14mercs

G-luck Mike. Get us on the board.

Wife called and is coming home from work early. Hopefully will be sitting down by 1600. Just as my last post indicates, the new stand is out due to a North wind. I am going to hunt the cornfield edge of a river bottom field. Fingers crossed. I have never killed a buck in October in Illinois. I love to end streaks.

early in

Hey guys, I'm curious why your team avatar (November New Moon) has a buck silhouetted by a full moon? A new moon or no moon is totally dark. What's up with that? I guess it's like our team avatar with a monster buck with his nose up the ass of a fawn!

YooperMike

Thanks for your concern early! the reason I can give for the avatar is as follows: it looks cool.

As for last night's hunt: Had the first encounter of the year with a shooter buck. I got on stand at about 3:30...for the second time. Got to my spot, parked the truck, hopped out. Put on my underlayers and a pair of mesh shorts, rubber boots, backpack, grabbed the deathstick, and headed to the woods. Eased in, LOTS of sign, things are looking good. Ground is moist, walk in was very quiet. Get to the base of my tree, pack off, clip bow on hoist rope, unstrap my clothes my pack, grab for my pants that weren't there. I could not believe that my pants weren't there. I was absolutely certain in my head that I had packed them, and was equally certain that they had just fallen out on the way in. Beat feet back down the trail...no pants. *&^%$#!@#!!##$ I set a new land speed record for a 30 mile round trip drive. Pants were hanging in the camo room just like I left them. Back in the truck, pedal to the floor, out to the woods again, Round 2. Ding ding ding! Back to the tree, pants in hand, then on, then up in the stand, whew, finally get some rest!

Pretty uneventful for the first hour and a half. Squirrels, possum, birds, the usual stuff. 5:45 I was scanning the woods and a deer appears about 60 yards out, look up to his dome, and he's a shooter! Real nice 8, 130"ish, bladed G-2s, shooter in my woods. He is coming just like he is supposed to. He stops, makes a scrape, licking branch maneuvers, rakes his rack in another little tree, eats some acorns, just taking his sweet time. He is meandering SLOWLY my way, at about 50 yards now. For whatever reason, he ambles back the way he came. That was the excitement for the night. I was able to watch him for 15 mins or so though, which was great. He wasn't at al spooked, alarmed, nothing, so he's not far. I waited until pitch dark to ease out, and didn't move anything going out. We'll see if he wants to ride the lightning this afternoon. Good luck to the others who are out today!

huntinboy1122

Good luck to anyone who makes it out this weekend! Like I said a couple days ago Ill be sidelined and resting in bed due to a cold. It seems to be going around by me. Had high hopes for this weekend too! I remember Mercs, hopefully youre harvestless October days will come to an end. If not I suppose you still have time until gun season.

14mercs

As for our avatar..... next! Anyway, no luck here. The damn tree had grown enough to eat the chain and I could not get the receiver to cam over to slide the spade in. I ended up putting enough slack in the top ratchet strap to fit in the spade on the stand. It was rigged and I will never do it again, but after trying for an hour to undo the chain from the tree and no luck, I was gonna hunt regardless. Rain set in and dark came with no-luck. That is the first time I can remember not having seen a deer from the stand.

13 hours on stand- no bucks, 1 doe and high hopes. Long way til November new moon starts though. Or full moon. LOL

sdprice1

So here is how my hunting went this week. Monday Rainy but hunted anyway. About 6:30(45 minutes left of shooting light) the guy I was hunting with shot a doe and decided to get out of the ground blind walk up the hill to the truck and drive it down into the pasture to get the deer. To do this he had to go right by where I was by about 30 yards. He saw a nice 8 point at the edge of the pasture headed in the woods and was probably making his way to me about 5 minutes before he shot the doe that came in range. I heard said deer take off when he started up the hill to the truck. Stayed on stand but didn’t see anything the rest of the night. So the streak of luck continues the next morning (Tuesday) when I woke up with the flu. Thank God it was NOT the piggy flu. The first day that I even felt like I could hunt was today, so I made my way out to the tree I wanted to hunt in the middle of a mine field of acorns and deer dropping and a nice scrape line. Got up in the tree sat down and 15 minutes later I had a buck(not huge but interesting rack) show up about 60 yards from me and a little yearling(60lbs or so) stepped out of the thicket about 20 yards from me. I sit there motionless waiting for the buck to come closer and out of nowhere the fawn about blew me out of the tree. So I blew back at her trying to confuse her and she ran off in the thicket about 20 yards or so and blew again then quit. During all this the buck disappeared of course. Thirty minutes later I figured I would try and rattle and see what shows up. Well 2 does show up down the hill at about 60 yards and then disappeared. Ten minutes later the stupid a** yearling shows up again and got to the same exact spot and blew again. This time I had the doe bleat out so I gave her a few bleats and she shut up. Well five minutes later a doe comes in and gets to about 20 yards and the meanders down the hill eating acorns. I was going to shoot her but she never gave me a clear shot. Well 15 minutes before dark I decided to rattle again. I rattled and grunted a few times and sure enough here comes a big body over the hill my direction. Could tell it was a buck but couldn’t quite make how big the antlers were. He comes in to about 40 yards up the hill and still no clear shot but at this point I could tell he looked like this big 8 pointer that we saw on Monday morning before our evening hunt. That 8 would probably score 110 120 which is a good size deer around the property we were hunting. So He eats some acorns and what not at about 40 yards and beds down at 40 yards with no clear shot. I tried for the next ten minutes to call him down the hill. He wouldn’t budge. So 15 minutes after dark my buddy comes down the trail to come get me and the buck jumps up and wonders over the hill like he didn’t even know there was a truck coming. I was very disappointed I didn’t get a shot at him but that is the kind of week I have had. Hope you guys have had better luck. Sorry for the long post but figured I would share and vent at the same time.

P.S. if I see that yearling again and have a clean shot she is going to die because she pissed me off blowing twice for no good reason. She'll make some good jerky.

sdprice1

as for the avatar it would just look stupid as a black box with some red letters. Not to mention I think it is kinda funny.

YooperMike

Wow, sickness has gotten to our team! Thankfully I've avoided it thus far, although i'm sure my days are numbered based on my job (managing a clinic.) Hung a new set this morning, pretty pumped about the location. I sat this spot one time last year, saw some deer, but the tree I climbed was far from ideal, so now the spot is much more conducive to hunting this area. Had to do a good bit of trimming, but most of it up high, so i'm not too worried about it affecting movement. We were sprayed down and rubber booted as well, best you can do when hanging mid-season. Didn't jump any deer that we saw, but there is great sign, some deeply worn trails and two real fresh rubs. Maybe tonight's the night! Wifey is coming out tonight too, I think she's going to get the new spot.

YooperMike

Awfully quiet tonight, no deer seen by my wife nor myself. Squirrels and rabbits, that was about it. Beautiful night to be out though, so it was worth the effort.

huntinboy1122

Feeling much better now after a weekend, I guess I should say week of rest. Hopefully get out sometime this week. Sorry to hear others are getting sicks too. Really a waste of our time that guys are commenting on our avatar. Which like you guys said, if it was a new moon you prolly couldnt see it. Whatever move on. Gonna head south of Springfield this weekend and all next week for the fall turkey season in which I plan on taking the bow with me! I think it will be an awesome opportunity to sit in a stand too. Really excited to get out seeing as though I have been cooped up all week. I can feel primetime coming up soon and getting pumped. Looks like warmer temps around me for this week. Good luck to everyone going out this week. Hopefully we can put a score on the board soon!