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LIVE! From the Stand 2023-2024 Edition

Bigcountry40

Member
4,752
137
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We flat landers are easily amused in the hills of eastern Ohio. I gave my boys a two way radio and cut em loose. Probabilities of seeing a deer are low
 
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Jamie

Senior Member
6,005
177
Ohio
Nothing died today, at least nothing that was actually alive to begin with, anyway. I saw a total of 20 deer from stand this morning, 11 yesterday. 31 deer in just over 6 hours of stand time makes for some exciting hunting. I had deer within less than 15 yards of me for the better part of two hours this morning, with only very short breaks in between the groups of deer that came through. The first group was at about 8:20; two adult does and one scrawny little buck fawn. I'm pretty sure this is a trio I saw yesterday, too. The last deer to come in the woods was the doe with no fawn and she offered herself up as perfectly as I could ever script. Begged me for an arrow. I could surely eat another deer, but don't really need another this year. As I raised my bow to shoot, I stopped for some reason that I will keep trying to understand. I had her, but given the debate going on in my head, I opted to hang up my bow to take some pictures. If I have to think that hard about seizing such a golden opportunity, then I have no business shooting. The deer on the left is the one I could have shot. I wish I understood why I just don't care to kill them as much anymore.

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I'm pretty sure this squirrel just came over to antagonize the deer, lol.

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Just about 5 minutes after these three moved off, going back from where they came, I spotted a group of 8 deer out in the cut corn/powerline. They were coming my way, but they stayed out in the powerline, eventually got far enough east and smelled me. There was a medium size 8 point with both antlers hassling a couple of the adult does in the group, one of which was this Piebald. Deer is only about 55-60 yards from me, but the pics suck.

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I saw a big nanny piebald doe the first year I had this place, and a piebald button buck the second year, but I have not seen another since then (2019) until today. The piebald doe was in the lead. I knew she was going to smell me and smelled me she did just after I took the hurried pics. Those deer cleared the powerline back to the south where they came from. Not ten minutes after they all disappeared, I caught some movement in the woods with me, in the opposite direction from those that just fled. Deer running around a bit. Looked like chasing to me, and indeed it was. Two more adult does and one fawn being hassled by a buck that had shed both antlers. Judging by the size of his body and antler pedicles, I would guess he is 2 1/2. They walked past me one by one with the fawn stopping to eat a little. They all stood there looking around and at each other, all within 15 yards of me, for a few minutes.

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The buck eventually chased the two does out into the powerline. A few minutes later one of the does came back and was grunting softly as she approached her fawn. Doe grunts are pretty cool. They milled around and she was hammering the sliver left of the mineral rock I put there in August.

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Just a few minutes later the buck came back after the does again. All at once all four of them snapped their heads up looking toward where they had originally come from. I spotted two more deer coming. At first I thought it was a pair of does with no fawns, but as it turned out it was a 1 1/2 year old buck that had shed both antlers and a spike, still carrying, which I had seen and passed up a couple of times earlier during the season. Probably should have let him have it this time. That is about 12 yards.

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The six of them loitered there in front of me for a few minutes, then the two adult does wandered off back to where the came from with the fawn and shed buck following. The spike and little buddy with no antlers hung around for about 20 minutes before getting far enough west of me to get a little whiff of me from an errant wind gust. Those two boys could not figure it out and just wandered off. As I was preparing to dismount, I spotted three more deer out in the powerline, feeding away from me, but heading toward my parking place. They did not stick around after they saw me walking toward them, lol.

Was a busy and entertaining morning in my deer woods today. Was a good season, which I'm ending on this high note. I'm not going back tomorrow. Instead, I'm going to work on finding my game face again before next season. I know it's around here someplace...