11-3-12 thru 11-10-12

11-3-2012 through 11-10-12
Weather:
28 ˚ - 45 ˚, sunny to rain, calm to windy
Location:
Moose Junction cabin
Bagged:
1 grouse
Partners:
Jake T.

Comments

It was my weekly trip up to the cabin for some bow hunting and bird hunting. This year my trip was about two weeks later than my usual time towards the end of October. I had always wanted to try the hunting a little later, with the idea being I may catch the bucks in the chasing stage.
I did see some deer and passed on a mediocre eight pointer, but other than that the deer seem to be fairly sparse this year. I did set out some bait and a trail camera and was able to attract some deer into the bait and catch some on my trail camera. From the deer I did photograph it appears as if there are quite a few one and a half year old bucks around.
I was able to hunt Fritz a couple of days on grouse and he did surprisingly well for the limited amount of hunting he did last year and for being twelve years old. The grouse numbers are not fantastic, but there is definitely a huntable population. I missed several birds and also hit several that I was not able to put permanently to the ground. Fritz did an unbelievably great job on the grouse. I did not see any woodcock this year. I believe it was too late in the migration and the area had just been too dry for too long of a time period.
Jake was able to harvest a nice doe, he also missed two others, so he had more success than I did. He also did some trapping and harvested approximately five beavers and nine muskrats. We did bake one of the smaller beavers up and it tasted like a typical rodent to me; it was really not that bad.

Observations:

The rut does not appear to have started here yet, neither one of us did see any chasing going on and we did not see any bucks with does. The conditions have been quite dry up here. The deer numbers seem relatively low, but there is definitely a fairly decent population of grouse. I never did see any ducks or geese.

10-28-12

10-28-2012 Sun 6:30 AM – 6:15 PM
Weather:
Nice 35 ˚ AM 50 ˚ PM, light winds, clear
Location:
Jeremy Pank’s near Strum
Bagged:
nothing
Partners:
Jeremy

Comments

It was only my second bow hunting outing of the season, and I made a day of it. Jeremy has been telling me he has been seeing lots of deer and that I should come up and hunt. I met him in his driveway before sunup with a game plan that I had hatched last year. I planned on hunting the ridge just to the south of his house. I had walked this area the previous year, and at that time I thought it looked promising.
I got to the top of the hill well before daylight and since I only knew the general area I wanted to hunt I waited for daylight to find my stand location. I got my tree steps attached to the tree and was just about to start the process of hanging my stand when off to my left about thirty feet away I saw it; the competitions tree stand. Not wanting to hunt next to someone else, I made the decision to find a new spot.
I moved to a spot to the east of the power lines and was set up and hunting about one hour after daylight. I did not see any deer during the first hour, but between 9 and 10:30 I saw eleven. I did not see anything huge, but I did have a fairly decent buck come within about forty yards of me. I also did have a small buck pass within about ten yards of my stand location.
In the afternoon I set up on the opposite side of the road and never did see a deer. Last year there was lots of sign on the west side of the road, but this year it was not very abundant. My theory was that there were no acorns here this year, and thus the deer were not staying in the area either.

Observations:

I did not observe any real chasing activities, but from the reports that I have heard, it has started.