my respect as a fierce bow hunter and avid sportsmen. Again, we apologize for our lack of posting, but the blog is sure to be hopping now that the season is over. Stay tuned within the next couple weeks as Damin and I each give recaps and how we would grade our seasons from a personal stand point.