I am intrested to know what weather conditions were when you took those 3 bucks in their beds. I would imagine that a fresh snow is easier to stalk 'cause you're just following fresh prints to their ends whereas stalking in dry conditions would be a great deal harder.

I'm certainly not ready for this type of hunting yet as I'm still relatively new to this but I'd like some tips for the future. Please share. Thank you.

Sounds about right............most anyone out there could be ready to "hunt" within a couple days with current compounds. Pretty much all you have to be able to do is shoot reasonably well and not break your neck climbing the tree.

Congrats.........you sir, are playing a game that 99.9% of us are not familiar with.........myself included big time.


Technology eliminates the need for human input(skill).........always has, and always will. Most everything marketed to hunters these days is done so in an effort t make killing a deer easier. I say these things knowing full well that I tote more then my fair share of gadgets into the woods and spend tons of hours sitting in a tree waiting for one to walk by............I just don't kid myself into thinking it is something it is not.

Take away our toys and we would be wallpapering our houses with tags.

Don't know if that is good or bad or right or wrong........but I do know it is true.

Do you have a mouse in your pocket atlas? [8D]

I spend a ton of time on the ground and understand that true still hunting is a lot harder than people think. It takes too much control not to move fast and to pay attention.

I don't get it.

You serious? Nevermind............

I enjoyed the gentlemans post and look forward to more from him.All of us young,old,experienced,inexperienced want to learn more to understand more and so on.I have tremendous respect for those that can stalk deer and consistently kill them with any weapon,much less archery equipment.
In the high pressure area's I typically archery hunt I am very reluctant to bump a mature buckfrom his bedding area.There are to few mature bucks in my area's to run the risk of letting one know that I am hunting it.I find it enough of a challenge to consistently put big deer on the ground.

MonsterBuckDreams,
Of the 5 bucks that Ireferred to above,3 were tracked in the snow andone I picked up in the mud of a picked corn field and tracked him up the edge ofstream to his bed. Kind of a print here, someoverturned leaves there, another print with water still seeping in, etc.. Total distance about 400 to 500 yards. He was the one I missed. The other was not really a tracking job. I was still hunting through a small woodlot, maybe 80 acres, with a very strong wind blowing. I was moving verrry slowly when I came to a blowdown. I eased my way around it studying everything in about a 300* arc when I noticed something different. I really didn't know what it was but it caught my attention. I kept looking away from the object and back again several times and finally I realized I was looking at the eye of a deer. After several more minutes I could make out his head and shoulders but his rack was not visible through the brush and saplings so I moved slowly to a position where I could get a good look at him but still could not get an arrow in there. He was the one that eventually walked away.

Somethingthat I noticed in all of the deer that I've seen asleepis thata thin membrane comes down over the eye like an eyelid. However it's transparent or transluscentnot opaque. It seems as though they rely on sound and smell during this period and not sight, (their ears are constantly turning like antennas and you can see the nostrils flaring as they take in scents). So if you're very careful, one can move. In the case of the first deer I killed in bed, I tracked him in the snow and first saw him laying down quartering about 30 yards away. No shot.So I crawled to a broken tree trunk between him and me. When I got there I was only 11 paces (measured later) but I couldn't figure out how to shoot. I was on my knees, he was laying down, as result , no angle. So, I decided to try and stand up slowly and get a shot off. I drew my recurve behind the stump and slowly stood up. He was looking right at me but evidently could not see me. I could clearly see the membrane so it gave me insight in future hunts.Key points: Make sure you're in an area known to harbor deer, move very slowy then stop and scan ahead as far as you can see and then back to a few feet ahead, then back out as far as you can see, stop then do it all over again.

I grew up incentral NY. Great farming countrynot too different from most of the midwest. Corn, wheat, milo, woodlots, hedgerows, etc.. I never have been too successful in the, "big woods" areas. Haven't had the experience in patterning in those environments. Hope I haven't bored you too much.

laxdad

Heaven's no, Sir...you surely have NOT.....anytime you feel like sharing..PLEASE do.....Excellent story.

Yup..........can't say I ever heard that expression before.

atlasman, when someone says "we" like you did in the quote....someone says, We? What do you have a mouse in your pocket?....meaning there has to be two of you to say we, you and who else....you and the mouse in your pocket otherwise it's I.

Hell that was confusing in itself.