Deer Season at the Hell Bear
Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 7:08 pm
Another deer season has come and gone. This was our 6th season hunting out of the the camp since we built it in 2011.
We ran our usual sites, but made one major change this year. We normally hunt out of tree stands, but this year switch everything to ground blinds.
If I was to rank this season, i'd have to rank it as one of the toughest seasons we've had. I'm starting to think that our bear hunting efforts are having an impact on the resident deer. It was a very slow start to the season, but once November came and the bears went to sleep, we started seeing more and more transient bucks showing up.
We enjoy the scouting as much as the hunting and this year we ID'd 16 bucks on the property...2 more then last year.
We were able to ID 2 of the mature bucks as returning bucks from the year before.
The highlight of my season was my daughters deer. She texted me right at dark that she got a good poke at a buck with her 30-30 and we headed directly to her stand to help with the recovery. We were thrilled for her once we located her downed buck...it was a beauty and I was one proud papa.
My season was a long one...despite seeing a lot of doe's and fawns during the hunts, i just couldnt cross paths with a buck. One evening i passed on a small spikehorn and started thinking i may have missed my chance at a little meat for the freezer. lol This was the last week for us and I finally got luck earlier in the week. I had a young buck come out with an hour of light left and I thought it was a 4pt we had pics of, but after we recovered it, I was surprised to see it was a small 7pt.
After hunitng this property for a decade, I was starting to think this was going to be the first year I wasnt going to add a set of antlers to the wall, but it all cam together in the end.
So another season is in the books and the planning for next year has already started. We closed down 3 of the 5 sites yesterday and we'll grab the cams at the other 2 sites soon.
We ran our usual sites, but made one major change this year. We normally hunt out of tree stands, but this year switch everything to ground blinds.
If I was to rank this season, i'd have to rank it as one of the toughest seasons we've had. I'm starting to think that our bear hunting efforts are having an impact on the resident deer. It was a very slow start to the season, but once November came and the bears went to sleep, we started seeing more and more transient bucks showing up.
We enjoy the scouting as much as the hunting and this year we ID'd 16 bucks on the property...2 more then last year.
We were able to ID 2 of the mature bucks as returning bucks from the year before.
The highlight of my season was my daughters deer. She texted me right at dark that she got a good poke at a buck with her 30-30 and we headed directly to her stand to help with the recovery. We were thrilled for her once we located her downed buck...it was a beauty and I was one proud papa.
My season was a long one...despite seeing a lot of doe's and fawns during the hunts, i just couldnt cross paths with a buck. One evening i passed on a small spikehorn and started thinking i may have missed my chance at a little meat for the freezer. lol This was the last week for us and I finally got luck earlier in the week. I had a young buck come out with an hour of light left and I thought it was a 4pt we had pics of, but after we recovered it, I was surprised to see it was a small 7pt.
After hunitng this property for a decade, I was starting to think this was going to be the first year I wasnt going to add a set of antlers to the wall, but it all cam together in the end.
So another season is in the books and the planning for next year has already started. We closed down 3 of the 5 sites yesterday and we'll grab the cams at the other 2 sites soon.
