Meat in the Freezer!!!

This will be short and sweet, one because dinner is almost ready and two because I don't have much to talk about! This year has been a complete bust.  All of my big deer have vanished, no more trail cam pictures, no more sightings, no more sign.  The lease has gone dry, the farm has gone dry and the urban spot has gone BONE dry!  I was, finally able to harvest 2 does on December 2nd to add some much needed fresh meat to the freeze.  They came in together, even though I didn't realize that until it was all said and done.  Good thing I knew I had two tags in my pocket.  I shot the first doe at about 70 yards when she spooked from a coyote that had been lazily napping all afternoon on the end of a sunny ridge. (No shot opportunity or he would have not been a factor at this point!) She dropped in her tracks and fell directly behind two huge oak trees, all I saw was a doe run from behind those trees and back across the creek, not knowing if I had missed or it was a second one, I knew I had 2 antler-less tags and figured if it's still running I'm gonna keep shooting.   She also fell in tracks at about 50 yards, but in plain sight.  When I got down to inspect my fresh venison, I figured I should at least go see if my first shot had missed or not and to my amazement, I hadn't! Got em both!!! Which just meant for a long night of getting two deer out the woods.  To save the extensive details, I'll just say, an hour and a half later, one near torn rotator cuff from a bad off-roading experience through a field in the dark I had never driven through and a wash out at least 2 feet deep and 2 feet wide in an '86 club car golf cart with NO suspension, a near back flip off the loading ramps and a slight mishap that involved running over one of the deer's heads with the golf cart after trying to save my life... We managed to, in one piece, thankfully, deliver them to the butcher shop where I will be anxiously awaiting my new steaks, summer sausage and some mouth watering beef jerky!!!   This clip has nothing to do with any of this story, just a trailer I made to see how it would turn out and to see how y'all thought it looked.  Planning on hopefully having some new cool footage to add to the year end video.  Enjoy and let me know what you think!  Thanks again,

2012 Highlight Trailer

-ASMS

The hunt for the ever elusive...Doe???

Today is October 30th, and normally by this time I'm in full swing hunting hard and chasing my hitlist bucks.  This year has been far from normal.  As many of you know I decided I was going to make some major changes in the way I went about this season.  It started with completely changing the backbone of my urban spot by creating two brand new food plots, moving stands to better access the property undetected and stay away from what I found is a major bedding area.  In past years I was allowing my wind to blow straight into it.  I felt that was the reason I was having such a hard time locating bucks there.  I knew they were there, there were plenty of rubs and scrapes (and big ones at that) but I never could seem to lay eyes on the mature deer in the areas.  After spending countless hours re-shaping it, planting and hanging stands we were ready to go.  If you have followed me at all you know that I succeeded with flying colors in getting my mature deer to move during daylight and move how I wanted them.  I've seen both shooters now several times.  The only problem is this year the IN DNR implemented the new "earn a buck" rule which requires an urban hunter to first harvest an antlerless deer before harvesting an antlered deer.  I have seen neither hide nor hair of one single doe! Even my cameras are barren.  I finaly caught one doe last week at 4am on a camera, but that doesn't do me much good.  After my last morning sit, I decided to climb down and go for a walk and do some scouting.  I found that an old over grown plot I planted was full of clover and there were tons of little tracks all over it.  So that night I went back in and sat that spot, again, no sittings.  Completely burnt out and frustrated I resulted in a desperate Facebook message that was answered by a good buddy Jon Medjeski, he offered to take me to his secret urban spot where he always sees does.  I took him up on it that day!  We sat all night and never saw a doe, but guess what we did see?  You guessed it, BUCKS! & 2 good ones at that.  I just sat there laughing to myself, as I knew if this were any other circumstance or year previous it would be the complete opposite.  I would be in search of the elusive mature buck and all I would see would be does.  But no, not me.  My curse continues.  Being that the Pre-rut is showing signs of kicking off and the bucks are definitely getting really aggressive and moving much more, the does tend to vanish this time of year anyway.  They are hiding from the harassment of every teenage boy in town!  Picture a high school full of teenage boys and only a hand full of girls... the boys would be turning that place upside down trying to find a girl friend, yet the girls would be hiding for the lives!  Knowing if they showed face they'd have the whole school chasing them up and down the hallways.  It's no different in the woods.  The does know that if they walk into an open food plot or break from the cover at anytime there will be 10 young bucks waiting on them.  They get run crazy and in fact get plum tired of it when they aren't ready (if you know what I mean) So they tend to lay low, very low, waiting for the right time to emerge and be courted by a much older mature buck who has his priorities right.  He's not looking for a long chase and a drawn out relationship.  He's just there for the same reason she is. Nuff Said.  So, I feel my chances of finding a doe right now are going to be harder than ever which really puts a strain on my urban hunting.  I really can't!  I love getting out right now and rattling, grunting and seeing what deer I can call in but since I can't in-fear a giant will step out and I wont have a tag to burn on him, I'm stuck sitting at home on days I can't make the trip to the farm or the lease.  Now, I did finally sit Ole faithful last weekend for the first time this season.  The weather and wind were perfect.  We had 3-4 days with above normal temps and then as Friday came, the bottom fell out and a brisk North wind dropped the temps nearly 30 degrees!  I solicited a new camera man, buddy Kyle Neal, who graciously gave up his weekend of hunting to film for me.  My dad took off to South Dakota for his annual pheasant hunt and I was left flying solo.  Kyle and I settled in around 5:00 on Friday.  I was so excited for my first sit there this year.  As you may know, I made it a point to wait and go into that farm only after I knew the big boys were cruising.  I pulled camera cards the week before and had several day time photos and decided it was time to get my butt in a tree.  It was a rather slow night until 7:03, when 8 ball and massive, wide 8 point came cruising through the bottom along the creek and began to make several scrapes at about 50 yards.  The only problem was there were too many limbs in the way to make any ethical shot.  I let him walk a few more steps and began to try and call him back, the first grunt stopped him dead in his tracks. But his body language said he was far from interested.  He continued on his way, at that point my heart began to thud, not beat fast, but thud! I grunted again and same results.  I tried an estrus bleat and same results, every time moving farther and farther out of range.  I decided I would snort wheeze at him as his earlier display of dominance while making his scrapes appeared he was feeling like big man on campus.  He turned a 180 and just stood there. We were sitting on the South end of 2 acre clover plot on top of a ridge that is nearly 30 feet above the creek bottom.  He would have had no idea there wasn't a deer standing up there that he could not see.  I was sure this had him locked in now, but again he non shalauntly turned and continued on his path.  I let him cross the creek to about 100 yards and grabbed my rattling horns and lightly hit them together but he never showed up again.  As frustrating as it was to have a plan work so well and be slow close only to watch his wide load rear end vanish into the weeds, I was at the same time so jacked up that we had encountered him on the first night in.  The evening closed with out another deer.  We were back in the same spot the next night in hopes he might do the same thing again and this time we'd be ready for him.  We did see 5-6 does and 3-4 younger bucks, each set of does was desperately trying to loose their pursuers as they ran circles, jumped logs, dashed through the creek and hid under fallen trees.  It was a fun and exciting sit, but no mature bucks and no sign of 8 ball.  Tomorrow is Halloween and I have a obsession with hunting this night.  As they say the freaks will come out on Hallow's Eve.  This year with it being on a Wednesday, having to work all day, not having a buck tag for my urban spot and it being a NNW wind I might be missing my first Halloween hunt in nearly 10 years.  I'm torn with the decision of what to do...  I will definitely be back in a tree this weekend and then next Monday November 5th which is also my lovely wife's birthday, will be the start of my hunting vacation.  November 3-13 all day every day.  I will be hunting Ole Faithful and our Lease depending on the winds and I hope to wrap my IN buck tag around a monster before that time ends.  The woods are definitely heating up, I've seen more rubs and scrapes appearing this year than I have in a few years past.  It should be fun!  The best part is, I DON'T have to shoot a doe first on either one of those properties.  I will be adding footage as we get it and I hope to show you some awesome action.

AimSmallMissSmall!

Long Time Coming

I should probably welcome myself back before I welcome you back.  I have been terrible so far this year about posting anything.  All the videos are up on the Outdoor Jones fan page on Facebook though.  But I set out to write a little bit about the hunts regardless if they made the video or not.  A lot has been going on this year.  We are a little over a month into it and I have yet hunted anywhere outside my urban spot.  I did video for Brian down on our new farm in Freedom, had a good hunt.  He was able to harvest a nice doe the very first night.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPV12-U4iqg&feature=g-upl  I have yet to lay eyes on a doe in my urban spot. I'm just hoping that when they harvest the corn it will move them back into the woods and I'll get a crack at one. I have seen 2 bucks and have enjoyed watching them, but it's killing me not being able to do anything about it.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zmaei2QIT_0&feature=g-upl  I was able to remove one coyote so far from the pack, I've had small opportunities at 3 others but haven't been to pull it off.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQWLjcPh1BM&feature=g-upl  I decided tonight that I couldn't wait any longer.  I went out and pulled trail camera cards from our favorite farm.  This is the first we've been there since the last cutting on the clover plot a month and a half ago.  There were about 3,000 photos to go through.  I was pleasantly suprised as to the caliber and specific deer that were showing up.  I set out at the beginning of the year that I was not going to hunt this farm until I knew it was right.  I've seen in years past that I get tons of summer and early fall photos of awesome bucks.  Normally the first night in I get a glimpse at one of them, but then they disapear until sometime around halloween and sometimes not again until late season.  Not sure if it's me or just the time of year but it always seems to happen.  This year I decided that I was going to try and change it up.  My hope is that none of these deer, does included, would know we are hunting there until the big boys are up, cruising and doing it during day light.  The cameras confirmed it, even with out being there the bucks basically stopped coming out in daylight on September 29th, go figure 2 days before season opener.  There was a small change in the daylight sightings this week, but mainly by 2 & 3 year olds.  I assume that will continue into next week and the following.  If we can get a good cold front to blow in around Halloween we will be golden!  I hope to be perched on my favorite ridge just off the edge of my favorite clover field sometime around the 25th or after.  It's time to break out the grunt call, the rattle bag and sit back and watch the woods unfold.  No better time of year to be a bow hunter than right now!!!  Enjoy the photos... http://youtu.be/TQqptQ19xSY

2012- Season 2 Begins!

 

(How do your plots look?)

Welcome back y'all!  It's now time to start getting serious again (like I ever stop being serious about hunting) but it's 8 days until Urban Zone opener.  We did a lot of work at our Urban spot this year, we completely changed the way we enter and exit the property as well as moved all the stands.  We opened two new 1 acre plots inside the timber for turnip and clover kill plots.  We sat down with maps, photos and markers and drew out the typical wind directions, the typical deer travel areas and installed the plots and new trails to hopefully avoid crossing paths with them on our way in and out of the stand sets.  Removing brier thickets, trees, poison oak and 6' high weeds is no easy task!!! The big ten point we've been getting photos of has been there for the last two years and he has inevitably been the first deer to show on September 15th each year, only to never be seen again.  He actually has a fairly unique set of tracks so I was able to keep tabs on his travel but never could close the deal.  He always seemed to know exactly where we were and when we were there.  So, to avoid that game again we completely changed everything to try and be more invisible this year.  No if's and or but's about it, the stands set are for very specific winds and will only be set if perfect.  This year Indiana has changed the Urban rules to help reduce #'s yet again.  They have imposed an "earn a buck tag" rule require all urban zone hunters to harvest and antlerless deer first before taking any antlered deer.  The plan is to completely avoid "Sneaky Pete's" core area on opening day, we will be hunting the does in hopes of putting fresh meat in the freezer and earning that tag!  Plus like I said he has been the very first deer I've seen on the Urban opener in 2010 & 2011, so I don't want that to happen again this year.  Follow us mainly @ https://www.facebook.com/OutdoorJones?ref=hl to keep up with the action as our 3 year quest at "Sneaky Pete" begins again.

 

The other two farms we'll be hunting have been no cake walk this summer either.  As some of you know we lost our 200 acre farm in Southern Indiana last winter.  We have picked up a new farm in Owen Co, we installed to brand new plots there as well.  1 I'm extremely stocked about.  A 3 acre, oats & turnip plot!  It was seeded with a blend of red & white clover which will hopefully take hold and be our plot for the next 3-4 years but to add a cover crop we could hunt over this year and use to protect the tender clover sprouts we topped it with forage oats and purple-top turnips.  This plots sits in the middle of nearly 200 acres of standing timber, if we hunt it right it might just be that unknown gold mind come November and into the late season.  The drought this summer held us off from planting until the last week of August but we've gotten nearly 6" of rain on it since it went down so our fingers are crossed for a dynamite spot.  The second spot is a 60 yard long 10 yard wide strip right off a major bedding thicket and only 75 yards from a pond that held water all summer.  This spot will be easy to get in and out undetected under any South, South West and South East Winds.  With a full month of malfunctioned trail cameras our inventory is a toss up at this point so we'll just hunt it from the inside out and try and learn as we go. 

My favorite farm "Old Faithful" was nothing more than a waste of time and money this summer.  It started with a 2.5 acre field being planted in corn with a newly planted clover buffer strip all the way around the outside.  With in 2 weeks nearly 90% of the seed was dug up and scratched out from every varmint and bird brain in Montgomery Co.  We cut our losses and re-sprayed the field to kill off any remaining corn and weeds.  We rented a no-til drill from the Montgomery Co NRCS and drilled in red & white clover.  Well that seed went in the ground the end of May, and as you all know we got NO RAIN for 2 months, so needless to say that plot never sprouted.  The weeds took over and just to save face we mowed it twice now to give the soil some sunlight and a chance for any seed not dried completely out to sprout.  With the last 3 weeks of showers our clover has begun to sprout.  The outside buffer strip has exploded, I'm just hoping it can with stand the browse pressure it's getting now and will be getting.  If we get lucky the middle 2 acres will continue to grow and we might have enough to draw to some deer late.  But our plans there haven't changed much.  We continue to hunt the edges of the creek bottom and the inside corners of the field edges.  A few of my hitlisters from this farm have disappeared this year. But "sticker 8" now only a massive 7 point is back and will be at the top of the list for me.  But I'm taking a new approach to this farm as it's always rocking around Halloween and the first two weeks of November as the bucks use the steep creek bottom to check for does.  We will not step foot over there until after October 25th.  As hard as this will be for me, I'm going to keep it as virgin as possible until I know the big boys will be on their feet. 

I actually plan to take that approach as a whole this year.  Instead of wearing myself & camera man out for a month and a half before things really heat up, we're going to go after "Sneaky Pete" early and then back out until later in October.  I will for sure be in Owen Co. opening weekend for our annual opening weekend hunt (even though it will take place in a different area now for the first time in 10 years) but I will be following Brian Lewis around with the camera in hopes of an early knock down on one of the new green fields.  This year should be fun and just because we are laying back at first, doesn't mean we are going any easier.  I hope to bring you lots of good footage and hoping to introduce you to a few new faces this year as I get the opportunity to film a few new hunters this fall.  If you haven't seen episode one of season 2 check us out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqDkvjKjK_0, or become a fan on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/OutdoorJones?ref=hl , and see this year and last years season.

Stay with us it should be fun!!!

-ASMS