richhodg66
12-04-2019, 10:08 PM
Today was opening day of the Kansas firearms deer season so I took a personal day and spent it on a tree stand in my favorite spot. The lake flooding has receded enough to where my honey hole stand is kind of on dry land and oddly, despite the mess it made, the deer are back to their regular movement patterns.
I decided before going out I didn't want to use my buck tag on another doe, I can use the meat, but can always use that tag in the extended antlerless segment in early January. 20 minutes into legal shooting light, a good 1 1/2 year old doe saunters under my stand. An hour later an old doe with triplet fawns (the fawns are bigger than deep south deer generally get), again, let all of them walk. Took a break to nap in the truck at noon and then went back out, saw a few more, no shots presented. Sure are a lot of ducks in the lake and squirrels in the woods.
There's buck sign all over that place, several big rubs and scrapes that are easily visible from the stand. A couple of years ago, I hunted that stand every weekend through the rut looking for meat does or mature bucks and then, every hunting session was a virtual parade of little dink bucks, which I would have gladly taken today. I can't seem to win.
The weather was great, more hunters out than usual, Kansas starts on Wednesday and most people won't take a day off from work like I will. I met a couple of them for a few minutes, one was a woman out with her husband who was using a Stevens 322 (AKA, Savage 340 with a butterknife bolt handle), which I was a little surprised to see.
All in all, a good day, even with no deer. I'll likely only get to hunt the next two Sundays and probably won't. The first weekend on public land here is wall-to-wall bozos and generally unsafe to be out. The second weekend usually sees less of that, but by that time, the deer are real skittish. I might regret being so picky today, but not at the moment.
I decided before going out I didn't want to use my buck tag on another doe, I can use the meat, but can always use that tag in the extended antlerless segment in early January. 20 minutes into legal shooting light, a good 1 1/2 year old doe saunters under my stand. An hour later an old doe with triplet fawns (the fawns are bigger than deep south deer generally get), again, let all of them walk. Took a break to nap in the truck at noon and then went back out, saw a few more, no shots presented. Sure are a lot of ducks in the lake and squirrels in the woods.
There's buck sign all over that place, several big rubs and scrapes that are easily visible from the stand. A couple of years ago, I hunted that stand every weekend through the rut looking for meat does or mature bucks and then, every hunting session was a virtual parade of little dink bucks, which I would have gladly taken today. I can't seem to win.
The weather was great, more hunters out than usual, Kansas starts on Wednesday and most people won't take a day off from work like I will. I met a couple of them for a few minutes, one was a woman out with her husband who was using a Stevens 322 (AKA, Savage 340 with a butterknife bolt handle), which I was a little surprised to see.
All in all, a good day, even with no deer. I'll likely only get to hunt the next two Sundays and probably won't. The first weekend on public land here is wall-to-wall bozos and generally unsafe to be out. The second weekend usually sees less of that, but by that time, the deer are real skittish. I might regret being so picky today, but not at the moment.