My first (real) season.

[MarceloF]

I am going to start this thread about my fist deer season and hopefully I'll be able to post a pic of my first deer and maybe a bear.

Last season I went out looking for deer for the very first time on the last day of the season.

I spent the off season hunting rabbits and quail. I also did a lot of training and work on the mountains. All the hiking unfortunately was in non hunting areas and not for scouting so this deer season, even though I'm in good shape, I was only able to E-scout.

My plans for the opener was to drive off Friday morning, scout during the day, find a spot to spend the night and be in location first thing in the morning but my younger son had a fever during the night and my older son had a dance performance in school on Friday so I decided to leave supper early on Saturday and be at the spot at first light.

I picked an area I'm kind of familiar with but never been to this particular spot...it was not really a good glassing spot so I opted to walk around. Did not see any deer but found a guzzler with deer tracks near. Good thing I guess. I walked for a couple of hours and decided to go hike somewhere else instead of finding a location to sit and wait for deer to come by.

I drove another 20 minutes to spot #2 and there was a lot of hunters in the area...I park my car on the side of the dirt road and soon after two trucks park a couple hundred feet down the road, about six guys jump out and head into the woods quickly. I sit there watching the direction they go for so I can go the opposite way and about 10 minutes in I hear a shot coming from the direction they went in.

I get my gear and go on the opposite way and start walking the woods, I did not see any deer but did see some tracks and poop, saw a couple of hunters and then another single hunter and they had not seen any bucks but the pair had see two does just before we met...one of them asked if I had been to the area before and said that it was a good area. I hiked for another couple of miles and then decided to call it a day. I received an email with some good news about a job interview and wanted to go home to celebrate.

No deer but the email made my day, plus I now know a little bit more about hunting deer and hopefully I'll post a pic of my first one soon.

.

 

[Bowman]

Welcome and good luck Marcelo.

 

[Bowman]

Have you seen the post under big game, how you seeing so many deer,
And hunting muley southern ca

 

[ilovesprig]

Marcelo,

Thanks for sharing your experience.....Getting out there and getting your feet wet in the hunting world is all part of the hunting experience.....Good luck.

 

[MarceloF]

Have you seen the post under big game, how you seeing so many deer,
And hunting muley southern ca

I have seen the "how you seeing so many deer" post and keep checking on it often, the other one I can not remember if I saw it...I'll look its up!

 

[entropy]

Sounds like my first year. Not first day. First year of deer hunting. I scouted an area months before, an area I thought wouldn't have any hunters back in the green mountains in Vermont. I had cameras and everything, and patterned a whitetail buck, got a tree stand and went there to get him opening day. Guess what, there were hunters everywhere, didn't see any deer, on my way back to the parking area a hunter asked me for help to get his buck to his truck. It was the deer I patterned, he killed it a few yards were I was... I asked him how he got that deer, he said he just went there and sat down in the middle of the forest and waited. Never scouted, nothing, just sat there... I didn't get to see any deer in that entire year.

A year after that I got into archery, during archery season I scouted many other places and also went to the same place. I saw deer every single day. Co-workers wouldn't believe that I would see 6, 10 deer every time hunting public land in Vermont. Mostly does, but still. I learned so much, had chances to stalk and great scouting feedback. Come rifle season, I would go very very far.

Think like a successful predator, such as a mountain lion. They are very territorial because it is better for their species survival. Too many mountain lions in one area and they starve. Deer are smart, they don't wanna get killed, it is not a sport or a hobby to them, it is life or death. Be like a mountain lion, scout for deer and humans, go where humans never go. Be territorial, be the only one, if you see other hunters just leave that area don't waste your time. Find, earn your pocket and keep it secret. If you see other hunters in the area you are playing 100% luck game where your chances are about the success rate of the area.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to go out hunt in California yet, but I am almost ready for my first hunt here. However, I am pretty sure there are plenty deer in southern California. I hike a lot, and I've seen more bucks while hiking than I ever saw in Vermont. Deer hunting in public land is probably one of the hardest things I've done in my life, I don't think people realize how extremely difficult it is. The ones out there survive the waves of hunters that go out year after year. They're smart.

 

[Bowman]

A mountain lion will move slowly and methodically and will stay in one spot for hours. But it's a 24-7 job for them or they don't eat.

 

[entropy]

A mountain lion will move slowly and methodically and will stay in one spot for hours. But it's a 24-7 job for them or they don't eat.

At least we have our brains and "long range" weapons. It is tough to kill prey, no doubt about it.

 

[MarceloF]

Sounds like my first year. Not first day. First year of deer hunting. I scouted an area months before, an area I thought wouldn't have any hunters back in the green mountains in Vermont. I had cameras and everything, and patterned a whitetail buck, got a tree stand and went there to get him opening day. Guess what, there were hunters everywhere, didn't see any deer, on my way back to the parking area a hunter asked me for help to get his buck to his truck. It was the deer I patterned, he killed it a few yards were I was... I asked him how he got that deer, he said he just went there and sat down in the middle of the forest and waited. Never scouted, nothing, just sat there... I didn't get to see any deer in that entire year.

A year after that I got into archery, during archery season I scouted many other places and also went to the same place. I saw deer every single day. Co-workers wouldn't believe that I would see 6, 10 deer every time hunting public land in Vermont. Mostly does, but still. I learned so much, had chances to stalk and great scouting feedback. Come rifle season, I would go very very far.

Think like a successful predator, such as a mountain lion. They are very territorial because it is better for their species survival. Too many mountain lions in one area and they starve. Deer are smart, they don't wanna get killed, it is not a sport or a hobby to them, it is life or death. Be like a mountain lion, scout for deer and humans, go where humans never go. Be territorial, be the only one, if you see other hunters just leave that area don't waste your time. Find, earn your pocket and keep it secret. If you see other hunters in the area you are playing 100% luck game where your chances are about the success rate of the area.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to go out hunt in California yet, but I am almost ready for my first hunt here. However, I am pretty sure there are plenty deer in southern California. I hike a lot, and I've seen more bucks while hiking than I ever saw in Vermont. Deer hunting in public land is probably one of the hardest things I've done in my life, I don't think people realize how extremely difficult it is. The ones out there survive the waves of hunters that go out year after year. They're smart.

Good points, I know that spot #2 is a good area and has a lot of hunters but I started to study the area to find possible spots where the deer would move to. My plan for next time is to hike a little further away into the possible "scape" route but I'll need more time. In my next outing my plan is to check the area with the guzzler again since there were no hunters there.

 

[entropy]

Good luck in your hunt Marcelo. keep at it.

 

[MarceloF]

Alright, so I have been out a couple more time and seems like the crowd is on the weekends only...this afternoon i went to a different spot and hiked a little over a mile in.
I found a good looking area with a lot of tracks on the side of the hills so I decided to sit on a knob overlooking the bottom of the canyon for about an hour and my patience got the best of me, so I turned back and circled around to a higher peak were I could watch the same area and see the knob I was sitting on.
About 15-30 minutes later I spotted a deer coming down the hill on my right side between me and the knob. I got my binocular to get a better look and it was a doe, so i watched it for nearly an hour. At one point it got to about 15 yards from the knob I was on at first.
It was a good learning experience watching it go into the brush and try to find it again and look for "deer patterns".
I managed to get a pic of it with my phone trough the binos and when was getting dark I decided to head towards the car.
As I'm walking the trail i see two more deers crossing a saddle right in front of me so I froze in place. The first one saw me and kept moving, In slow motion I pulled my binos up to my eyes to get a better look at the second deer and it was a buck but a young one. He had some tall horns but no fork. he never noticed me.
As they made their way up toward the ridge, I noticed two more deers up top. Eventually they all met up and kept walking along the top of the ridge and I managed to get a few pics and a cool video.

Im really happy I got to finally see something and if the buck was old enough I'd probably have meet in the fridge right now, they were really close to me.

I'm definitely coming back to this spot soon.

.

 

[Bowman]

Great report
Awesome day

 

[KoozeDeer]

One thing I might suggest, hunt the late in season as it begins to cool down. Don’t give up after the first 2 weeks. Assuming your in D16?

 

[MarceloF]

Great report
Awesome day

Thanks, it sure was an awesome day!

 

[MarceloF]

One thing I might suggest, hunt the late in season as it begins to cool down. Don’t give up after the first 2 weeks. Assuming your in D16?

Thanks for the tip... I'm hunting D11 and D13.

 

[xjon]

excitement like that I consider a success. keep at it. thanks for sharing and nice pics.

 

[MarceloF]

I went out on Friday for some quail in the afternoon and deer later. Got me 3 quails and then went to the spot I wanted to check for deer on my mountain bike.
I parked the car, pulled the bike out, riffle and backpack. Once on the trail, in he first 3 minutes I saw a doe running away... Nice!
I started ridding really slow and then saw a black spot down the drainage about 200yrds so I checked with the bino and it was another doe. It was around 5:30pm by now. I sat for a while glassing and saw nothing else.

I rode back to the car, packed everything and started heading home, 2 mins into the ride I see a doe on the side of the road off to my left looking at me so I stop on the middle of the road to look at her and sure enough as I stop, a big buck crosses right in front of me...my heart starts pounding, he crosses the rd. and moves towards the doe making some noises. i looks like he does not even care Im there.

He moves up the bank and just hangs out here sniffing the air and ground...I pull over, turn the car off and start thinking of my next move. I tried my best not to spook him and it worked. At this point i remember the TV shows where poachers shoot deer from their vehicles...I can see how that is tempting...I slowly get out of the car, open the trunk, my riffle case and pull the riffle out. Its getting dark now and the deer moves farther from the Rd. and I go in after them...they have this path well travelled with a lot of deer prints.
or public land so I pull up OnX and sure enough, one side of the Rd. is public and the spot they moved into is private, so i turn back and go to the car.

I'm going back after them today, my plan is to take the long way around the private property to check this piece of landlocked area and hopefully see some good signs.

I'm getting close to my goal, persistency will pay off!

 

[MarceloF]

Well, I have i have been going out looking for deer almost everyday. A couple of days ago I hiked almost 4 miles over some rough terrain and bushwacked for nearly a mile in D11. Saw 4 does but they were all too far, it they were bucks I'd have no chance.

My son had asked me to go deer hunting and I promised I'd take him before the season was over, so I decided to take him today. I picked an easy hike for him, just short of a mile. We sat at the end of this little ridge overlooking a valley and flanked by two other ridges. around 4pm I heard some movement on our left and went to take a look. At first I did not see anything but then I looked down and less than 100 yards directly below us at the bottom of the other ridge i see a small doe and as I quietly as possible ask my son to come see it, she looks up and I freeze and motion him to freeze too.
We stayed there half crouched for a couple of minutes with the doe starring in our direction, there was some very light brush in front of us and the wind was in our face. Every time there was a gust we drop a little more until we managed to sit down and get to a more comfortable position.

The little doe continued to graze for a few more minutes and bedded down, my son went over to take a look and told me there were two of them now.
Apparently we missed the "mom".

We all stayed in place watching each other until it was to dark to see or take a shot in case a buck showed up, so w gathered our gear and headed back to the truck.

No bucks taken again but in my book, today was a success. My son (10yrs old) goes hunting quail and rabbits with me, this was his first deer hunt and we managed to see two from a close distance.

Tomorrow I'll be back at it again.