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Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Chicken Hill: by Greg Lease Show/Hide This Article
Storm clouds were forming, and the threat of rain was very real. "What do I care," I thought, "I'm not made of sugar." I broke the speed limit as I drove to my hunting area for the start of Minnesota's bear season. I couldn't wait to get up in the tree and thought nothing could dilute my excitement.
Forty-five minutes later, while in the stand, I realized the one thing that could steal my excitement was rain, hard rain. In fact, it looked and sounded like Armageddon as thunder, lightning and wind nearly shook me from my tree. The horizontal rain quickly soaked me to the bone and turned my bait-pit into a small pond. I was determined to stay on stand until dark, hoping the rain would stop. As it turned out, the rain slowed from what seemed like a tidal wave to a mere monsoon. I sloshed away from my stand that night a little disappointed, but knowing I had tomorrow to try my luck again.
One month earlier while scouting the edge of a ten-year old clear-cut, my buddy, Mark, and I found what looked to be a very good spot for a bear bait. An ash swale intersected the edge of the clear-cut forming a natural bear travel route. While searching for the exact bait location, we jumped a large covey of immature grouse causing Mark to nearly mess his pants. As Mark picked himself up off the ground, I managed to stop laughing long enough to congratulate him on his courage while assuming his fighting stance just prior to tripping and falling over. As could be expected, Mark didn't see the humor quite like I did and he let me know it by throwing some unmentionable expletives my way. Regardless, the grouse had been flushed from a knoll which formed a natural rise on the edge of the cut. This high ground would help disperse the sweet aroma of a bear bait. Because Mark and I always name our pits, I coined this spot Chicken Hill. We left the woods that day with Mark thinking I named my pit after those grouse.
Day two brought clear skies and renewed hope as I again approached Chicken Hill. My pit had been getting hit regularly but I was shocked to find this time it had been blown up sometime during the night. The logs were spread around as if someone had dropped a grenade. Some logs were ten feet from the hole. The pit was licked clean. After dumping my bait and resetting the logs I made the twenty foot climb to my stand in three steps. I quickly settled down for the evening, daydreaming of what was to come.
One hour before dark I thought I saw a shadow move about sixty yards directly in front of me. I blinked several times and after refocusing realized that, sure enough, there was a bear, and a good one at that. The dark colored ghost slowly floated in my direction. I watched with my binoculars as the bruin took one or two small steps and then would stop for minutes at a time. It was obvious the bear was nervous. My stomach tied itself into knots as it seemed the bear would spook at any moment. After what seemed an eternity, the bear momentarily stood up on its hind legs, sniffed the air, and then slowly sauntered off, never to return before dark.
Day three was bitter sweet. Yes, I was blessed to be hunting and my pit was cleaned out again but that darn bear had made me gun shy. My worst fear was that it had winded me the previous day and had turned into a "night bear." I was also pretty sure it was the only bear hitting Chicken Hill which added to my stress. I could move to another pit but what fun would that be? I had to try my luck again.
Just as the day before, the bear appeared sixty yards in front of me, an hour before dark. The routine was repeated and again it cautiously moved off into the brush. Thinking it was all over but the crying, I resigned myself to the fact I may have to give up on this one and move to greener pastures. I soon realized though it was not all over when I saw that familiar shadow moving toward the bait only twelve yards in front of me. The underbrush barely moved as the bear silently and cautiously snuck toward the pit. After ten minutes, the bear had only moved five yards and was now almost nose to nose with an unfortunate little marshmallow which lay at the edge of my pit. The bad news was the bear had strategically used every scrap of cover to get to that point, and I simply had no shot. Just then, and in one fell swoop, the bear sucked up the marshmallow, wheeled around, and headed for the hills. I couldn't believe it. I had finally gotten to within twelve yards of a shooter bear and had been out-foxed. As I sat there I was teased with an occasional snapping twig as the bear meandered about at a safe distance until dark. But I had a plan...
I arrived on day four with a glimmer in my eye. It was obvious this bear was a bear of habit, which was a weakness I intended on cashing in on. Before re-baiting, I took a closer look at the little point of underbrush the bear had used to outsmart me. I was elated to find all of the twigs and grass very matted down. I knew it was the bear's driveway to this fast food joint, and he ate out often. With clippers in hand, I nipped away a small hole in the underbrush just big enough to shoot through if given the chance again.
As predicted, the familiar bear arrived on the trail directly in front of me an hour before dark. After turning into the woods at the same point it had each time before, I stood and readied myself for what was to come. The bear soon appeared at the base of the little point and ever so slowly, crept toward the bait. As it neared the edge of cover, the bear stopped to munch on a small pile of grease-soaked dog food and meat scraps I had strategically placed. The bear laid down to eat, and I was pumped to see its lungs perfectly framed by the hole I had clipped in the foliage. As its right front leg reached out toward the food, I drew, let out half my breath, settled my twenty yard pin, and released. The shot was perfect as my arrow drove through both sides of the bear's rib cage. With a startled growl, the bear took off through the woods, and soon my ears were rewarded with the sweet sounds of three death bawls.
After a short blood trail, I found the large sow on her entry trail. She sported a prime cape which later made for a beautiful shoulder mount on my cabin wall. She was obviously a mature and smart bear who helped create one of my most memorable hunts. I feel honored to have played the proverbial chess match with her on Chicken Hill.
# posted by Jarrod Erdody @ 2:46 PM
Monday, September 18, 2006
Early Season Success Show/Hide This Article
It was my second evening on stand here in Wisconsin on this opening weekend of the 2006 bow season. I had succeeded in earning the right to hunt bucks this evening by successfully harvesting a doe the evening before. The weekend had been full of rain and warm temps to this point, but skies were clearing and temperatures were dropping. It was shaping up to be a good sit.
Earlier in the afternoon I had scouted this spot for worthiness of a hunt. Though subtle, I saw all I needed to see as I walked the overgrown logging road a couple hundred yards into the timber along a ridgetop. There was a natural puddle of water about 4 inches deep and only 3 foot by 3 foot around. This was a new lease for me this year but prior conversations with my hunting partner (and cameraman this night), Shawn, and careful review of topos and aerials revealed to me that the end of this ridge should be a usual buck bedding area. This water puddle was no doubt well known to the local critters and it could be just the ticket to ambushing a good buck in daylight.
With a southwest wind, I knew this spot was right this evening. Anything bedded at the end of the ridge would be laying on the east facing slope and basically have the wind at their back. To get to the water hole they would have a crosswind. I would sit the down and across-wind side of the puddle and should remain undetected to anything approaching.
With my stand and plan set, I returned to my truck to clean up, get dressed and get Shawn, who would be filming me this evening. Shawn brought his Lone Wolf hand climber and setup about 15 feet behind me from the puddle, providing a good angle to any action we may have.
As the evening passed, only a few small critters showed. We saw just about every color of squirrel out there as well as a raccoon, but no deer.
With about a half hour of good light left, I whispered to Shawn in my wireless microphone that it was getting to be about "that time" where we should be seeing something if it's going to happen. It wasn't but 10 seconds later that I turned my head towards the end of the ridge and noticed movement.
"Shawn, I see a deer down the ridge." I whispered without moving. It's a buck, and it has a rack." Without binoculars, I couldn't tell yet whether it was a shooter. Shawn started taping, and as he found the buck in his viewfinder and zoomed in I heard him say, "He looks pretty decent."
When the buck reached the top of the ridge he made a 90 degree right turn and headed right for us, well, for the water puddle at least. As he got closer, I could see he was pretty wide. I guessed him about 18 inside.
At forty yards, he turned right again and started circling into the puddle a bit more downwind. Now I could see he had pretty good G4's and long beams. "He's looking pretty good" I whispered to Shawn.
"I'd shoot him," I heard Shawn whisper back. I was holding myself to a 140 class minimum on this farm so I continued to remain fairly calm as I wasn't yet convinced I was going to take him. But as the buck again turned his head another way, I saw a couple stickers coming off his tines and also saw he had really good mass. I'd made up my mind.
"I'm going to shoot him, Shawn." Those were the last words we'd speak as the drama played out.
The buck turned again and came straight in to the puddle, dropped his head and began slurping down water, facing directly at me only 10 yards away. I stood ready to draw any moment as I waited for him to finish what I hoped would be his last drink. I had decent lanes both left and right of him so I just told myself to stay calm and wait this out.
About two minutes later, the buck started to his right, my left. I drew when he stepped into my 2 foot shooting lane through the thick, early season foliage below me. With a slight quartering towards me angle, I waited for his next step forward but knew I would need to put the pin tight to his shoulder. As he took that step, I let it fly and an immediate "WHACK" ended the silence.
All hell broke loose as the buck busted through the thick cover and downhill. I saw right away that my arrow had found its mark and was over halfway into the chest. "That's a dead buck Dude!" was my immediate reaction to Shawn as I watched him take out trees on his death run.
3 seconds later it was all over. Though we didn't see him fall, Shawn and I both felt great about what we'd just seen and knew he shouldn't be far. We gathered our things after discussing what just happened and then headed back to the truck to meet up with our other hunting friend, Glenn who'd been hunting elsewhere on our lease.
After giving Glenn the good news, we decided it best to return to our other friend Lee's place where we were staying to get his 2-wheeled deer cart. Neither Shawn nor I had our 4-wheeler with us this weekend and it's always best to have some help getting deer out of the rugged terrain of Buffalo County.
Upon arriving at Lee's, we found out our other buddy Dan (Infalt) had been busy whacking does this night, so we swapped some stories and footage, gathered our things, and 2 hours later were finally back at the farm to get my buck.
With a tight shoulder shot, the meat will most often cover up the hole through the chest. I wasn't sure if my arrow made an exit hole, so I wasn't very surprised that we didn't find blood right away. The thick, head-high cover was making staying on the right exit path difficult so I climbed back into my stand and directed Shawn and Glenn from above. They scanned the ground for blood for a short while. As they got to the general area I'd last seen the buck, they started panning farther out with their lights.
One minute later I finally felt the feeling I've been waiting a long time to feel. "Come on down, Jarrod, I see a belly," were Glenn's words. The buck had pretty much crashed where we'd last seen him. I hurried down the tree to go have a look.
"He's about everything you described and a little more" Glenn said excitedly as we high-fived. As I took my first look at the buck and put my hands around his rack, I knew I'd made the right choice in shooting. I'd killed a mature, slob buck with a beautiful early season cape and a rack with all kinds of character.
 This is my mature, early season slob buck. He has 13 scorable point as a main frame 10 point. He has double forked brow tines and a sticker off his right G2 and G3. His inside spread is 19 3/8". His live weight was 250 pounds and he field dressed at 193 pounds. The rack scores 144 1/8" gross and 134 5/8" net typical.
Fortunately our drag out of the woods was downhill to another old logging road. Then we had just a couple hundred yards uphill with the deer cart. It was 1:30 am before we finally had him out of the woods, loaded up, and back to Lee's cabin. My 8 hour drive home to Michigan would have to wait until later.
As any completely addicted whitetail hunter knows, when you finally achieve a goal you work long and hard for, you don't want that moment to end. We took pictures even further into the now cold, crisp night and it was 4am before we finally had supper! I guess that would be breakfast. We relived the moment on video over a few beers for another couple hours and reluctantly called an end to a perfect night in the early bow season of beautiful Buffalo County.
# posted by Jarrod Erdody @ 2:47 PM
Monday, September 11, 2006
A Morning to Remember: by Greg Lease Show/Hide This Article
It was late September, one of my favorite times of year to hunt. I was in a familiar set, a large oak tree standing tall over a good set of hardwoods. My spirits were high as the clear sky's sun broke the horizon to the east and illuminated the multi-colored forest I overlooked. With bow in hand, I was hunting my northern Minnesota property and was set up between some clover food plots and a pretty good bedding area. The morning was the first cool one since opening day, and I hoped that one of the several bucks I had recorded on my trail camera would leave the food sources a little later than usual. It had been a tough September so far. My food plots were being ravaged but due to the warm weather, deer movement had been mostly at night.
The hardwood stand I sat above served as a good transition area between feeding and bedding areas and also provided a light but tasty snack of acorns for the deer during their travels. I knew of one or two "shooter bucks" in the area and hoped I might finally get an up-close and personal look at one of them.
An hour after daylight I was startled out of my daydream by the sound of movement. Eighty yards in front of me and to my left I saw the body of a deer protruding from behind an oak tree. The deer was large and my heart skipped a beat as I realized that this was no doe. The deer's head was obstructed as it slowly fed through the brush and I watched as it munched its way toward my twenty-five foot high perch. The buck soon fed into an opening. That's when I took my first in-person look at one of the two good bucks my trail-cam had photographed the month before. The three and a half year old buck sported a ten-point rack which stood high and fairly wide, with good mass and tine length. I estimated him to score 125 to 130 points but his body was the real marvel.The buck's neck was thick and grew thicker as it made its way down to his broad chest and shoulders. The trophy's belly was round and obviously full of clover as it married up with large hind quarters.
As the buck fed toward me, it slowly veered to my left and it became clear that I wasn't going to be fortunate enough to get a point blank, no-brainer, shot. I picked an opening in the foliage for a shot and estimated it to be thirty yards. As the deer methodically browsed by, it finally stepped into the opening. I drew my bow, settled the pin just behind his left shoulder, and touched the release. The arrow flew true, however I had overestimated the yardage. This, coupled with the deer slightly "jumping the string," caused my white crested arrow to connect with the spine instead of the coveted "sweet spot" behind the shoulder. Regardless, the buck dropped in its tracks.
I patiently waited for five or ten minutes to compose myself. By then, he'd expired. I excitedly climbed down and walked the twenty-five yards to where my prize awaited. I held the ten-pointer in my hands and savored the moment for a long while. I realized just how big of a body this buck had. He would later weigh in, field dressed, at 207 pounds, and the ten-point frame rough scored 124 4/8. As the sun rose high in the sky, the festivities commenced with a photo session and finally an ATV ride back to the truck And of course, I had to show him off a little to family and friends.
# posted by Jarrod Erdody @ 2:48 PM
Thursday, September 7, 2006
The Predator Within: by Dan Infalt Show/Hide This Article
You have anxiously awaited opening day. You climb into your stand two hours early. As you sit in your seat as still as a stone, there is a rage of emotions inside of you. You question all the summer-long planning you have done. Where will the buck come from? Which trail will he use? Where will he be standing when the lethal shot of carbon is sent through his ribs? Will I miss? What if I wound him? Did I make too much noise coming in here? You play it back in your head like the rewind button on your VCR. Over and over you fantasize the buck walking out, and your arrow slicing through his vitals.
Suddenly your daydreaming is slammed to a halt as you hear a branch break from down in the buck's nearby bedding area. You feel your heartrate pick-up. You struggle to hear anything else. Then, after what seems to be an eternity, you hear the rhythmic approach of walking feet in the dry leaves. Is it a squirrel? No it can't be. Snap... Another branch breaks closer to your stand. You feel your heart slamming the walls of your chest. Your breathing is getting so rapid, you are now worrying about the deer hearing the rapid bursts of human exhaust expelling from your lungs.
The buck you have watched all summer, the buck whose sheds you picked up last spring, the very beast of your obsession suddenly walks into view. At first your mind can't comprehend whether this is the 1000th time you fantasized him stepping out, or if it's reality?
As you stand as motionless as possible, staring through the beast's eyes right down into his soul, the hair on the back of your neck stands up and you feel a tingling sensation shooting down your spine. The monster buck finishes his survey of the area, flicks his tail, and starts coming towards your stand. As he walks in your direction, his eyes seem to be staring a hole right through you.
Now as he passes your perch, you ease the bow back. NO!!! Not yet.. Wait... now! suddenly an arrow rips from your string as if the bow shot the buck all by its self. You can't remember the shot.. Sweat runs down your face, in the 45 degree setting sun. You begin to shake. What the hell just happened? I don't know, but it's better than sex. Ain't no needle in the world that can give you that high.
We all get those emotions... We all worry, we all anticipate. If you don't, hang up the bow and go play golf. 100 Bucks on the wall or zero... All any of us are worried about is the next one. It's the predator within.
# posted by Jarrod Erdody @ 2:48 PM
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