Gun Hunt at the "G" Farm 12/04/11

With the final day of the week long gun season arriving, weather looking like it would cooperate at least for the morning, and no good waterfowl scouting results, I was finally in a position to get out & deer hunt this morning. I've missed the woods quite a bit, and was going to be sharing them with a very good family friend who also hasn't been able to get out lately for more than a few quick hunts. One on opening day and another once the weather cleared up mid week. Both of his hunts were uneventful in that the scoped 12 gauge's safety was never clicked off, nor was a finger pressed against a trigger.

There's nothing like watching the world come alive to make you feel alive.

Weather conditions for today's hunt: Above average temperatures for early December with the low around 45 and steadily climbing into the mid 50's as the day progressed. Winds were blowing steady from the S during the entire hunt, with some gusts upwards of 20 MPH. Barometric pressure was hovering right around 30.06 for most of the day.

Lee & I arrived at the "G" farm well ahead of legal light, allowing us plenty of time to walk through the cut bean field, staying above the northern edge of the still standing corn, and into the woods where we would post up in hopes of putting a deer on the ground. With the winds blowing steady from the south we would stay up wind of the larger section of woods where most of the deer travel from, and hunt along a 175 yard wide strip of woods positioned to the east of the corn. I left Lee near an inside corner that contains some very heavy trails entering the field, in hopes that he could squeeze the trigger today and fill his tag. I slowly cut a course through the woods, heading toward the softly glowing eastern skies where I found a nice pile of fallen trees to make myself comfortable for the morning sit.

Where's Lee at?

The plan was to sit tight until about 9:00AM and then if the action was slow, I would walk the eastern edge of the property all the way to the far southern border, then turn back north to make a slow push through the center of the woods to see if anything would flush north so that it could then meet up with one of Lee's unspent slugs. We followed that exact script, except for the whole thing about a deer meeting up with one of Lee's slugs. That part didn't happen.

Time for a walk.

What did happen however, was I was able to take in some more of this new property that I've been hunting this season. For the most part I've tried to only hunt the conditions, and not the property, taking a very cautious and low impact approach throughout the archery hunting season so as not to put deer on alert that they're being hunted. Now that gun season is in, and there appear to signs that somebody might have already pushed this property this week, I was putting caution aside and getting some in depth scouting accomplished.

What I found was additional ammunition for the remainder of the archery season. The far west edge of the woods is covered in good buck sign. I'd walked this edge once before and noticed some good trails, with a few rubs here & there, but never pushed myself to hunt on this side of the farm.

Several rubs of this size were located on the western edge, and connect through the center of the woods.

The far SW corner of the farm is a double inside corner. I've hunted it only once, and noted good sign with fresh rubs & scrapes, but so many times conditions with S winds kept me hunting elsewhere in the woods this season. Hopefully, the winter winds can help give some more days with W or NW winds so that I can get into this area and hunt. I'll also be planning on setting up a ground blind here in the very near future. The trails I found in here are heavy, and so is the cover. Hopefully this will be a good set up to bring my son along too as the season rolls on.

A well worn trail with several rubs in the distance cutting through the double inside corner.

So, although not a shot was fired by Lee or myself today, there were several positives to take away from the hunt. First off, at least one deer was spotted throughout the morning. Yes it was coming out of the corn and too far for Lee to pull off a clear shot, but a deer was spotted. Secondly, I was able to follow through and do some more in depth scouting of the farm, providing some ideas on future set ups, and a good spot to place one of the ground blinds for the rest of archery season. And lastly, I was able to spend time outdoors with a very close family friend, who is almost like a father to my wife, and a man that I've always enjoyed spending time with over the years. We've talked about hunting for many years at family functions, and now have finally made it out to the deer woods together. There's no doubt I'm looking forward to the opportunity to do that again.