In my last post I talked about my attempts at scouting. I finished processing the images, so now I'll show you a little of what I saw.This is the bank on the shallow branch of the creek, looking west towards the island. The bank here is noticeably worn away from deer traffic. The creek is very low this year. Last year it was at least two feet deep at this spot. The seasonal streams are all dried up right now. I think that including water into the equation will be useful this year, because there is much less of it available.
This next one is a little closer view of the creekbed. The ground is soft from some light rain last week and you can see the deer prints in the mud. Normally this is underwater. The creek has been so dry this year that the creek bed is overgrown with weeds.
This is standing in about the same spot, just looking back east towards the draw. The trail is well worn here. There is plenty of fresh leaf litter on the ground, but it is cleared away from the trail.
This is what caught my eye to begin with. There are plenty of well-used trails in this stretch of woods, but rub lines are not so common. I looked through the area and found plenty of last year's rubs, but only this one fresh rub. That leaves me wondering if this could be the territory of a buck that made it through last year and has had another year to grow. I think the more likely situation is that this is a small spike that just happens to travel in this main corridor.
Remember, this is public land. For some hunters, "if its brown, its down." For others, they'll be thrilled to say "I got my buck", even if it is a spike. For me, I'm still working on my first deer. With having the whole week of gun season off this year, I hope to be able to pass on small bucks in the hopes I'll see a shooter later on.
The trail continues east, towards the farm fields. It has been too dry this year to be able to see hoofprints on the ground. What I did see was that the dirt on the trail was broken up from hoof traffic. There are plenty of small trees here that I would have expected more rubs if this were really a buck's core area.
This section of the trail is scattered with large red oaks. Red oaks drop acorns every other year and this year these trees are dropping. The acorns are just starting to drop and there are quite a few on the ground. In this spot, the leaves were rustled around where something was rooting for acorns. Squirrels tend to make several smaller spots than a single large one like this. While there are turkeys in every county in Ohio, they are rare in this woods. I have seen plenty of turkey sign in southeastern Ohio and this isn't it. Judging by the size and the proximity to the trail, I think this is the work of a deer.
The trail continues on at least another hundred yards to the east before you come to this. I don't quite know what to think of this scrape. I know it is fairly fresh because the leaves are cleared away. I could see lines made in the dirt from hooves. There was a small sapling at one side for the deer to rub his face on. It didn't, however, smell like urine. I would think that if this were fresh it would surely stink. I'll have to think on this one for a while. I am considering making a visit here on the weekends and doctoring it up with some bottled urine.
Another 20 yards to the east and the land starts to flatten out and the cover thickens into a brushy thicket. On the other side of the thicket is a field of standing corn and a field of winter wheat. The corner of these two fields is only about 20 yards north of the trail. There are plenty of saplings and the area is overgrown with honeysuckle. The shiny red berries are almost gone already, but I obsered deer browsing on the leaves in mid-November last year. With the warmer temperatures this year, there is hope that there will still be some foliage on the bushes at the end of November.
This picture is looking to the north, along one of the north-south travel corridors. This trail isn't as well travelled right now, but I know it will be once more of the leaf cover drops in other areas of the woods.
5 comments:
Looks like you're onto a good start for the season.
Have you seen many deer in the area?
Keep an eye on that rub. It's a bit early for the rut, so you may be surprised at how that thing shapes up as the bucks start warming up for the big game.
You won't always smell urine on a scrape unless you happen along when it's real fresh... or if you've got a very sensitive nose. I'd pay more attention to the rubs and travel corridors anyway... scrapes indicate that animals have been there, but it's rare to actually get a shot on a buck at a scrape.
Good luck. I'm enjoying your site a lot.
Phillip, first I wanted to say thanks for stopping by and for the encouragement about our relatively new blog. We made one outing for hogs back in August. It was a bust, but we'll be back at it after the other game seasons are closed.
Last year I didn't see many deer in the woods until late October and on into November.
There are plenty of deer in the area. I have taken a couple of drives late at night to take a look around and I saw several deer on each trip. On a crow hunt in late summer, I had 2 sets of deer (5 total) walk right in front of me through a bean field. In early September, Julie and I saw 9 deer in the field around us as we got back into the truck at dusk.
Now for the past couple weeks, we haven't seen squat. I attribute that to two things.
First, the weather. It has been warmer than usual. In fact, some days have been miserably hot to be out hunting. I'm sure you have read other bloggers' accounts of the weather lately in the midwest.
Second is the agricultural land that surrounds the area. Up until last week, all of the crops were still standing. I think a lot of the deer are sticking close to the crops rather than in the woods.
I expect that when I'm out this weekend, I'll see a lot of the crops harvested. As that happens, I think I'll begin to see more deer in the woods.
I will definitely keep an eye out for more rubs. I was thinking that the bucks should have shed their velvet by now and settled down on rubbing. From what you said, I'm happy to know that I should see more activity in the coming month.
Andy, you guys are having a pretty ugly drought down there, so water and food are gonna (obviously) be the critical factors. You're on the right path there.
As far as rubbing, the bucks'll rub off the velvet early in the year, but will start really ripping up the trees as the rut heats up. I guess they're strengthening up for fighting, but that's when you'll start to see the really good rubs.
I'm sure you've thought of it already, but if you can put out a trail camera or two along some of these paths, you can get a pretty good idea of what's travelling the area. With the heat and all, I'm betting the majority of movement is nocturnal... but from the description of the ground I definitely think you've found a good pathway.
Good luck, and I'll look forward to following your experiences.
Hello again, Phillip. The drought has been bad this year. The further we go south, the worse it is. The temperature has been way too high up until this week.
This weekend will be nice and cool. I have a feeling I'll see more movement in the morning tomorrow.
Most of the deer we have seen in the area were just to the west of the deeper branch of the creek. That land is half cropland and half prarie grass. I am thinking that they won't be using that area as much in late November. My hope is that they'll move to the island and the eastern woods then.
I have seen deer on a couple of occasions east of the creek. Those were just some scattered sightings from nighttime drives, trips to the rifle range, and some fishing.
This trip was the first I had gone to this side of the creek during the morning hours. I spent the first couple of hours of daylight sitting in the hickory flats, then moved about every 30 minutes. I didn't see any deer, but I'll blame that on where and how I hunted that morning.
We hunted this side of the creek again on saturday. I did kick up a couple deer out of bedding cover a few ridges to the south. We noticed quite a bit more scat on the trails. The harvesting of crops is pushing the deer to the woods, as I had hoped. I think I'll start hitting another squirrel woods and leave this place quiet until the season begins.
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