A Rollercoaster Season

If I were asked to describe this hunting season with one phrase, I would simply answer; a roller coaster ride. The 2008-2009 hunting season was certainly one of the most unpredictable seasons I’ve been apart of in my 13 years of hunting whitetails. It seemed like as soon as I got a break, things turned south, only to rise back up again and then quickly fall. Like I said, a roller coaster season.

A promising bow season quickly folded as we had very, very little natural mast on our property this year. In prime mast producing years it seems you would have to beat the deer off of our land with a stick, however, this year was simply not the case. Honestly, I think less than a dozen white oaks were dropping a consistent crop of acorns during the fall. Normally this wouldn’t be much of a problem due to the success of our food plots. Unfortunately though, we were hammered by drought throughout much of September and October and our food plots suffered, that made for some frustrating early season hunts that is for sure. In fact, in mid October, I went three straight afternoon sits without a single deer sighting. In the previous three seasons I did not once experience a deerless hunt. I have to take the blame for this, though. We had a great bow season during the 2007 season and I relied too heavily on our success and stand placement from the previous fall. In an attempt to be as low impact as possible during the summer and early fall, I thought the success we enjoyed in 07 would be duplicated in 08. Boy was I wrong. It just goes to show you that when you think you’ve got these whitetails figured out, they skunk you yet again. Still, I was blessed with the opportunity to harvest a doe with my crossbow in early October, not all was lost.

After a slow early season, the thought of the rut sure got my blood pumping. Sadly, however, we were still feeling the sour effects of a poor mast year. When there is no food on you property, that doesn’t give the deer much of a chance to utilize during daylight hours and this was definitely the case. We still saw plenty of rutting buck sign, and in fact, I saw more scrapes during a season than ever before (the sign of an improving buck/doe ration and more mature bucks). However, they were all in travel corridors indicating that bucks were simply passing through our property to get to and from bedding and feeding areas. I was still blessed with some exciting hunts, however. On November 19 I had an incredible experience with a super yearling buck, nicknamed Vegas. I saw young Vegas chasing a doe over a hundred years out and called him with in three steps, not once, not twice, not three times but four. It was an absolute blast to watch this tough guy run circles around the blind looking for a hot doe. I hope Vegas made because he has the potential to be the biggest buck to ever roam our property. I also had the quick run in with the Hulk as well. As I said before it was a bittersweet hunt because I felt a did an effective job scouting and getting on an old buck after we got him just days before on the trail camera, but I wasn’t quite good enough as he gave me the slip.

The late season gave us the best hunting as far as seeing deer. Seeing 10-15 deer a sit was not uncommon during our late season doe hunting, but yet again, I was bitten by the bad luck bug. The doe I missed will leave a lasting scar on my hunting career, literally and physically. When I missed that doe I gave some serious thought about just hanging it up for the season with only two days left and after enduring a frustrating season. While I felt sorry for myself I was reminded of how I ended the 2007 season, my best season to date. I was hunting a certain doe group the last week of the season hoping to tag an old matriarch. Well after being skunked every afternoon hunt the entire week, I ended the season on a sour note. Now I am not a suspicious man but I figured if I ended 2007 on a sour note my bad luck may have carried over to the 2008 season. Hoping to carry some momentum into the 2009 season I hit the woods and was blessed to take my second doe of the season.


Hunting provides so many different emotions and I think I experienced every one of them this past season. I did, however, learn a lot about myself as a hunter and sportsmen learned some hard lessons and I feel like this rough season will better me as a hunter and deer manager in the future. We have some big plans for this off season so keep reading the blog to follow us into the 2009 season!