Future wood cutting opportunities, that is. Two standing dead oaks on one sit and two blown down oaks on the other. Oh well, no deer yet but the hunts have been useful in my future firewood spotting.
that's funny, because when I'm out hunting and it's not going so "good", I find myself looking for standing deads and (get ready for this) ROCKS.... Last year on the first day of buck season, I hunted on stand until around 10:30am, saw a couple does and that was it....I was bored out of my mind and I had that fireplace project going, and I knew the perfect spot to find some good vent stones on the edge of the mountain....so I walked out to the edge and got around 200lbs of flagstone and put it in my backpack.... The view from that stone bluff is fantastic! One of my favorite hunting spots on the planet! Walked almost 2 miles back to the truck and I was about dead from carrying that pack full of odd-shaped stones......but I made all my stone registers on the fireplace out of them......so in a way, I made out good the first day of deer season. Some pics of the register stones after I cut and fitted them, and after I installed them on either side of the fireplace (finished product). There's also a register at the top of the chase that isn't in the picture...... Oh, and around 2oo yds from that stone bluff, I bagged a little 6 point the following Saturday morning!!
Great pics and story. I actually drew on a doe the first sit, but the wind in that spot kept swirling over the trees and hitting the field behind me and back puffing. So I drew on her she walked two more steps and hit my scent and that was it. I had no shot and she skipped on out after a minute or two. The next sit I saw 2 groups of 7 deer total headed back to bedding areas on the walk in and no deer from the stand. There are zero acorns here and it has changed deer movements drastically from normal years and hunting strategy has had to change as well. It has been a hard first week and not just for me. All my friends have been trying to put the pieces together. Usually in bad acorn years I key on soft mast like persimmons, but with zero acorns the squirrels and coons have stripped them bare. All summer there were tons of squirrels, that second sit I saw none.
