HUNT REPORT NOV 29TH - DEC 12TH
Wisconsin
Break time , smoke poles stay clean . X-Mas decorations, get ready for Ice fishing , maybe some Coyote hunting .
Then late season .
More snow last night, now about 6" on the ground with plenty more in the forecast. Hope this winter isn't too tough on the deer.
I scout a bunch during Muzzle loader week & we finally got some decent snow Monday . Checked out a new spot this morning & a real nice buck jumped up at this windfall .
Will try for a Yote or 2 tonight.
This is fresh , there's still a few horny ones out there .
Ruger1022 that picture of the scrape sure does look like a person took their boot and scraped the ground?
Didn’t want to say anything but I was thinking the same thing
Looks real to me. I'm gonna say 3.5 year old, a little underweight from rutting a bit too hard.
Can't tell, but Ken Norberg say's if you find one of those in fresh snow, it means there is a buck close by with a doe that is just about ready.
Good observation, it's very real but I did enhance the scrape & sprinkled some Doe " stuff " I got from my Neighbors Doe that he was cutting up Sunday .
In my opinion a small part of the attraction of a scrape is visual . On my way to do some Walleye hunting & I'll sneak in & put a camera up .
Anyone getting out bowhunting during the late season? Anything moving?
My sole trail cam has maybe a doe here and there and a young forker coming through at around 0200. Not much else. (SW WI).
About 7" snow on the ground even after yesterdays melt, another 10" forecasted in he coming week and already some subzero temps in the forecast. Good for late season hunting I guess but not a good start for the deer.
I will be out this weekend. One of the good bucks I saw all fall has been hitting a licking branch just after dark. I'd back track him but I think he is crossing the road from the neighbor's. Nobody tell my neighbor please.
On my way to Walleye hunting I stopped & hiked into a few remote areas & hung some cameras . At 1 spot I saw an enormous track in the snow . About a 4 inch Huff. Didn't have my phone with me for pics . Moose ??
Could be a young moose, I have seen some very large buck tracks in Sawyer county though.
I put a camera up about 40 feet from the trail coming out of the swamp . Langlade &:forest counties have Moose siteings.
I'm Walleye fishing as we talk. Bait casting in open water on Dec 2nd. Weird .
LOL, Ruger they are ice fishing some lakes with great walleye success right now also!!!
Sat out this evening with the muzzle loader in Waukesha. Had a group of four bucks come to a hay field, smaller 9, an 8 and a couple year and half 6 points. No rhyme or reason, one night nothing comes out, the next might have ten or 12 does and fawns and then some of these younger bucks.
Came across a nice scrape today. Bucks are still looking!
Going to sit on stand # LFW ( long F#*king Walk ) to nite until dark Then work my way out calling Coyotes .
Might be good with the incoming storm .
My son is sitting with his bow this afternoon. I heard a couple of shots this am around the house. Ruger I also think it might be good tonight with the storm coming. If I had a ml. I would be out.
1 older Doe & a forkie came out of the swamp at dusk . I put the Mathews away & took the Rem. XP 100 in .221 fireball out of the back pack & called my way back to the Jeep with no luck. Swirling winds were no help .
My morning stand Dec.4. 5 Am. Comet Leonard.
Nice pic Smokey.
Just took the Labs for a walk & the 1st snow flake hit the ground . Sounds like winter is finally arriving tonight & all next week.
Very cool pic Smokey. Son found some freshened scrapes Friday morning after the light snow fall
Pulled camera today with first shed buck of the year. Just the right side. 3.5 year old 8pt, but he was the dominant buck in the area.
Wow.... That sure is early to be shedding....
Earliest I found sheds were Dec 10th
Up to 7 inches & the wind is stiff . This will change the hunt now that winter finally arrived.
Great looking labs. I sure miss mine.
Thanks Hoot , they are awesome dogs . The black ( Ufda ) is female , the Yellow ( hank ) is male . They are from completely different areas & neither are fixed .
Hank keeps trying but Ufda will not let him climb aboard. The entire neighborhood is waiting for puppies.
Got to big timber # 4 about 4 pm . Waited 20 minutes & started calling with a distressed Fawn call. After 10 minutes of nothing I switched to Crows going crazy call . 2 foxes & 1 Hawk showed up .
No Yotes . Snow 10 inches deep with 8 to 12 coming Thursday, Friday .
Get bored on stand ? Google : supercar blonde archery . Neat .
Ruger - I see you got your lab picture on here upright.
You guys should understand the posters who upload photos with a phone will rarely get the image position correct. There is no way to correct the rotation.
I have success by editing pics before posting ,Hit edit button on top right corner
Nocturnal, it is certainly how some phones store the image orientation in the EFIX metadata. I suspect Bowsite doesn't have adequate software to read every phone's metadata the same? My Samsung S8 seems to work fine, making me feel like my phone being old, that our two ancient devices are comparable lol. There is no doubt that bowsite is well behind the curve, because loading a video should be much easier, and I'd call it impossible lol.
Then hit the wand right below autoThen hit done , Give it a try ,Works for me most of the time lol
More often than not, the easiest fix is to take your phone in the orientation you want the photo to store in your metadata to. So, holding the phone sideways taking the picture versus horizontal will normally fix the problem. Ridge Runner may be doing that the same thing by editing his pictures. The easiest fix, is setting up your phone to take the photo in a 1:1 ratio, meaning the height and width are the same. Normally your phone will store it correctly, and equally, the website's software doesn't have to realign it, getting it wrong sometimes?
Tired from playing the snow.
BB31, loved your yellow lab picture. Reminded me of my yellow. Chip and his sister Bailey would chase each other in the snow for hours on our walks. Bailey died of a brain tumor at the age of 7 and Chip died of bone cancer 2 years later. Love them while you can. I sure miss my two.
Beerbobber- that looks like just like my old snow lab (Kirby). I really miss him terribly. Thanks for posting that picture.
They are a bunch of spoiled brats .
scrape (?)
scrape (?)
Was planning on being down south this week for work and hunting the anterless but a sick coworker changed my work plans. Already took today and tomorrow off and had that approved so headed out to the woods by my house today in the southern UP. Long odds to fill this APR buck tag, but the odds from the couch are zero!
Good news is all the bait piles are totally dried up and must have been dry for sometime because I didn't see a single track even checking on them. No signs of any humans recently, either. The bad news is it took me almost two to three hours before I cut a single track, granted I was moving slow and just along the ATV trail . Not even coyote tracks, though. Finally found and followed some doe and fawn tracks along a swamp and actually ran into a small fresh scrape. It was under a pine tree with just some dead lower branches to lick so I'm not even sure it is a scrape? There were definitely hoof marks in it, though.
Wind was wrong to hunt to hunt that side of the swamp so I walked around to the north end. Found a monster buck bed there in mid October and sure enough, there were huge tracks coming out of the swamp within 50 yards of where I first found him leaving the swamp in October. Good to see he survived the orange army and also good to see that bed is still being used. I bet he'll be there come next year. Found his tracks around 1pm so decided to follow them for awhile before setting up with my bow as I figured no way he was coming out before last light and didn't want to get cold sitting too long. Followed them for about an hour until they hit the POSTED signs. This buck is one careful dude and it's no wonder he's still alive.
He zig zagged through thick short pines, thick maple saplings and along a ridge that was too steep that I couldn't even walk on it without slipping down the slope. At one point he even made a detour to cross a trail at a downed tree as opposed to crossing the open trail. For the entire time I followed his tracks, he almost never stepped out in the open. Always taking a detour to stay safe. Smart buck. I'm not keeping up hope that I'll actually get a chance at him, but I'd love to just see him. I have a strong feeling that he's a really big boy. The pellets I found at his bed in october were literally the size of marbles and oddly perfectly round. Beautiful poop? Is there such a thing?
Followed my tracks back to the swamp and sat on the ground hoping to catch him coming out. No such luck. Stopped by the gas station and got some shiners and suckers. The bay by me is safe for fishing, or atleast there are footsteps on it, lol. Another 5 inches of snow forecasted. The long walk in the snow is pretty tiring, maybe time to invest in some snow shoes but the options and pricing on them are overwhelming. I am losing steam on deer and probably going after some pike tomorrow, maybe a walleye if I'm lucky. Seems the walleye fishing gets worse every year and the smallmouth fishing gets better. I have switched to targeting pike in the winter. I like to keep a handful a year for the pickle jar!
Looks like pawing to me? Looking for a good acorn out of those full of worms.
Thanks, Pete. I think that makes more sense than a scrape, as I wasn't really able to identify a lone set of tracks that seemed separate from the doe/fawns. Also this "scrape" was pretty small, like the size of a basketball maybe. No acorns or oak trees in the area, but I did find two piles of poop nearby, which in hindsight seems like too high of poop concentration to just be "on the move poops". So they were probably eating something around there? Not a clue as to what. Aside from acorns, I still have no solid understanding of what these deer eat, lol.
Vilas , I got a real education on their food choices & in what order they prefer during my 500 mile hiking last winter .
I was going to head out to call Yotes & take some pics of their food preferences but the Blizzard of 21 just started .
I set out a camera today not far from home. I might do one more after the storm is over if we don't get too much snow.
Closing in on the 13 inch mark & the wind is blowing. Won't be many hunters in the woods tomorrow.
Here in Seeley, Sawyer county, we ended up with 4.5" of snow for a total of 8" on the ground. 25 degrees at 6 AM and the forecast for the week is warm. low fifties for high on Wednesday.
14 inches in Lincoln city, with 2 ft drifting. No ice fishing today.
Of course that's nothing compared to what those poor souls down south are dealing with .
Here in Hillsboro we got 3, maybe 4" of wet heavy snow. It won't be around long, 40's the next three days with 60 on Wed.
I just hung up with an old friend that hunted far northern Wisconsin. Between three of them one shot a ten point buck another saw a small buck and doe. The other saw nothing. They did manage to see as many wolves as they did deer. SAD!
Sad day here. Leaving my house this afternoon to do some hunting in another area. Pulled out of the driveway, waved to the kids riding snowmobiles in the yard and a solid 2.5 year old 8ptr stumbled across the road and crashed 15yrds just inside the wood line. He bedded and could barely lift his head. I couldn't see any visible injury but if he weighed 120 he'd be lucky. Could see his ribs and spine through his coat . My neighbor also seen him stumbling around while snowblowing and asked me to put him down. Hands are tied with with the current season open right now. Called the DNR and basically was told hands off can't end his suffering. Law enforcement was busy with the storm so we just waited. The buck died 40 minutes later. Such a waste. No visible open wounds but he smelled sour so I tossed the meat.
Spine injury I'd bet my bottom dollar, and likely an arrow or a bolt. Seen the same thing three times. You describe the sour smell, and that is why I'm so insistent on it being gangrene. That smell is it's own, and something I would not wish upon anyone, and far worse when you cut into the animal.
If there is was yellow colored mucus in the eyes and caked up in the corners that is infection as you describe. I agree gangrene does have a sweet smell. If no open draining wound sounds classic cwd also. The DNR was too busy? Like what? Not enforcing laws? They do get busy doing that.
Try not to get buck fever guys. And don't ask me the location of this stag. I won't tell no matter what you offer to pay me ;-)
My partner saw him also! Thought long and hard about nailing a doe tag on him rather than take a doe. But he didn't nor take a doe. It looks good exactly like the cell phone pic he took of him. Funny
Ya Smokey that’s a keeper , I got one like that ,Mine might have more time length but yours has more mass lol
That is one of the issues with cameras. A guy finds a buck like that and right away gets tight-lipped and thinks he owns it! ;)
Smokey, all I can say is wow, that there is a biggen. Seriously? That is what I found everywhere I went.
We all have our reasons for not shooting sometimes. This one had an uneven rack . I let it walk .Why would I want that on my wall .
Dumb question - are those spikes posted fawns or yearlings? Can fawns/button-bucks grow actual (tiny) antlers?
I read an article sometime ago about deer antler growth in deer farms. It mentioned that some buck fawns did grow tiny antlers that did poke through the skin and reveal hard antler material. They were tiny buttons, no larger that what is normally seen. But the key was that they were hard and not covered by a layer of skin. Apparently this is not seen often and is not the norm. I got the impression it was quite rare. Whether or not this is true and how often it happens I do not know, but I'm thinking it does occasionally happen. It would be interesting if a deer farmer could comment on this, or maybe a veterinarian.
These young bucks are late-born fawns. The one in my photo was likely born in late 2020, maybe July instead of May ( the fabled second, third, fourth rut). This means they don't have time for adequate nutrition for body growth before winter. In spring (2021) they were behind other yearlings in growth. In the first 3-4 years, a deer always puts nutrition into body before antler growth. If winter is mild, this buck will likely catch up and have more typical antler growth.
I've seen small partially formed 5 inch horns on mature bucks weighing 150 dressed. I've seen nice 9 point racks on bucks weighing 120 dressed. Some are late fawns. Some are winter stressed. Some are fawns having fawns. Some from marginal habitat. Some just old. Where are the largest racked bucks usually taken in Wisconsin? Year over year? The Mississippi corridor especially Buffalo county. Why? Minerals. The driftless area along with the eons of erosion and flood plains give the soil heavy mineral content. This in turn is drawn up by plants and other vegetation and transported to be the deer. Minerals equals strong bones and antlers are bones. The bucks there live on a veritable mineral block. Soils heavy in phosphates, potassium, iron, and calcium. Where did the Jordan buck come from? Yup. The Mississippi corridor. You really are what you eat.
Not that there aren’t lone doe. But this time of year a lone antlerless deer has a high probability of being a young buck. Congratulations on the harvest.
