Deer Watching, October 15, 2012

Along the fence line of the field behind both ranch houses, way before sun up, I was thinking that I’d better get busy and clean up the jeep trail along here.  In the dark it was tough going with only a red head light attached to my ball cap, but finally I saw the trail leading to the Corner Blind, called this because County Road 408 makes a sharp turn some distance behind the blind.  The blind is really a tree stand snuggled into a copse of oak called a shinnery around here and I was excited because this was the first morning I was out scouting the blinds for deer, bucks to be specific.

This morning turned out to be almost futile then at 7:45 AM out walked 2 yearlings, both are pictured below, and began to feed in the feeder.

The doe, there hasn’t been any killed along the roads yet so I knew she was around, did not show until the yearlings had fed, then she came out of the thick stuff on my right and headed right for me.  She kept on coming and stopped right below me, both yearlings then came to the doe and all 3 were close to me.  No wind, they never picked up my scent and since this was only scouting, I didn’t have scent blocker on, but finally a puff of breeze, a loud snort and the yearlings ran off about 50 feet then stopped.  Finally they walked on into the thick stuff and I climbed down out of the blind and headed back.

As I walked back to the house it dawned on me that the feeder never went off, it serves as a “call” to the deer that food is available, that’s why I only saw 3 deer this morning.  Usually this feeder is covered up with doe, bucks and yearling!