Old 8 Playing Hard to Get

So it has been almost three weeks since a decent buck has presented itself on the trail camera. The ship finally came in, the Old 8 pointer has been visiting the area for a three day streak now. He is hanging out the soccer moms like a huge extended family of 7 deer. Although the it was great to see the buck again, the timing was not to my advantage. The buck was only there during early morning hours and an hour after dark.

This timing ended up relating to the moon cycle which I posted in a seperate blog. But be that as it may, I hunted hard with hopes on getting a shot at him. I even pasted up Lindsay Lohan with a clean 15 yard shot oppurtunity. Today I got in the woods early but I got the erie feeling that I pushed the deer right out of the area. It was almost as if I could see their shadows but by the time light came, the area was clear. I sat for awhile but with not action by 10 Am I got up. I tracked the entire group of deer through the area.

The fresh tracks followed down toward the edge of the property where it slopes down into a small valley. As my uncle alway said, they go down in the morning and up at night. This is just what they were doing. So in hopes of catching their evening movement, I set up with a makeshift ground blind along a fence panel. Yes, there is some fencing in the woods from Brian's dad. I made a good location about 20 yards off of their travel path where they would come up from the valley. So I waited, and waited, and yes waited. Before I knew it, the sun had set and forest was completly dark.

My setup was perfect, with a wooded blind and my cross bow at the ready. I was just missing the deer to complete the package. Again the moon had shifted the deer movement to past dark and not during my hunting time. I will use this setup later one the moon provides a better hunting oppurtunity. Now the make shift ground blind I made was pretty sweet. The forest I hunt have ample dead fall from the cedar trees and in about ten minutes I had a good blind. The benefit of the a good blind is it hides your movement or breaks up your outline. Camo is great but if a deer can see your outline its kind of pointless.

I backed myself up to the fence paneling and a small tree. This would only leave me two sides to built up some fallen limbs. I built up to about chest height when I am in a sitting position. I used smaller branches to fill in gaps and run them vertical to fill in the blind. Then with a solid limb across in front of me I was able to lay my cross bow out for easy access. All I would have had to do is lean forward into the scope and aim at a deer. I use a small tripod seat and wear my gillie suit from head to toe. I knew I would have had to fool about 5-7 deer before the buck would have showed up so passing the red face test with lots of eyes is essential. I would be able to make slight movements but still be cautious when they arrived. The blind is set but will have to wait for a better moon.