2009 Suburban Bowhunting Adventures

SEPTEMBER 26 2009
Drew-Shawn and I head to leisure Living to see if we can get his first doe killed. We hunted from 530am til 930 didn't see anything but a couple of ducks and heard some raccoons fighting.

400pm Jaclynn and I go to the Mall to see if we can get her first doe killed. We are hunting in a Primos Vision Blind. We are using a Flambeau Fawn decoy and some bottles sprayed with doe urine hopefully that will put the deer at ease.

The deer have been coming out about 125 yards south east of our position. My hope is that they will see the decoy from 100 yards and circle east and north giving JacLynn a 15 yard shot. If not I am good out to 50 yards.

Its amazing how easy it is to setup in a groundblind. I think we had everything setup in less than 15 minutes that includes video camera decoy two trail cameras on tripods every thing. It has been raining most of the day and it actually rained on Drew-Shawn and I this morning. I think I have overhunted the stand we were at. I think I will have to stay out of that stand until rut.

Well its 630pm and we have just saw two does so I set my bow grunter to fawn bleat and I sort of get the does attention the out walks a 6pointer, the older doe wants no part of him.

Now I can see him faintly through the trees harrassing her. 3 really wish my kids had buck tags.

Anyway he of course chases off our backstraps. We are again waiting. We have about 45 minutes of camera light left. We will see if we can get a doe for JacLynn.

Well both does came back check out the video.

Tomorrow morning I think I will try and do a same day setup with my climber on some public land. Well lets see where the hunt takes us...

2009 Suburban Bowhunting Adventures

Sunday September 27th 5:45am overslept. Got dressed quickly. Last Night I packed my hunting equipment into yet again a different pack thi time the Fieldline combination fanny/daypack. I still had to use a fieldline tactical bag for my camera equipment, but this helped to eliminate (I hope) the noise of having everything attached to one belt. Since there was a south wind NONE of my hunting areas except the two public grounds were any good for morning hunts with a south wind. So I go to hamilton park unfortunately someone else already had the same idea. So here I am 45min before sunrise with no where to go I was about ready to give up and have a bad day when I realized I could go to East Court if I spooked deer walking in so what. I am just trying to get a doe killed so I grab some tree steps and my Lone Wolf Alpha and I head into the field. This is one of those prime urban areas clear cut lane about 40 yarda wide with about 60 yards of timber on either side and then the rest of it surrounded by yards and houses, definitely a place for an all day sit.

As I walk in day is just breaking, I spook some turkeys and a deer within 25 yards of the truck. I am hoping thats not the only wildlife in here.

I have only hunted this property twice and that is before the city cut a clear path for storm water drains through the property. There is a hay field to the south. Which again is surrounded by houses. I hope the deer will use this path as well.

I was watching Deer and Deer Hunting TV and the subject was hunting pressured whitetails. One thing they said was hunt odd times, stating the fact that most hunters leave their stands by 11am to gvet lunch. They also said that whitetails need to eat and drink a minimum of 5 times per day. Usually Early Morning
Late Morning
Mid Day
Early Afternoon
After Dark

Most hunters cut out the MidDay and Early afternoon hunts infavor of evening hunts.

I am testing this theory today by trying to sit on stand for at least 6 hours 7am to 2pm So far I have done zero calling. I got my stand hung and I am wating quietly until the magic 10 and 2pm time.

Well 940 am on the dot and across the yards to the south I catch movement here come 6 does unfortunately they duck into thick cover before I could get a shot. I had jsut been grunting and bleating, bu it looks like these does had been spooked. Thats a total of 9 deer seen this morning. Two up on the ridge one coming in and these las ones.

I have been trying Judd Cooney's BenGay cover Scent theory and the does didnt blow or go tail up even though they were down wind. I am hoping if I wait it out a buck might appear for a mid day drink. All in all its been an awesome morning. My guess is as the neighborhoods wakeup more deer will pile into this timber. This timber is on the backside to where two huge bucks were spotted last year in someones yard.

2009 Suburban Bowhunting Adventures Post #13

September 12th 2009 400am:

I spent most of the previous night trying to get my equipment together. Clean my truck go get my buddy's canoe. I get into my stand about 5:10am and after getting settled waited for daylight which was scheduled for 647am About 652am I get a text from one of my students Jake Van Polen wishing me luck. I literally was texting a reply when out of nowhere a doe and two fawns are RIGHT IN front off me the big doe gets past me and so does one of the fawns the last one however waits a little two long and I nail her with a Muzzy tipped arrow. Unfortunatelly I did not have the camera on.

Note to self get my motion activated system complete today. This is the opening day of the Ottumwa Urban Deer Management seasonwhich runs through Jan 31 2010. I do believe I shot the doe a little too far back but literally from the time I saw the deer till they were out of my shooting lane was less than 12 feet. I am pretty excited to get a doe down on the ground. Note to self if filming with my video camera start recording 3 minutes before sunrise and let it roll for at least 30minutes During this very short hunting excursion all I saw were the three deer a racoon ans two squirrels. I don't know how long I am going to wait to collect this doe which I shot at exactly 712am. Pictures to follow. I text my buddy Jake and tell him I doe down he's squirrel hunting.

Well I decide to use a Bowgrunter set to bleat and get my camera together. I then put on my bowgrunter call (which I think is by far the best deer) call when in comes a very small 8 pointer. Two seconds after he came in his big sister appears! I cannot turn down this opportunity. I let a Muzzy tipped arrow fly and down goes another Doe. Watch the video to see what happened.

Two deer down before 8am. The doe and buck actually came in from the south and I shot her quartering away within inches of where I shot the first doe. This is one of those killing trees. I have shot literally from this tree a large spike I believe 6 does an 8pointer I do believe I got this on video we will see in a few minutes as I am checking the footage now.

My youngest son gamohunter0909 and I are going back (tomorrow) to the same stand that I hunted today. its one of my only double stand set-ups. I hope the boy gets his first deer tomorrow. He's got all of his gear ready, amd I just got my gear put together. Right now I am downloading the files from my digital camera to the computer so I can delete a bunch of the files. of my camera. I actually got a harvest on video today. I had to radically modify much of my set-up for my camera.

I have an Ameristep Archer's Choice camera arm, but the problem with this thing was the trouble with carrying it into the field, A short piece of rope and a cabiner fixed that, it was also fairly unstable. but a few strategically placed 5/16 x 1-1/2" fender washers fixed that as well as replacing the long arm for adusting the up and down with a key screw and a chrome spacer. Because all of the inexpensive cameras arms have a pivoting head that is junk. so I bought a Bogen/Manfrotto professional tripod head.

What I did was get a 1/4 to 3/8" adapter plate and I attached the Bogen

to the quick release plate for the Ameristep. That way I have angle adjustment that once its set gets tightened down and won't move again. The Bogen is a professional grade true ball bearing fluid head.

IT makes a world of difference when you are trying to bowhunt and videotape your hunt. ALso since my camera has ifrared remote I had to attach a fiber optic cable to it in a way that I can shoot the infrared light down the toslink cable and it directs it into the decoder on the camera. Now I have a "wired" remote We will see how much better it will tomorrow.

2009 Suburban Bowhunting Adventures Post #12

Saturday September 5th, 2009: I have been trying to stay out of my hunting areas, only going in once per week and on a different day each time. All of the corn was gone from my cameras, I checked my cameras today. The camera in the weeds didn't work as well as I thought and I only got one doe during the day on it. But I had 213 pictures on the camera in front of the corn. The great thing is one of the 8 pointer is hitting the corn around 5:30am and he seems to be staying in the area until about 7:30am. The bad thing is I will have to make a long bicycle ride/walk in order to cut him off and get around him.

I am really liking the way this deer looks and since he is considerably larger than any other buck I have taken, I am looking forward to hunting this year. I however hunt the does and let the bucks lay where they lay.

I have a couple of plans, because I do believe that these bucks are hitting this area prior to heading to bed, I think what I am going to try to do is cut them off on their way back to bed.

I am very excited for season to get rolling. I have to work 3 days this week. But it will seem like an eternity. I have things to do, which one of those things is get all of my batteries charged for my camcorders. Cell Phones and walkie Talkies. My son is wanting to go with me Saturday Morning so this week we will get everything packed and ready to go. Right now I am looking for a mini-van which will make bowhunting easier.