In this two part series, I will pass along details about how I had a successful hunt during Michigan's 2006 firearms season for deer. Think about how you will hunt this year and try to decide if this tactic could work for you.
By: Ray Hansen
On November 17, 2006 I killed an eight-point, two hundred pound whitetail buck by seeming to confuse the deer. I was hunting in the "old way". This means walking very slowly, watching carefully, taking advantage of opportunities, and creating the illusion that a doe was "rut-ready". This hunt took place in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, using tactics that anyone reading this article could have used with similar results. This part of Michigan has hundreds of thousands of acres of “semi-wilderness” open to public hunting, and using the strategy detailed here has provided me with successful hunts for many years. Similar tactics will work throughout the Midwest. I’m writing about it early enough for you to get any materials you’ll need, well before the season, if you feel this tactic may work for you.
This is what I did: After bowhunting for several days, I switched to a rifle when the firearms season opened on November 15. On the morning of the 17th, I was very slowly making my way through the woods when I spotted two does crossing my intended path about one hundred yards away. When they were out of sight, I laid a scent trail from where I was to where I first saw them. This was done by tying a felt pad soaked in two different commercially available scents to a six-foot stick and dragging it parallel to my trail while slowly walking. The pad itself was a twin-tailed white felt, packaged in a re-closable type clear plastic bag.
One scent was billed a "synthetic deer urine… that lasts for months, not hours.” The other was a “combination rut, food, territorial infringement” scent. None of this made any difference to me. All I wanted to do, was present enough “scent bomb” to confuse a buck long enough to stop him and give me a chance at a shot… and it worked!
Reaching the spot I last saw the does, I jammed the stick into the ground and picked a spruce thirty-five yards away, downwind. Sitting on a small folding stool I carry, and concealed behind the pine branches, I made several soft "doe bleats" on an adjustable tone deer call. After that, I sat back to wait.
Come back tomorrow for part two of this deer hunting strategy. This information may help you enjoy a better hunt this year.
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2008
Showing posts with label Upper Michigan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Upper Michigan. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
SCENT BOMB FOR BUCKS - Part 1
In this two part series, I will pass along details about how I had a successful hunt during Michigan's 2006 firearms season for deer. Think about how you will hunt this year and try to decide if this tactic could work for you.
By: Ray Hansen
On November 17, 2006 I killed an eight-point, two hundred pound whitetail buck by seeming to confuse the deer. I was hunting in the "old way". This means walking very slowly, watching carefully, taking advantage of opportunities, and creating the illusion that a doe was "rut-ready". This hunt took place in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, using tactics that anyone reading this article could have used with similar results. This part of Michigan has hundreds of thousands of acres of “semi-wilderness” open to public hunting, and using the strategy detailed here has provided me with successful hunts for many years. Similar tactics will work throughout the Midwest. I’m writing about it early enough for you to get any materials you’ll need, well before the season, if you feel this tactic may work for you.
This is what I did: After bowhunting for several days, I switched to a rifle when the firearms season opened on November 15. On the morning of the 17th, I was very slowly making my way through the woods when I spotted two does crossing my intended path about one hundred yards away. When they were out of sight, I laid a scent trail from where I was to where I first saw them. This was done by tying a felt pad soaked in two different commercially available scents to a six-foot stick and dragging it parallel to my trail while slowly walking. The pad itself was a twin-tailed white felt, packaged in a re-closable type clear plastic bag.
One scent was billed a "synthetic deer urine… that lasts for months, not hours.” The other was a “combination rut, food, territorial infringement” scent. None of this made any difference to me. All I wanted to do, was present enough “scent bomb” to confuse a buck long enough to stop him and give me a chance at a shot… and it worked!
Reaching the spot I last saw the does, I jammed the stick into the ground and picked a spruce thirty-five yards away, downwind. Sitting on a small folding stool I carry, and concealed behind the pine branches, I made several soft "doe bleats" on an adjustable tone deer call. After that, I sat back to wait.
Come back tomorrow for part two of this deer hunting strategy. This information may help you enjoy a better hunt this year.
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2008
By: Ray Hansen
On November 17, 2006 I killed an eight-point, two hundred pound whitetail buck by seeming to confuse the deer. I was hunting in the "old way". This means walking very slowly, watching carefully, taking advantage of opportunities, and creating the illusion that a doe was "rut-ready". This hunt took place in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, using tactics that anyone reading this article could have used with similar results. This part of Michigan has hundreds of thousands of acres of “semi-wilderness” open to public hunting, and using the strategy detailed here has provided me with successful hunts for many years. Similar tactics will work throughout the Midwest. I’m writing about it early enough for you to get any materials you’ll need, well before the season, if you feel this tactic may work for you.
This is what I did: After bowhunting for several days, I switched to a rifle when the firearms season opened on November 15. On the morning of the 17th, I was very slowly making my way through the woods when I spotted two does crossing my intended path about one hundred yards away. When they were out of sight, I laid a scent trail from where I was to where I first saw them. This was done by tying a felt pad soaked in two different commercially available scents to a six-foot stick and dragging it parallel to my trail while slowly walking. The pad itself was a twin-tailed white felt, packaged in a re-closable type clear plastic bag.
One scent was billed a "synthetic deer urine… that lasts for months, not hours.” The other was a “combination rut, food, territorial infringement” scent. None of this made any difference to me. All I wanted to do, was present enough “scent bomb” to confuse a buck long enough to stop him and give me a chance at a shot… and it worked!
Reaching the spot I last saw the does, I jammed the stick into the ground and picked a spruce thirty-five yards away, downwind. Sitting on a small folding stool I carry, and concealed behind the pine branches, I made several soft "doe bleats" on an adjustable tone deer call. After that, I sat back to wait.
Come back tomorrow for part two of this deer hunting strategy. This information may help you enjoy a better hunt this year.
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
SOMETHING WRONG AT THE RIDGE
We both knew something was wrong at The Ridge. We had always killed deer there, including Duane’s great nine-point buck, and we had watched many others at this natural crossing without drawing on them. Want some venison for camp meat? No problem! Use an antlerless tag on one of the does we commonly see there.
”The Ridge” was our name for a long narrow strip of higher ground bordered on the west by a twenty-acre patch of wet marsh, and on the east by a much larger jungle of tag alder, white cedar, and heavy brush. This was a natural travel route for local deer, and when the rut kicked in, bucks cruised through here regularly while patrolling doe groups. Big white cedars and spruce on this elevated runway offered good stand sites. This was the Upper Peninsula of Michigan at its best.
This particular season however, traffic was way down. Something had driven the deer toward alternate routes, and the few we saw were spooky. In camp between morning and afternoon hunts, Duane and I tried to figure out what happened.
For starters, we set out a trail camera, which quickly provided a clue. Six images of a large black bear showed up within two days. But bears by themselves don’t scare deer away. The whitetails may become a little more cautious when a bruin starts poking around their favored territory, but they will not abandon a home area that has served them well for years.
Knowing that the bear was close by made Duane and I pay closer attention while hunting and the photos motivated his brother Tom to apply for bear tags the following year. He ultimately shot a prime three-hundred pound boar close by.
In desperation, I left one of my stands early one morning to take a closer “CSI” look at the area immediately surrounding a stand I had on the ridge. I uncovered clue number two in this way. The carcass of a recently killed coyote lay sprawled in heavy cover just east of my stand. The male pack leader had died hard and fast. Its neck was snapped, ears standing upright, eyes open, and teeth bared in a perpetual snarl. I could visualize a 110 pound wolf grabbing the thirty pound canine by the neck and shaking it like a rag doll.
This find revealed that a pack of wolves was challenging their smaller relatives for hunting rights to the ridge. We later found canine tracks along an old logging road that confirmed recent wolf activity. Tom’s house backs up to a twenty acre field which is bordered by heavy woods with a creek meandering through the low areas. He’d been watching wolves through a spotting scope while they harassed resident deer.
So Duane and I knew what had altered deer movements, but one additional discovery cemented the knowledge that things would not return to normal for a while. One other camp was accessed by the same sand road we used to get to our spot. A “Y” in the road signals where a truck must turn to approach the other place. The owner, “Kenny”, stopped us a few days later to say that a juvenile mountain lion had crossed the road at the junction, only fifteen feet from him as he drove in. He wasn’t guessing about what he had seen. The cat paused in the headlights before jumping into the tag alders, giving Ken a good, broadside view. I can tell you that the long, sinuous tail on a lion cannot be mistaken for any other wild feline.
So, all the local predators knew about the deer traffic on The Ridge. That left Duane and I looking for other places deer had moved to. But… that’s part of the fun. Hunting areas change, and hunters adapt. Wolves, bears, mountain lions, and coyotes move on. Whitetails eventually return to old patterns, and I hope to be in a treestand on The Ridge when they do!
”The Ridge” was our name for a long narrow strip of higher ground bordered on the west by a twenty-acre patch of wet marsh, and on the east by a much larger jungle of tag alder, white cedar, and heavy brush. This was a natural travel route for local deer, and when the rut kicked in, bucks cruised through here regularly while patrolling doe groups. Big white cedars and spruce on this elevated runway offered good stand sites. This was the Upper Peninsula of Michigan at its best.
This particular season however, traffic was way down. Something had driven the deer toward alternate routes, and the few we saw were spooky. In camp between morning and afternoon hunts, Duane and I tried to figure out what happened.
For starters, we set out a trail camera, which quickly provided a clue. Six images of a large black bear showed up within two days. But bears by themselves don’t scare deer away. The whitetails may become a little more cautious when a bruin starts poking around their favored territory, but they will not abandon a home area that has served them well for years.
Knowing that the bear was close by made Duane and I pay closer attention while hunting and the photos motivated his brother Tom to apply for bear tags the following year. He ultimately shot a prime three-hundred pound boar close by.
In desperation, I left one of my stands early one morning to take a closer “CSI” look at the area immediately surrounding a stand I had on the ridge. I uncovered clue number two in this way. The carcass of a recently killed coyote lay sprawled in heavy cover just east of my stand. The male pack leader had died hard and fast. Its neck was snapped, ears standing upright, eyes open, and teeth bared in a perpetual snarl. I could visualize a 110 pound wolf grabbing the thirty pound canine by the neck and shaking it like a rag doll.
This find revealed that a pack of wolves was challenging their smaller relatives for hunting rights to the ridge. We later found canine tracks along an old logging road that confirmed recent wolf activity. Tom’s house backs up to a twenty acre field which is bordered by heavy woods with a creek meandering through the low areas. He’d been watching wolves through a spotting scope while they harassed resident deer.
So Duane and I knew what had altered deer movements, but one additional discovery cemented the knowledge that things would not return to normal for a while. One other camp was accessed by the same sand road we used to get to our spot. A “Y” in the road signals where a truck must turn to approach the other place. The owner, “Kenny”, stopped us a few days later to say that a juvenile mountain lion had crossed the road at the junction, only fifteen feet from him as he drove in. He wasn’t guessing about what he had seen. The cat paused in the headlights before jumping into the tag alders, giving Ken a good, broadside view. I can tell you that the long, sinuous tail on a lion cannot be mistaken for any other wild feline.
So, all the local predators knew about the deer traffic on The Ridge. That left Duane and I looking for other places deer had moved to. But… that’s part of the fun. Hunting areas change, and hunters adapt. Wolves, bears, mountain lions, and coyotes move on. Whitetails eventually return to old patterns, and I hope to be in a treestand on The Ridge when they do!
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