First week, what did you see?
Pennsylvania
Contributors to this thread:
Its going to be cold where I'm at tomorrow. It rained here in W. PA today but it has cleared out. Full moon tonight. I'll be in a hilltop stand in the AM and food plot blind in PM. Good luck, enjoy the day and be safe. Shot straight.
Happy Birthday!
I’m going to be hunting the Delaware S.F. just outside Promised Land S.P. A buddy of mine has a cabin there and we scouted this spot last year.
Good luck and be safe folks! (Wear your harnesses! ;-)
Good luck everybody!! Be safe!
Good luck everyone. For those in stands, please wear your harness. Shoot straight.
Pretty morning. No deer were harmed.
There were deer in front and behind me as soon as I could see. 7 out of 9 were does. At 7:45 a nice 8 point came across in front of me at about 35 yards but there always seemed to be branches or brush between us. He bedded down for a while at 75 yards, then left. Fun.
Got a good size doe this morning, deer everywhere lots of acorns , saw around 12 deer, took mine to butcher shop, guy had a nice 8 point he said he shot it at 12 30 pm, said it was chasing a doe.
Chise got a doe at 10 yards from a blind with one of his recurve bows this morning in Armstrong County. I saw a small 8 point that came into the food plot at 6 PM and came within 15 yards of my blind. He laid down for about 20 minutes before leaving. Great day.
Took a walk behind my house about 10 to see if there were any acorns. There were acorns everywhere. I sat in a blow down and saw a deer running. I took a walk and saw some deer and two does come running and stopped at about 30 yards. They kept looking back. I saw a large body deer in the thicket and another deer running. The way those Does were acting I'm pretty sure a buck was chasing them. The last time I saw Does acting that way a huge 14 point came out of the thicket.
Anyhow was out two hours and saw 5 deer.
Saw a couple deer in the evening. One out of range and then one came in to 28y and stopped literally 90 sec AFTER I took my release off! Was hard to see but I think it was a doe. If it had just come in a few minutes earlier........................
Saw 6 does in the morning, 4 came right up the trail just after my bow touched the ground when i was getting down at 10:30. Saw 2 small bucks and 4 does in the afternoon. Killed the biggest doe at 6:15. Best weather day that i can remember for opening day.
Got blanked in the morning. Son saw 8 watching a soybean field. Ran out of light before they got close enough.
I hate to post this but it’s not right to only share the stories accompanied by a success photo. I had 3 does and a spike in bow range. They all knew something wasn’t right. 2 looked at me up in the tree. One doe took a little too long to clear out when the closest two spooked into cover. She paused at 25 yards and I hit her high. Arrow came out after 30 yards and had a lot of tallow and only a little blood. No blood until 3 small drops at about 150 yards. Came back and grid searched with three others in the afternoon. Looked again yesterday afternoon. Nothing.
Two problems I have identified with myself; first I do everything right up until the shot, when I fail to pick a spot and take that extra second to execute and second I keep forgetting to aim low enough on deer that are alert.
Again, I hate to report a hit without a recovery but hopefully something can be learned from it.
Nothing moving by me this morning after some brief sunshine early. Fog in the hollow. Looks like a storm is on the way. I guess they are waiting for the front to pass.
Yodameister, stuff happens, especially when shooting a bow at something with lightning quick reflexes. You did everything right following the shot. The deer will probably be fine.
A similar situation occurred in our hunting party Saturday evening. I feel very confident that we will be seeing that deer behaving normally soon. Hopefully my friend can seal the deal if given another chance at it.
Someone told me early in my bowhunting career when I hit and lost one from a high shot, "Learn from it and move on".
First 2 deer I ever shot at when I started Bowhunting I hit and wounded. Both shots looked good to me, just didn’t get a lot of penetration. I felt sick and could not figure out what went wrong. I went to the pro shop and the owner figured out what was wrong. I was shooting a very slow bow(energy wheels instead of cams) and was using a VERY large diameter aluminum arrow- couple that with a very long draw length and it was causing more drag and thus less penetration.He suggested I switched to a smaller diameter carbon arrow and never had an issue after that when hitting in the vitals.
I had made up my mind that if I hit a 3rd deer and did not recover it I was going to give up archery hunting. But luckily I was able to figure out the problem(with some help) and correct it!
Hang in there Curtis and learn from your mistakes.
Monday afternoon was a blast at the food plot blind. 4:40 first doe fed until 5:30, too far. 5:50 to 6:05 big old doe and fawn hit the field and didn't spend much time crossing in front of me on a quick step too far away like they got spooked. A spike popped out from the same trail and shortly there after chased the doe across the field. 10 minutes later they came back to within 50 yards. Doe left and a fourth doe walked thru the tractor trail at about 12 yards and walked around close for 10 minutes. Decided it was too late. 2 more deer appeared across the plot before I left around 7. Fun.
Sat until 11 yesterday morning without seeing anything. Hunted a ladder stand on a field edge in afternoon. The side rails are pretty high on this stand and i had a branch above me that i thought wouldn't be a problem when we set the stand, but between the branch and the rails it made for a lot tougher shooting than it needed to be. At 6:30 i shot a doe and new i was a little far back but she never moved. She just stood there like nothing happened. After about a minute she took a few shaky steps and went down right there. pretty disappointed in shot placement, but i guess the end result is what matters. I will be taking my saw and removing that branch if i hunt that stand again. Another perfect weather day.
No deer in AM. Listened to the dew drip off the tree for 3 hours. Scouted my way back to my ride. PM hunted a ladder stand across from the blind at the food plot. Doe entered at 5:30 and stayed until 6. Very nice 6 point came out of the woods thru my shooting lane 15 yards away at 6:30. Not a bad evening for sitting but a front is coming in.
No morning hunt today. Sat in the blind and saw one doe.
Got out today. Walking up the mountain side I got about 20 yards from a buck before he bolted. He never was hurried. Took a couple of bounds and stopped in more thick stuff then took his time moving out. I never had a clear shot. He was laying in a small bunch of thick growth among lots of rocks and had to see me coming up the hill for more than 50 yards. He was in the last place I would have expected to see a buck. His bed was in the upper left side of this photo in front of the patch of sunlight. I should have known better after watching the Penn State blog stories about radio-collared bucks.
2 does and 16 turkeys (8 toms) in the AM. 3 does in the PM.
Had a doe and fawn feeding around me for almost an hour this morning. A little 3 pointer showed up and took a nap 40 yards away from me. He tucked his head next to his body and rested his chin on the ground. When I got to my vehicle another 2 doe were standing about 20 yards behind it!
Chise and I went out early up on a nice oak ridge and listened to the acorns fall an some woodpeckers. The deer were standing in the field beside the house when we got back around 10:30. Getting ready to go out again. Tomorrow is our yearly trad bow weekendend.
8 does across the food plot from the blind tonight at 50 yards.
Hunting 5D and generally first few weeks of the season have been slow. Have had a good day or two with doe action. But many more uneventful sits over the first 3 weeks. Was out last evening with best buck sightings so far. Passed on a younger 8. He was with a half rack buck that was much larger...just missing the important other side.
Got this last Saturday night. Funny this is call first week. We started down here in the middle of Sept. Anyway, the same morning i got the buck I almost got a doe. I was at full draw on a nice doe @18 yds when all the sudden a hawk was screaming behind me. I ignored it but the doe did not! It turned and trotted off just before I pulled the trigger. Crazy!!!!