I shot one Saturday evening at dark. I wasn' t pleased with the shot. It appeared to be a 1 lung hit. So I decided to wait till morning to track. Went out Sunday morning around 8 with 4 friends to track. After an hour or so of tracking through the timber and bean field we found it dead beside a creek, but the coyotes beat us to it overnight. Nothing but head, bones, and hide left. My question is, how long would you wait for things to settle down before hunting the spot again? Also when going in to track we jumped a large doe from basically the same spot the shot occured. Thanks

Without knowing much about the area you hunt or
your type of setup - bedding area, feeding pattern,
funnel area - I think 3-4 days should be plenty.
Those deer are not going to leave that area, they
may change their pattern for a while, but they' ll
be back soon. You might want to move your stand
75-100 yds, just to keep the element of suprise on
your side.

Since you didn' t mention anything I' m assuming you' re
just wanting to fill one of your tags and not hunting
for a mature buck. If you are....that changes things.

Sorry to hear about your lost deer, sounds like you' ve
got a few coyotes in the area. We' re getting more and
more of them around here, too[>:].

Good hunting when you go back out.
TB

evry situation is different,Yep we never had that problem in Pa,till the past couple years. Now the yotes are all over.I would not give up if it took me all night.

The yellow dot is the stand. Large green circle to the east is a bedding area. There is 6ft high weeds in an opening to the south that they bed in also. There is a few rows of standing corn in the NE field. Cut beans to the south east and south west. To the northwest there is beans that will be cut any time. Fence rows to the west and east are full of rubs from last year. Haven' t checked them yet this year. To the east you can see a distinct change in cover. It has some briers and lots of small trees that show signs of past rubs. Tracking the deer we saw 3 or 4 rubs from this year. I like to come in from the SE. I park a half mile to the south at my girlfriends house. There are a few strips of timber behing the house that are always full of rubs, and last winter we pulled in the lane and saw one of the biggest bucks I have ever seen. I know there are possbily a couple others back there too. No one has ever hunter this land as far as they know. THe fence row in the middle of pic from left to right is the property line of another lady' s. But I have permission to go there too. I just like to stay on this side of it becuase of the walk. So tell me what you think! I would show a bigger map but limited to 30KB per pic. Sorry

I don' t know. You better let me in there to hunt myself and I' ll let you know.

That dead deer won' t mess them up, but if the coyotes are still around feeding on the carcass THEY might. I' d just follow my normal hunting practices, which would be no more than 1 or 2 times a week at most.

I just don' t like to leave a deer in the woods. I' ll track half the night if I have to.

ttt

The first thing I noticed when looking at the photo of
your hunting land is the creek that runs north and
south. What a great way to access your stands by using
that creek. It will keep your ground scent to a minimum,
as well as, keep you out of sight. Some of our best stands
are set up on major creek crossings. The steeper the
banks, the more deer that will use each crossing. Entering
and exiting by way of the creek, makes these good
stands and keeps the element of suprise in our
favor[:-].

Sounds like you' ve got some nice bucks using the area,
take care with you' re " human" impact where you are
hunting, especially before the rut. We hunt on the edge
of several bedding areas during the rut...bucks will
continualy seek out these bedding areas in search of a
" hot doe" . The stand you show, seems to be close to the
bedding area in your photo. Looks to me like a good stand
come November.

If you have a different area you can hunt, you might want
to give this area a week or two off....it could make a difference
come November.

...just some things for you to kick around.

Best of Luck
TB

One thing I didn' t mention. With the coyote problem in the area
you hunt, I don' t think I' d wait overnight again. If you shoot a
deer in the late-afternoon, depending on the hit, I' d give that
deer 4-6 hours and head back out around 10 or 11 o' clock. If
the ' yotes found one, they' ll find another[>:]. A Coleman lantern
works great for picking up the blood trail at night.

A couple of years ago, my brother and I were forced to go out
at midnight and track a nice buck I' d shot (liver). Rain was in the
forcast and we didn' t want to lose the bloodtrail. We found him
within a 100 yds of my stand, but the coyotes were everywhere.
Luckily they hadn' t got to him yet. If we' d have waited until morning
I' m sure things would have been different[:@].

You didn' t tag the deer you shot and killed?

And neither would I.[:-]