The 2014 Deer Season So Far

It is not that I have not tried. I have spent 67 hours hunting so far this season. I have two tree stands, two ladder stands, and one screen blind up on various parts of the Farm. I have seen does, bucks, two bobcats, squirrels, rabbits, and even one stray dog from my stands. But I have yet to get a deer with in bow range this year. I am beginning to get a little discouraged. This is my third deer season of bowhunting and all I have to show for it is one button buck I accedently shot last year.

I am begining to wonder if I am doing something wrong. Am I sitting up in the wrong place/ Am I not hunting the wind properly? Am I making too much noise or moving too much while in the the stand? I do not know. I keeping getting trail cam pictures of shooters right in front of my stands, but I can not seem to be there when they are. I have hit anything since the pig I took last June and the gar I shot on the bowfishing trip I took with the boys.

Oh well, if I can manage between church duties and bad weather, I will be out again this weekend. I am going all out from here on end. I taking a grunt call, a rattling bag, and some lures out with me. The rut should have hit its peak at the begining of this week. But the bucks should be still chasing does and I am going to try to convince them that they need to be where I am at this time.

Wish me luck.

The Beast of Ledbetter Creek is No More

I guess that I need to apologize a bit for the delay in posting this. My excuses range from I have been busy, I have been gone on vacation, and I had to be air lifted from the Grand Canyon and spent two nights in a hospital recovering from an over worked kidney. Take your pick.

At any rate on June 20th I am in my ladder stand by the creek at 8:00 pm. It is 85° and I do not like hunting when it is that warm.

About 9:30 , a raccoon shows up and starts eating my drop corn. At the same time, off to my right, I hear that same sound I heard the last time I was hunting the Beast. He does two low moans that sound more human than pig. The first time I heard it, I was almost convinced of the existence of Bigfoot.  But that was all, just those two moans.

After a while, the raccoon started getting nervous. He would eat, look up, wander away, and then eat some more. I started to suspect that the Beast was nearby.

At 9:52 the raccoon looked up and high tailed it out of there. The Beast walked into the feeder light and started eating the corn I had put down. The feeder light was working just as it was designed to do. I stood and got ready to draw. Th Beast was edgy. Any little sound or movement, from me or just in the woods had him picking up his head and looking around. A couple of time he actually walked out of the light. I was afraid that I had lost my chance for the evening. Finally he settled down and got into some serious eating. The only problem was that he was facing directly at me. I stood and watched him for half of an hour. When he had polished off the corn, he headed back to the wood. But he paused standing broadside to me. I was already at full draw and let fly.

I stood with lighted nocks so I could see that i had made a good shot. The Beast screamed and took off. He headed for the creek away from but then turned to his right and made a run around me. I could not see him but I could hear him crashing through the brush. And then nothing. When I shot him, he was to the left and a little behind my stand. The last I heard him was in front and a little to the right of me.

A I sat there waiting and wondering if he was down or had made to a more open space and had run further, I thought that I heard a couple of soft moan. I was thinking that if I heard what I thought I hard, those were his death moans.

I sat in the stand for 30 minutes before I came down. I am a prudent man. Therefore I decided that trying to track a boar that may be wounded in the middle of dark wood was not a good idea. So I took a quick look at where he was standing when I shot him and saw a blood trail. That encouraged me.

I started out at first light for what I hoped was a recovery expedition. I headed for where I last heard him and found him almost immediately. I had made a good lung shot and he had not suffered.

The Beast of Ledbetter was no more.

The Beast of Ledbetter Creek Still Stalks the Forest

As you can see from the video, there is a big boar in our woods. he typically roams the woods at night. I want to take this pig down. Prior to Saturday, I had already spent eight hours in a stand waiting for him to show up. But to no avail.

Saturday I was in the stand at 8:00 pm. As the woods begin to darken, I noticed that my feeder light was not coming on. I quickly went to the house and got a replacement battery and installed it. However, I could not get the light to stay on continuously. I just switched it to motion detecting mode and hoped that Boss Hog would wander close enough to it to set it off. I do not have a feeder. I just drop some corn on the ground. 

Just after midnight, I heard him off to my right. I waited for him to go to the corn. At 1:00 am he still had not shown up. So I decide to pack it up and head for home. As I was doing so, I heard him moving into the corn. The light never came on. 

I have made a stabilizer light for my bow. It has a green filter on it that I know will not spook raccoons  or possums. But this was the first time I would shine it on a hog. I did not know what its reaction would be, so I decided to come to full draw and then turn the light on, When the light came on, there was the pig, right where I wanted him. He did not seem bothered by the light at all. The only problem was that he was facing me. The least proper shot angle. It became pretty clear to me that he was going to stay that way. I decided that I could not hold my bow at full draw long enough to wait for him to move into another position. So I let off on my bow. Somehow, as I was letting off, I accidentally released the arrow. The arrow buried itself into a log and the hog buried itself in the bushes.

I heard him walking around and making noises to the right of me for about 15 minutes. It sounded like he was angry at being interrupted at his meal. He soon wandered off. 

I waited till after 2:00 am but he never returned. I called it good enough and went home.

When equipment failures meet a lack of skills, the pig walks free.

The End of the Season

My second season of bowhunting deer is over. I managed to take down my first deer with a bow. I would be a little happier if I had not taken such a small deer (especially since it was a buck). But hey, an accidental deer is better than no deer.

This year was a much better year than last year. I have learned a lot about hunting. I saw more game this year than last. So my techniques have gotten better.   Several deer were within shooting distance but they were not leagle. Next season is going to be awesome.

I hunted a total of 36 times. In those hunts I saw four bucks, six does, one pig, and one coyote. Of course I killed one of the bucks. My son also killed one doe.

Now it is time to start getting serious about hunting pigs. This year I will make more use of my stands. I also have been working on a lighting system so that I can hunt at night.

The boys and I have a bowfishing trip planned.

No pun intended, but I think that this will be the year that I shine.