(NOTE: My blog is changing! I’m going to be writing about all the hobbies that I’m involved in, or will get involved in. If you just want to see RPG/wargaming posts only, you should update your bookmark to use this URL, and/or update your RSS feed reader to use this feed URL.)
I entered the 2024 deer season determined to hunt as much as possible. I harvested 2 deer in 2023, and I was hoping to double it. As of now, I’ve only harvested one ten-point buck, and had both misfortune and wrong guesses keeping me from my second deer. As I write this, it’s muzzleloader season and there is ice on the ground. I don’t trust the roads, so I’m probably going to lose day.
Trail cameras, satellite map/topography map scouting and boots on the ground scouting can only tell me so much. It’s not until I sit and learn how the deer act in the areas I hunt that tells the tale. From late 2021 through late 2023, I hunted a particular park probably 10 or so days, and it wasn’t until New Years Eve 2023 that I finally “got it right” and harvested a doe. It just takes time, and experience.
So I’m learning the same patience-demanding lessons in these new public land areas I’m hunting. As the season moves from early, through rut, into “pressured from hunting” and then to late/winter season, the deer act differently.
Right now, they’re in “pressured” mode. Hunters have been tramping through the woods for almost two months, especially so during the last 30 days with rut and firearm seasons. And I’m seeing the effects in where I need to set up to even see deer.
I guess I used up all my luck, so far, on the opening day when I harvested Big Boy!
