My first season hunting, I just started about a week ago, having some problems. Here's the rub:
- hunting on about 40 acres of land in North Georgia that a friend owns. It's mostly pasture, with not too many food sources except grass. there's a handful of acorn trees, I see droppings there, but never deer within legal shooting hours, since I started hunting the land a week ago.
- I bought a 2 person deer stand with ladder. It's kind of a pain in the ass to move because it's rather heavy. I set it up in the middle of the pasture with visibility of most of the open area.
- The neighbors are also hunters and pretty much dickheads, if I venture even an inch into their property they freak out.
- I'm using all the scent management stuff, unscented shampoo and bodywash, scent cover for my clothes and boots, ghillie suit. Sprayed the tree stand down too. Used doe urine on little sponges that I threw all over the pasture. This morning and afternoon I was nicely downwind of the thicket but the deer never came out of it.
I've been sitting in the stand every morning and afternoon for a few days now. To my left ("A" on the picture) there is a thicket very close by which is probably a bedding area. All morning (7AM-10AM) and all afternoon (3:30PM-6PM) I hear what is probably deer moving around in there, breaking branches underfoot, getting really close. But they never come out from cover. There are deer trails all over the pasture where they cross but I haven't seen a SINGLE DEER in the pasture in the entire time I've been up in the stand. Never have I seen a single one come out of cover.
I am wondering if there are any late season strategies that will work. I thought about going towards the thicket on the ground, but the cover is really noisy and it's hard to sneak around - really dense. Plus, they'll probably smell me. I can't hang a stand on either tree line because the neighbors are hunting and being dickheads, and recovery on their property will most likely not be possible. Frankly I'm wondering if the deer will even come out at all during daylight hours in the season mainly because it's post rut and they're just bedding/feeding under cover, plus the neighbor is firing 4-5 shots per day (I don't know if he's hitting anything but the shots are definitely going off) and I can't imagine that's helping.
The deer walk around right in front of the house or in the driveway late at night 8PM+ including a huge buck, but I never see ANYTHING during shooting hours.
Any ideas? Am I screwed this year due to how late it is in the season? I'm not necessarily after a trophy buck, I just want to kill any kind of meat-yielding buck or doe for food purposes.
newb late season questions
was a great price, not sure if it's necessarily the best stand in terms of concealment but pretty easy to climb into it quietly in the morning. I guess with a big stand like that I'll need to let them adjust to it for a few hours or maybe a day or two, I did hose it down with scent neutralizer before I left the install site. I'm just concerned about how much noise I'm going to make setting it up....
trying to cap the spending at $2000 at least for now.
