Okay! Deer Season is over. It is time to write a note to myself for next summer. What did I learn? What do I need to do?

Stopping the Stink

I think the top thing I learned this year was about the Shamanic Baking Soda Method, and its limitations. The use of baking soda did not fail me this year, but I sort of failed the system.  It happened during the middle of the week.  I’d had fresh clothes up until Tuesday.  I started to re-use stuff on Tuesday, and the deer gave me a 3 hour chorus of snorts.  “You stink!”  Okay I get it.

I did several things wrong on Tuesday.  I was tired getting up, and I did not shower.  I used the previous day’s clothes, and I did not salt down my outer layer.  I got things straightened out.  I hand washed my poly-pro underwear.  I salted down my parka and bibs with baking soda and let them sit overnight.  I showered with baking soda the next morning.  Wednesday, I had 6 deer under my stand within an hour or so of sun rise.   How much of that was necessary? How much was overkill?  Don’t know.  The point is it was a solvable issue.  All it took was a lot of sodium bicarb and quite a bit of elbow grease doing the hand washing. If I had to guess, I would say the work I did on the outer layers,( the bibs, parka, and hat) probably accounted for 80% of the improvement.  80% of the effort went into washing and rinsing the underwear.  I think the next time I am faced with this dilemma, I will give the poly-pro underwear a dry dusting of baking soda and leave the washing for the end of the trip.

Hunting Strategy

I did not get a big buck this year.  I got meat, but it was not anything approaching my best years.  Some years are like that, and I think the property is re-building after a near- wipeout of the deer in 2012.  Something happened  in 2011-2012. The most likely cause was poaching in the off-season and I think the problem may be solved.  I saw a lot more deer this year over last year.

The only failure in strategy was not responding to the deer’s late turn to the acorns.  This was an odd thing.  Normally they start on the acorns in October and have the place pretty well hoovered up by the Opener.  By mid-November they are back out in the pastures trying to scrape a few forbs off what remains.  This was different.  My guess was they were off  the property eating someone else’s acorns that tasted better and then came back to my place after they were exhausted.  This was a banner year for acorns, but the deer left them on the ground.  They came back into my woods and started to hit the oak groves at about midway through the first week.  It was fluky, but I am still at a loss on how to have responded to it.  I will have to ponder this one.

Now that the hay dude has been replaced, I want to get aggressive with food plots again. This should even out the ebb and flow of the deer. When I had a plot or two on the place, I always seemed to have deer around.

I am going to float one idea to myself:  Back in 2001, I had my tags filled with a small buck and a doe. The season ended and we all came back for a post-season visit and took a hike.  All along that walk, we saw signs of a big buck that had come onto the place during the December rut and really torn up the place.  I wonder if that may be if what I was seeing was not a repeat of that this year. Just a thought– in walking to and from the stands, pulling down the skirts, I certainly saw plenty of sign.

Deer Retrieval

The Deer Wagon worked great.  We started using my old S-10 as a dedicated deer retriever last year, but it really came into its own.  I see room for improvements

• I need to build a sled for getting the deer up the ramps. It need only be simple piece of plywood and some cleats, but it will help keep the deer from sliding around and keep the ramps together.
• I’ve proven the concept well enough that I should buy an extra block and tackle for the back of the truck. Right now, the rig I have for the meat pole is doing double-duty.
• The meat pole needs to be bolstered.  I think I need some carriage bolts at some key places instead of deck screws.  It held up, but a couple of deck screws snapped off. That is not a good sign.

The Deer Battery

I really did not miss taking the Remington 7600, “The Whelenizer”, out of the line-up.  The 25-06 that replaced it did admirably. 25-06 with 117 gr Hornady SPBT performed wonderfully.  If I take off the recoil pad and replace it with a plate, I think it will fit me better in all the extra clothing of late season sits.  The Whelenizer is going to be reworked for my cast bullet project.  More on that later.

Angus’ 670 was perfect for him. No changes needed there.

My new Hawkeye in 30-06?  Awesome.  There is not much else to say about it.  In one respect the scope failed me, but it was my own fault.  I have been kicking myself for missing the fact the “doe” I shot was a 5-inch spike. The Bushnell Elite scope was fine. It was in the last few minutes of legal shooting, and the scope  was going to be delivering a sharp image until way after dark. The problem lay in not examining the head of the spike before he put his head down in the tall grass.

The new Bushnell Banner scope on the Savage 99?  Perfect. I can now see game well before legal shooting.  I used to have to wait for 10 minutes before there was enough light to shoot.  I could see the bark on trees in the deep shade of moonlight.

Blinds and Stands

The new ground blind below Knowlton’s Corner is a real find.  Angus used it this year. I think it can be developed into a real hoot of a blind.  It is just a clump of hickory trees, but it has real promise.

The ladder stand at Virginia needs to be moved– not far, maybe just rotate it clockwise 20 degrees on the tree.  It’s rubbing on one of the oak trees, and that oak now has a branch that transmits and amplifies every movement.

The new stand at Blackberry was fun, but unproductive. We’ll see about that one.  Most years, there are deer that come into a corner of the pasture that this stand overlooks.  This year, they did not show up.

After Thanksgiving dinner, Angus and I took off for camp one last time. On the way, we picked up our Venison from B&B.  Andrew says he may give it another go next year.  I hope so. He is the closest processor I have.  After we got to the farm, Angus went squirrel hunting. I went around collecting the skirts off the remaining treestands.  Saturday morning, we worked until Noon, running stuff up to the attic, packing up food and then, popping the cork on the water one last time.

Best of luck to all of you who still have tags.

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