Skip to main content

How to hunt with three people

For the past 10 1/2 seasons, we have been a two hunter show.  I sit, Dad walks and we either find deer or move to a new spot. This time Hubby came along and it added new challenges for us.

Dad and I have three seats up and decided that we would each get a spot to sit during the first few hours of Saturday morning.  We put Hubby in the Sky Condo because he has not hunted/shot from a tree seat and we have some tiny/slanted seats that Dad and I are used to.  It seemed a little awkward to try and get everyone in place early enough so that the last person was sitting at an early enough time to beat the deer moving.

At 5 am, we were out the door and heading into the woods.  The wind was flipping COLD!!! I was my normal, bundled up self and I was comfortable as we walked in.   Dad dropped me off in my tree seat, dropped Hubby off at the Condo and headed up to our third spot.  Dad said I could head out of the woods around 10, get Hubby and meet him at the truck around 11.  I was settled in and bundled up.  The wind was so bad that you could not hear anything. 

The weekend before, I had made an unwlecomed friend in the neighborhood red squirrel.  He was chirping on the tree next to me and when I made an attempt to scare him off, it only made him more curious and he climbed my tree, chirped and made weird guttural noises at me.  When he was eye level on the side of the tree, I stood and rattled my tree seat's bar.  It made me blow any and all hope of having a deer come in, but at that point, I wanted him gone.  On Saturday, the little 'friend' was back but he apparently knew it was me and didn't bother me.

I knew Hubby was not really dressed to sit for hours so at 9 am, I walked up to the Sky Condo to share my hand warmers.  Hubby was frozen!  At 9:45, Dad was at the Sky Condo.  Two hunters had walked right past him and never saw him.  Knowing that if there were deer in the area, they would have jumped them on to him, Dad got down and headed towards my seat.  He found a hunter standing in the trail, just below the furthest point I can see down a shooting lane.  Too many hunters, too close to where we were... so we headed to a new, old spot that let Hubby and Dad walk while I sat.

The afternoon past quickly and Hubby and I sat in the Sky Condo while Dad went back to where he started.  No deer.

We are seeing SO many scrapes and rubs - some of which are new or being worked on a regular basis.  From the pictures on our cameras, the deer are still moving around at night and not in the early morning or early afternoons.  I really hope that something snaps and the rut starts soon so that we can get some meat in the freezer.

Hubby, Dad and I are going out again this weekend - and maybe Thursday afternoon.  Dad has a doe permit so as much as he didnt want to shoot a doe by the Sky Condo (to keep the bucks coming), I think we have reached the point where if its a deer, it's going to be shot.

Wish us luck!!! 

And HAPPY THANKSGIVING ALL!!!  I am so thankful that you stop by to read my blog, comment and share your hunting experiences with me.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Where are the women?

This week, my interview with Steve at The Maine Outdoorsman went live. Steve said yesterday 200 people hit his site viewing over 500 pages. That is a lot of people reading about little ole me and hunting. Why? When I think of women who are in the general public's eye and hunt, I can think of 2 - Country singer Miranda Lambert and Sarah Palin. Why only two? Why is the female hunter such a fascinating thing? (I should probably note that I do not have cable so any and all female hunters on the hunting stations are lost to me. I'll keep it to the general public because that's what I am familiar with.) People/media were fascinated by the fact that they could get footage of Palin and her gun, shooting (and gutting) animals but I feel like the nostalgia would be lost if they had the same footage of McCain. Lambert and her hubby Blake Shelton tweet photos of their kills, and comment on what/where they are hunting. I only know this because I follow both. That's it....

So much to celebrate - let's give away stuff!

As you know from my last post, this month I am celebrating the one year anniversary of this blog, 10 years of hunting with my Dad and a milestone birthday. In honor of all three, I want to give away some great Maine stuff to all of you! Rules: 1. Leave a comment 2. On Oct 28 (my big bday), Dad will pick a number and the corresponding post will win. What will you win? A big basket of great Maine and outdoor things! Such as: fly fishing flies, blueberry something, Maine maple syrup, apple butter (to be made by me on Tuesday), something related to deer hunting and a couple of great books signed by local authors. (Pictures will be posted when I am back at a computer). So thank you for your support and for helping my celebrate such a great month!!

So much for respectable stand placement

Dad has hunted on the land that houses the Sky Condo for the better part of his life. About six years ago, we built the SC and started hunting there full time.   At that time, there were no other hunters near by.  A few years ago, a hunter bought a bordering piece of property, re-did the old camp that was there and brought his buddies along.  We haven't had a lot of incidents with them (trespassing last year, putting pink ribbon on my tree seat and lying to us when we asked them what they shot - a search through the list at the tagging station said an 8-point buck).  Two years ago, Dad bought a piece of land that is separated from the Sky Condo property by a powerline and a driveway that is privately owned by our hunting neighbor.  The land was bought in May and once October came, our neighbor put a treestand up along the edge of the powerline, facing our new piece of property and right next to our traveling path.  We were cautious from that point ...