Archery 2023 Reports

Great memory for you both! 

Got back out this past Saturday after the rain stopped with my son.  Was pretty dead until the last 20 minutes.  Had a small buck at the edge of a corn field and I was going to try grunting a little bit.  Just then another small buck came from behind us and walked by at 10 yards, but it was on my side of the stand and not my son's side.  Had it kept walking straight it would have been gone, but go figure it turned and walked broadside right in front of us at about 25 yards.  I already had the grunt call out so I grunted to stop it right in our shooting lane and my son made a great shot on it.  It only went 20 yards, stopped for a second, and crashed.  His first buck he ever shot.  He did get a sub-legal spike up north a couple years ago that was just under 3", but this is the first he could use his buck tag on.  Funny to see the emotions change from being bored to really excited in about 60 seconds.

Thanks.  Yeah its a good area, but it also helps being its early season and they don't know they are being hunted yet.  I know guys don't like the warm weather, but I always try to get out the first week to see if I can catch bachelor groups together.  It doesn't happen every year, but it happens often enough for me.  Few more days and they'll probably be dispersed if they haven't already.

Congrats Lakeshiner, sounds like that's a pretty nice area you got to hunt there.

Beautiful lakeshiner.  Well done.

I had my shortest season ever, 2 hours.  I was able to lease 50 acres behind my house this year from a neighbor.  The deer seem to move all day long, not sure I ever had that before. 

Had a camera near my stand and around noon there was a small buck.  Then I decided to hunt at 3:45, thinking that was plenty early as it was so warm out.  At 4pm I got some pictures from the camera and there were 2 small bucks (different) by the stand at 3:30pm.  I was there for about 20 minutes and 4 does/fawns were already coming to the east of me along a corn field edge.  They were downwind and were slightly alerted, walked back into the woods.  Just as that was going on, there was another doe and fawn coming from the west.  They acted a little nuts for a bit and the one that was upwind of me started blowing.  It left and the other 4 walked behind me and one of those does started blowing.  I couldn't figure it out, I'm looking at them and the wind is in my face...they should not smell me.  I then noticed they were looking deeper into the woods when blowing, not my direction at all.  

About 30 minutes after that, 3 bucks came from the direction they were looking.  Kind of weird if they were blowing at them, but maybe...  None of the bucks were giants, but one was big enough for me.  It ran maybe 50 yards.  This was all done by 5:30pm, wasn't even what I'd consider prime time yet.  I did wait a bit before looking which is why its dark in the picture, but it was probably dead right away.  Quartered it up and got it in the fridge since it was warm.

Still up.  Doe and 2 fawn came in 15 yards.  Full draw, and a small game hunter came from the other way and busted them.  The joys of public land.   Fawn returned, but not doe

Couldn't wait till Saturday, so I started early. Not really, hunted in Kentucky where the season starts Sept 1st. Schwacker broadhead, went 50 yards. Glad I found him right away, 85 degrees out, changes everything.   Good luck everyone