my home amongst the trees

With rifle season opening up in a week I have been thinking a lot about what I can do  to get a better chance at taking at least one deer this year and improving my odds for next year.  Looking around the back porch I had a little bit of left over 2x4s so I decided to take a walk around to see if I could find a good spot to put up a small tree stand.  Behind our house there is an acre or so of very dense pine trees and then behind that it opens up into larger more spaced out trees and I found a couple of trees that were clumped together. After hacking off the inch thick poison ivy vines that work there way up the trees I started building. This may even be too late for me to use it  this year.  With all my tromping around and banging the deer may stay clear of this area, but by next year they will be used to it and pay no attention.  The stand itself is about ten or eleven feet off the ground and goes from 16 inches wide to three feet.  I still have to put on the deck and build some sort of railing.  I will probably buy a ten dollar hunk of camo burlap to use to cover the stand so I will have a good hiding spot.  If I get lucky and take one early next to the feeders on the highline then I think I need a second spot to switch to because I am not sure if they will come to the place where a deer was just killed.  I think they might avoid that area for a while.  If that happens I will bait this area with corn, but otherwise I will wait until next year to bait this spot.

Deer Season 2010

Last year my few weeks of deer hunting effort did not go well. I was only able to get a clear shot once and clicked my safety off so loudly the damn things bolted off into the woods without my bullet lodged inside.  Last year I waited until deer season had already started before I did anything much, but this year I am going to try to up my odds by laying the ground work.  On the actual ground.  On my birthday I got a couple blocks of deer cane as a gift.  They are blocks, about the size of a brick, made of compacted salts and minerals that supposedly deer like to chew the dirt to get at. 

This year I picked a new shooting lane to focus my efforts on.  The place I laid my corn last year was right along side the road and we had to drive past it several times a day.  This year I am going to use an area beside the house down the powerline.  It is a big clear gap between a very thick grove of pasture pines and the area that was replanted a few years ago.  The area is rarely disturbed and I can get a decent view of it from the laundry room window so I can get an idea of the times the deer might be out there before I wait on the porch or in a blind a little bit closer.  I have two months now so the idea is to get them as comfortable as possible crossing that area and give them reasons to linger about so that I can get a shot. 

I know the deer come through here anyway because it is the path they follow in order to get to the peach and pear tree as well as to drink from the branch that runs across this area.  I haven't decided if I am going to hang my corn feeder back here or simply put corn out on the ground.

This is what the block looks like after sitting for a couple of days during the rain.  Your supposed to put it out and let it dissolve in the rain and soak into the dirt.  I will probably go out pour some water on it to get it to dissolve sooner.  I went out about a month ago when I first got it an laid out an old plastic green turtle sandbox that the kids have outgrown and let the grass under it die off.  Right now the deer tracks are about ten feet way from this spot, which is where the directions say to put it.  If they don't seem to notice I will pour out a little corn right around it because I know they will find that.  I may try going to buy some fertilizer which would make the grass in the area more interesting to the deer. 

I shall find out if this is a more effective strategy or not.  The only problem I see it that is puts me slightly closer to the Blue Bonnet Investment Group land that is leased out for hunting to a large group that come up to hunt every year.  These would be the very nice people that I frequently refer to as the dill holes.