Silveroddo
WKR
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2019
- Messages
- 485
This might get kind of long but here's my 2019 Whitetail hunt.
As I sat in my stand on the fourth day of the MN rifle season, I reflected on how I had come to be sitting in this particular tree. The average person would look at it and never appreciate why this was the tree I was spending my time in, from my vantage point I could see 2 houses and I was only about 15 feet off of a sod covered private logging road. On the weekend it wasn’t uncommon for the neighbor to drive literally under my stand as he drove to his property twice a day. Opening morning at daylight he had stopped under my stand to roll his window down and shout to me “Hey, I just saw 3 deer headed this way back on the other side of the ridge”. “Thanks” I said in as hushed of a voice as I could. It wasn’t a surprise to me, I was expecting him, and the does he had warned me were in route. On any given day there were about a half dozen does and fawns that were using this area to go back into a large chunk of private property to bed after a night of feeding on an alfalfa field a mile away . They were half the reason I was down here, this was the furthest point I could intercept these deer that was still on ground I had permission to hunt. Even at this point most mornings these few does and fawns were moving through this funnel right at daylight, generally an hour into legal shooting light and rush was over. My hope was to catch a buck cruising behind them. 3 years into hunting this spot that hadn’t happened yet but as I sat back reflecting on everything I decided to myself, no matter if I saw a buck in this spot all season, this is where this stand needed to be. Wind wise it was safe for most of the prevalent winds we could expect, access was easy, and my vantage point was about as good as I could get.
At about 4 o’clock the first group of does showed up, 2 adults and a fawn, they were super cautious, spending about half an hour working their way 100 yards along their trail. I watched them intently, this doe was a total pain in my rear, she was always on alert, last season she was the only one out of 10 deer that picked me out of a 16’ ladder stand. She couldn’t figure out what I was, and couldn’t get my wind, but where I’d watched 7 or 8 deer pass without a hitch, she stopped and knew something was up and spent half an hour watching me to make a move, finally she took another way, but refused to pass where all the others had ahead of her. Between her and a yippy neighbor dog that year, I’d had to relocate my stand.
On opening day of the previous year the neighbors had let their little Terrier our to do his morning business, unfortunately for me, while the wind was perfect for me to elude the deer I was hunting, it was also perfect to let the vile little beast know that someone was in his back yard. My first encounter with this issue began with a full 30 minutes of the little monster barking at me from 30 yards away, intertwined with his owner yelling his name every few minutes, then culminating with his elderly female owner getting the car out of the garage and honking the horn repeatedly for a solid minute to make him think she was going to town, which was a tactic that failed to achieve the desired result. Finally resigning myself to the fact that my hunt was shot at 8am opening morning, I got out of my ladder and tried to collect the little bastard for her, which turned into getting snarled at as he retreated down the hill in front of me until his owner was able to pick him up. She apologized profusely and I did my best to be polite as I left. My uncle later made the diplomatic decision to call her and politely negotiate the dog’s detention during the remainder of the season. This was great until about 4 days later while hunting the same tree, this time I had ditched the ladder in favor of my climber to gain some elevation. My level of irritation escalated quickly this time as the same scenario played out. This time however diplomacy failed and while not one of my finer moments, I had to inform his elderly female owner that in lough of the horn honking not working she would actually have to walk up the hill to collect him, because I was in a climbing stand and If I had to come down out of my tree again things were not going to end well for her noisy single minded companion. Unfortunately the words “Needs to be euthanized” were part of the exchange. (The dog had a lengthy track record of being a neighborhood annoyance, unfortunately if any harm ever befell the little mutt my dad’s displeasure with the dog had made him a prime suspect. Lucky had gone missing for several days at one point which prompted an accusatory phone call, which eventually proved to be unfounded when his owners discovered him locked in the garage where they had forgotten him)
Going into this season my uncle again made a phone call to negotiate Lucky’s incarceration. Somewhere along the way I overheard some skepticism by said neighbor about my choices in hunting location, which wasn’t without merit. We had hundreds of acres of private land to hunt, and thousands of acres of adjoining state and federal forest. This particular piece of property was actually a 40 acre parcel, it probably did seem kind of strange that I would spend all of my time in a spot that was within 100 yards of 2 houses and overlooking a septic mount. If it wasn’t for this picture, I would probably agree with them.
As I sat in my stand on the fourth day of the MN rifle season, I reflected on how I had come to be sitting in this particular tree. The average person would look at it and never appreciate why this was the tree I was spending my time in, from my vantage point I could see 2 houses and I was only about 15 feet off of a sod covered private logging road. On the weekend it wasn’t uncommon for the neighbor to drive literally under my stand as he drove to his property twice a day. Opening morning at daylight he had stopped under my stand to roll his window down and shout to me “Hey, I just saw 3 deer headed this way back on the other side of the ridge”. “Thanks” I said in as hushed of a voice as I could. It wasn’t a surprise to me, I was expecting him, and the does he had warned me were in route. On any given day there were about a half dozen does and fawns that were using this area to go back into a large chunk of private property to bed after a night of feeding on an alfalfa field a mile away . They were half the reason I was down here, this was the furthest point I could intercept these deer that was still on ground I had permission to hunt. Even at this point most mornings these few does and fawns were moving through this funnel right at daylight, generally an hour into legal shooting light and rush was over. My hope was to catch a buck cruising behind them. 3 years into hunting this spot that hadn’t happened yet but as I sat back reflecting on everything I decided to myself, no matter if I saw a buck in this spot all season, this is where this stand needed to be. Wind wise it was safe for most of the prevalent winds we could expect, access was easy, and my vantage point was about as good as I could get.
At about 4 o’clock the first group of does showed up, 2 adults and a fawn, they were super cautious, spending about half an hour working their way 100 yards along their trail. I watched them intently, this doe was a total pain in my rear, she was always on alert, last season she was the only one out of 10 deer that picked me out of a 16’ ladder stand. She couldn’t figure out what I was, and couldn’t get my wind, but where I’d watched 7 or 8 deer pass without a hitch, she stopped and knew something was up and spent half an hour watching me to make a move, finally she took another way, but refused to pass where all the others had ahead of her. Between her and a yippy neighbor dog that year, I’d had to relocate my stand.
On opening day of the previous year the neighbors had let their little Terrier our to do his morning business, unfortunately for me, while the wind was perfect for me to elude the deer I was hunting, it was also perfect to let the vile little beast know that someone was in his back yard. My first encounter with this issue began with a full 30 minutes of the little monster barking at me from 30 yards away, intertwined with his owner yelling his name every few minutes, then culminating with his elderly female owner getting the car out of the garage and honking the horn repeatedly for a solid minute to make him think she was going to town, which was a tactic that failed to achieve the desired result. Finally resigning myself to the fact that my hunt was shot at 8am opening morning, I got out of my ladder and tried to collect the little bastard for her, which turned into getting snarled at as he retreated down the hill in front of me until his owner was able to pick him up. She apologized profusely and I did my best to be polite as I left. My uncle later made the diplomatic decision to call her and politely negotiate the dog’s detention during the remainder of the season. This was great until about 4 days later while hunting the same tree, this time I had ditched the ladder in favor of my climber to gain some elevation. My level of irritation escalated quickly this time as the same scenario played out. This time however diplomacy failed and while not one of my finer moments, I had to inform his elderly female owner that in lough of the horn honking not working she would actually have to walk up the hill to collect him, because I was in a climbing stand and If I had to come down out of my tree again things were not going to end well for her noisy single minded companion. Unfortunately the words “Needs to be euthanized” were part of the exchange. (The dog had a lengthy track record of being a neighborhood annoyance, unfortunately if any harm ever befell the little mutt my dad’s displeasure with the dog had made him a prime suspect. Lucky had gone missing for several days at one point which prompted an accusatory phone call, which eventually proved to be unfounded when his owners discovered him locked in the garage where they had forgotten him)
Going into this season my uncle again made a phone call to negotiate Lucky’s incarceration. Somewhere along the way I overheard some skepticism by said neighbor about my choices in hunting location, which wasn’t without merit. We had hundreds of acres of private land to hunt, and thousands of acres of adjoining state and federal forest. This particular piece of property was actually a 40 acre parcel, it probably did seem kind of strange that I would spend all of my time in a spot that was within 100 yards of 2 houses and overlooking a septic mount. If it wasn’t for this picture, I would probably agree with them.
