Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Deer but no Buck


I got a break from working on the farm this weekend so I went out to scout for deer. I did a post last week about scouting and different techniques to use when looking for deer. I would like to continue with this topic and tell you about my findings this weekend.

At about 3:00 p.m. Sunday afternoon I went out to our ten acre woods to look for any sign of deer. Below where I put my tree stand last year I found many deer tracks and some droppings. The droppings were moist and greenish- black meaning that the deer are feeding on a clover or wheat field. This gave me a pretty good idea of where they are feeding. Unfortunately, there were not any buck tracks in that area, they were all from doe. Next I looked in the thickets and tall grass to see if I could find where they are bedding but I didn’t have any luck.

Later that same evening I went out to one of our harvested corn fields with my binoculars to get a look at the deer in my area this year. There is a creek that runs along the edge of the field so I lay on the bank of the creek to avoid being detected. Right after I got positioned I spotted a group of deer about 400 yards out in the field. I knew that they had not seen me because they were working their way straight toward me. After watching them patiently for almost an hour, they had become very close. I counted six full size doe and one that was younger and they were all no more than fifteen yards away. That was all the closer they came because they picked up my scent and they didn’t like it. After that they took off and disappeared.

I am very pleased with my findings from this weekend but I am not satisfied. I was really hoping to see a buck in that group of deer or at least some buck tracks. I still have a couple of weeks to find those bucks so I am not too worried about it yet.

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