Yea, EHD sucks. I can't just give up on the season, though. Who knows what will still be left to hunt by the time late September rolls around, but I vow to be ready either way. Hopefully I do a better job of documenting this season. It's exciting being the first year with enough acreage of our own to do some things and hunt private ground without interference. I'm not new to this property, I have hunted it for 10 seasons prior. There have been so many close calls over the years here with big deer. The closest and worst was when I had to watch a 140-145" 5x4 chase, bed down with a doe at 40 yards, stay there for 2 hours, then walk away behind the doe. So close yet so far away.
I started prep yesterday, getting a few mock scrapes set up as well as a couple of horizontal rubs. I've never really tried the rubs much so we'll see how that goes. It wasn't a lot of extra effort so I figured why not give it a try. There's a setup here I'd always thought about hunting and never did, and figured this year might be the year. Our property is flanked by steep ravines/hollows, and on the west side there's an old logging road that leads out of the bottom from the neighbors to our place. There's been a huge community scrape there the past few years. I added a vine to the scrape tree and a horizontal pine rub. A buddy of mine swears by natural twine ropes over vines, I've always just used vines. I figured why not combine the two? So I bought some cheap sisal twine and wrapped a 3-4" band on each vine I hung yesterday. I saturated the twine with scent. For the mock scrapes, I used Smokey's Wicked Wicks. I added some Smokey's Forehead Gland to the pine rubs.
Since I picked up some Bullman gear last year to use as my mobile setup for steps and "platform," I hung my Tethrd platform and sticks for this setup. It's in and done, so when October rolls around I can just slip in there and hunt it. I'm not used to that convenience.
One other scrape I got set up has been my best location for the past 3-4 years to get buck photos on this property. Unfortunately, it's a bear to hunt the spot, but great for trail cam inventory.
I did set up one other rub/scrape combo on a bench area where I've watched a lot of deer the past few seasons travel. They ran this bench parallel to a field. It dumps them out right in the inside corner of that field, so I expect this area to get a lot of travel. The cameras were up for less than 12 hours and I've already had does go past all three cameras. I finished off the day yesterday with some shooting, as always.
There's still a couple of other things to get squared away. There's one other camera setup I want to get going where I'm watching a lot of deer travel these past few weeks. Basically a small saddle in the ridge our property sits on that seems to channel a lot of movement. I also do have a feeder I'll get set up and have a camera on it. For the first few years I hunted here, having a food source on the northern end of the property seemed to promote a lot of movement N-S on this place. I got away from that the past few seasons and want to give it a try again.
Hopefully all of the summer work and shooting reps will pay off in a few months.
I started prep yesterday, getting a few mock scrapes set up as well as a couple of horizontal rubs. I've never really tried the rubs much so we'll see how that goes. It wasn't a lot of extra effort so I figured why not give it a try. There's a setup here I'd always thought about hunting and never did, and figured this year might be the year. Our property is flanked by steep ravines/hollows, and on the west side there's an old logging road that leads out of the bottom from the neighbors to our place. There's been a huge community scrape there the past few years. I added a vine to the scrape tree and a horizontal pine rub. A buddy of mine swears by natural twine ropes over vines, I've always just used vines. I figured why not combine the two? So I bought some cheap sisal twine and wrapped a 3-4" band on each vine I hung yesterday. I saturated the twine with scent. For the mock scrapes, I used Smokey's Wicked Wicks. I added some Smokey's Forehead Gland to the pine rubs.
Since I picked up some Bullman gear last year to use as my mobile setup for steps and "platform," I hung my Tethrd platform and sticks for this setup. It's in and done, so when October rolls around I can just slip in there and hunt it. I'm not used to that convenience.
One other scrape I got set up has been my best location for the past 3-4 years to get buck photos on this property. Unfortunately, it's a bear to hunt the spot, but great for trail cam inventory.
I did set up one other rub/scrape combo on a bench area where I've watched a lot of deer the past few seasons travel. They ran this bench parallel to a field. It dumps them out right in the inside corner of that field, so I expect this area to get a lot of travel. The cameras were up for less than 12 hours and I've already had does go past all three cameras. I finished off the day yesterday with some shooting, as always.
There's still a couple of other things to get squared away. There's one other camera setup I want to get going where I'm watching a lot of deer travel these past few weeks. Basically a small saddle in the ridge our property sits on that seems to channel a lot of movement. I also do have a feeder I'll get set up and have a camera on it. For the first few years I hunted here, having a food source on the northern end of the property seemed to promote a lot of movement N-S on this place. I got away from that the past few seasons and want to give it a try again.
Hopefully all of the summer work and shooting reps will pay off in a few months.
