MY
2006
HUNTING JOURNAL

WELCOME to the 2006 edition of my hunting journals. As in years past I will post my daily hunting adventures here on this webpage for your reading enjoyment.

OCTOBER HUNTS

Wednesday -- 11th -- 6:45am --- I am standing at the edge of the woods on my path to my ladder stand. I am excited about my first archery whitetail hunt of the year.I know the deer are about 300 yards away finishing their evening feeding. I am awaiting a little more light before entering the woods. I do not want to use a flashlight this morning and run the risk of stepping on a twig and calling attention to my location and the beam from the flashlight. I have seen deer react to the sound and beam from a flashlight many time on the first day of rifle season as guys walk into the woods. Finally, light enough to see. I arrive at my ladder stand, climb up in and prepare for what I hope will be a successful hunt.I have practiced my shot placement with my bow and I am confident I can place an arrow just where I want it up to 25 yards from my stand.That's my personal limit on archery shots. Suddenly I feel drops of rain... I climb back down and secure my video-camera in plastic to protect it from the rain and climb back up again. It continues to drizzle for about 45 minutes and then it decides to REALLY RAIN. I am now wet..no raincoat....so time to head home and look forward to an afternoon hunt. Just as I hit the ground I hear a sound and turn to see those "alert" white flags running away from me.

NOVEMBER HUNTS

Saturday - 4th --- 7:00am -- Headed down into the Hemlock Grove behind the house this morning with my bow and was hopeful of a harvest or at least seeing some deer. At 8:30am a turkey hunter came walking down through the hemlocks and never even knew I was nearby. At 9:00am I decide to use the grunt call again and see if I could get any results... I turn to the East and grunted... turned North..grunted... turned West and grunted and noticed movement ... Standing there at 40 yards was a nice mature doe, unfortunately the movement spooked her and away she went. At 11:00am I started a SLOW stalk towards the house.. after about a walk of 200 yards I noticed a tail move.. I saw a deer standing with it's rear-end towards me feeding on something on the ground. I decided to see how close I could get.. I took one step at a time and what seemed to be forever got me to within 35 yards and the deer had no idea I was standing there next to a tree.. I finally got a good look and decided to pass on the harvest (broadside at 35 yards) I could tell it was one of this year's fawns. As I watched the deer I could see it was a button buck rubbing his head every now and then on the nearby tree. I stood there and watched for at least 15 minutes. I must admit it was amusing.... at times he would grab a branch and pull it to the ground and then leave it go as it swished towards the sky.. and then he kind of hopped around in glee.... Suddenly I saw more movement.. there laying down about 10 feet away from him was "momma"... I moved at little to my right and could see I had another 35 yard shot at "momma" as she laid there facing the other way. There was no way I would shoot at her while she was laying there... so I just enjoyed watching them for another 10 minutes then slowly withdrew and "took the long way home" It was a great day.. I enjoy the hunt completely... 3 deer all within range.. 2 gray squirrel, one red squirrel and a turkey hunter.. :) :) Can't wait for the next hunt....

Wednesday - 8th -- 6:30am - Decided to hunt the Hemlocks behind the house again today and packed the backpack for an all day hunt. I noticed a few new scrapes and a couple new rubs so maybe today will be the day.. At 1;30pm I decided to go home for an hour and get some lunch. As I approached the house I noticed a deer moving through the thicket but could not make out what type of deer it was. After lunch I returned to the Hemlocks and stayed until dark..seeing nothing but a few squirrels. Not a good day but I enjoyed the hunt just the same.

Saturday - 11th -- The last day for Fall archery hunting found me half way between the house and the Hemlocks. The place I have seen the most deer this season and where the rubs and scrapes are. I managed to get in about 3 1/2 hours of hunting and then came the Thunder/Lightning and a downpour. I took cover under a huge blown down hemlock tree and at the first signs of the storm letting up.. made it to the house. Had I been squirrel hunting I think I could have shot-up a box of bullets... pine squirrels running everywhere before the storm came... It has not stopped raining since this morning's hunt ended and it is now almost 3:30pm...SO.... I guess my archery hunting is done for this year.. 8-(

ARCHERY SEASON SUMMARY Well the 2006 fall archery deer season is over and while I had VERY LITTLE time for actual hunting this year I did enjoy the four times I did get to go out in quest of a whitetail deer. My only regrets are that I could not find the time or energy to get out more and especially to some of the locations I like to use my climbing tree stand at. I did see deer except for the last day and the storm ruined that day of hunting and I had no control over that. 4 hunts...about 7 deer spotted... and I passed on shooting at two of them... I guess that is not all that bad, especially since rifle season is only a couple weeks away.... and I know there are deer in the area...

2006 RIFLE SEASON

November 27th Opening Day Well NOT A BAD FIRST DAY HERE IN this 2 square miles of 2F...---------Same 14 guys I always talk about.. results...one 8 point ...one 7 NICE point...one mature doe traveling with 3 fawns..ME !! --------I saw a total of 9 deer... the doe and her 3 fawns and 5 more I could not ID....--------Confirmed harvests in the general area...1..9 point 2..8 points ...1,,7 point...1..6 point...5.. does one camp got SKUNKED... but did see deer including a couple spikes...---------A 12 year old FEMALE..1st year hunter... harvested her 1st buck a BEAUTIFUL 8 pointer while hunting with her dad.. she'll have trouble topping that one for next year though...I'm off to Clear Creek tomorrow... TUESDAY - 28th Tuesday was a BAD day times three for me....1...Hunted Clear Creek at three different locations for a total 6 hours.. saw NOTHING...2...Somewhere in my travels I lost my flashlight..3... AT 2:00pm after arriving home and having lunch.. I discovered I had a damn tick buried up to his ass in my belly...BAD BAD BAD DAY..... THURSDAY - 30th I went over to Clear Creek after work and set up on a food plot... saw nothing but a few squirrels..Hunted til sunset then started home, I drove MAYBE a quarter of a mile and there standing 50 yards from the road was a nice BIG mature doe... temptation DID NOT get the better of me Saw 4 more antlerless feeding in the corn field across the street from my lane...Glad I still have PLENTY of time.... SATURDAY..DECEMBER 2nd Hit a spot on Clear Creek State Forest just at daybreak and was watching a hollow... about 7:45 three deer went thru the hollow at TOP SPEED... not jumping at all... just belly down and flying.. could not tell what there were... At 9:00am I moved back from the edge and a couple hundred yards South... I set-up in some conifers... and at 9:30 a doe and one of this year's fawns entered and stopped broadside at about 60 yards... I took the 1.5 year old mother...That fills my antlerless tags and gives the "better half" and I our venison for the year...BUT.....I still have a week to get one for the wall ... WEDNESDAY - 6th Only hunted from 7:00am until 10:00am this morning about 3 miles from home on SGL#54... kind of got bored and another hunter spoiled my plans for the second area I set-up at and I already have two in the freezer... Started in at 7:00 across a ridge watching what I call "deer hollow". Nice ridge.. deep hollow with lots of thick cover (old tree tops and blow-downs) ... I jumped one deer but could not tell what it was... After an hour walk across the ridge I hit a tram road and headed for spot #2... just as I rounded the bend to head up into the woods a buck flew aross the tram road and into the saplings he had a big rack but that's all I could tell about him except he was "carrying the mail"... this was just what I was going to set-up for deer to do.... cross and head to the thick saplings...after an hour of sitting 37 turkeys came strolling in and stopped and scratched ETC about 100 yards in front of me... I thought this would calm any deer...20 minutes later... here comes a guy crashing thru from behind me.. one of the ways I expected to see deer... he did not see me and went out of sight well out of my way to the left... another fifteen minutes and I called it quits...between him and him spooking the hell out of the turkeys I thought this area would now be dead...also saw 7 gray squirrels in several beechnut trees having a ball...It was a good morning and I did see deer and other wildlife... SATURDAY - 9th I hunted from 7:00am until 11:00am at Clear Creek at an area Buff suggested...Saw 6 antlerless at clear creek.. a doe with three fawns and two more antlerless bedded in the sun.. and two large does standing in the middle of a posted field on the way home.At clear creek I saw lots of tracks and a total of 8 beds where the deer had laid long enough to melt the snow yesterday or last night. 3 were real close together (almost next to one another) with a much larger one about 15-20 yards away... these four had ice on the botom (made yesterday I figure) the others were in either singles (2 of those) and the last one had two beds together and I "jumped" the does that were lying in them Nice morning for hunting, wish I could have stayed longer but have plans for this afternoon...