August 8 - Sightings

Today I went into the woods looking for signs of any early scraping or rubs or heavily traveled paths and to see if I could link up some food sources to these sites.

While walking around (quietly) I saw a total of 7 deer and 3 older large Tom turkeys....

The first deer was a doe with 2 spotted fawns, then a larger body very gray deer, but could not see the head to tell if it was doe or buck, and last I saw another doe with 2 spotted fawns in the same spot I saw them last weekend.

The first doe and fawns was seen at 10 am on the top of the ridge where I keep a climber hidden in the woods. They were feeding on the thorny stickers (not sure of the name) that are prevalent in this area. The deer saw me before I saw them and the mom let out a nice snort and hopped out of sight. I was camo'd out, but in shorts and my white legs are like beacons in the lush green woods. One of the fawns sat perfectly still and watched me for about 20 minutes, while the other two walked out of my sight.

I walked along the top of the ridge looking down trying to find the source of a bunch of limb cracking when three very nice large Toms coming up to the top of the ridge about 30 yards spotted me. They let a bunch of warning clucks and went in the same direction as the earlier does. It was about 10:30 when I spotted the Toms.

I then headed down the a recently cut power line trail heading towards a permanent stand owned by a friend of mine, which is placed in the woods next to a deer magnet apple orchid. The powerline trail is loaded with deer tracks and fresh green cover starting to fill in. I decided to circle into the stand and peek towards a deer bedding area when I saw the large gray bodied deer running away from me towards my stand. I tried to be quite and circle around to see if I could see the deer again and identify better, but never saw it again. As I walked towards my permanent stand next to the orchid a doe with two fawns that were bedded down jumped up and ran to the back towards the powerline trail (towards where I saw the other set of doe and fawns). I saw the doe and fawn around 11 am.

I didn't really identify any new stand locations on the top of the ridge and powerline, but found a nice tree close to a thick field where the deer go to bed down after eating in a local soybean field. The conditions today was sunny and about 75 degrees (and humid).

Next weekend I plan to head to a lower spot on the bottom of the ridge where there is a single crossing spot between the ridges and the deer travel frequently. I also plan to pick up some salt blocks and feed corn to get my stands traveled and scented by the deer before the season starts.