October Snapshot
Sightings: 66 deer (28 shot opportunities), 29 turkeys, 1 coyote, 1 possum
For years, I have intended to catalog each day of a hunting season to better remember each experience and to give myself some actual data recounting the season. This fall, I actually managed to get in the habit and keep track of each day spent in the woods. I’ve decided to break these notes down by month, and I’ve added some afterthoughts to better explain some of these scenarios.
To give you some background, I’m just a regular guy hunting in Virginia. I work in Richmond as a sales engineer for a pump company and I live in the suburbs. Most of my hunting happens “back home” in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Primarily, my Dad and I hunt on a 200 acre poultry farm owned by some family friends. Rest assured this is not a high dollar, high fence sort of operation (as you’ll soon figure out). We did have the opportunity to hunt in some unique areas and situations this season, and I’ve noted those in the text. I typically hunt with a bow throughout the season, but I did pistol hunt for a few days late this season.
October 2: PM- Opening Day- First Doe
Mid 60s, Wind Light and Variable
I had to work this morning, so my first trip to the stand had to wait till the afternoon. I was hunting one of our favorite stands (called “The Top Food Plot Stand”) overlooking a food plot. Shortly after getting situated in the stand, three does and a spike came into the food plot and fed toward the stand for about 30 minutes. They entered the woods just behind my stand and I expected to get a shot as they passed on a logging road. Instead, the does turned back into the food plot, and fed around behind some brush while the spike wandered around the base of my tree.
After nearly an hour of trying to get a shot, I finally got an opportunity at a nice doe at 15 yards and she only travelled about 75 yards after the shot. I haven’t taken piles of deer with my bow, so I still get pretty excited when the opportunity presents itself. Thankfully, I normally manage to control my nerves up to the shot, and I did in this circumstance. However, after 60 minutes of waiting for the shot and finally getting it, I nearly shook myself out of the tree after seeing the deer crash. I love this stuff!
I later saw a doe with two fawns in an adjoining field and one more doe that entered the food plot just before dark.
7 deer, 3 shot opportunities, 1 doe taken
October 8: PM
High 60s, 5 mph SSW Wind
I hunted this evening with our friend Tony on a property that is known for high bear traffic, and I was in a treestand overlooking a ravine that is normally well travelled. I saw one doe come through the ravine just prior to before dark. She was on course to enter a shooting lane at about 10 yards, but turned to come up the ridge beside the stand. I drew the bow as she passed behind a cedar tree, but the light was very low at this point, and I couldn’t be completely sure about the lane being clear. I decided to pass on the shot and didn’t see anything else that evening. Tony got to watch a bear at 80 yards for about 30 minutes.
1 deer
10/9: AM
Mid 40s, Wind Light and Variable
I spent this morning in a treestand beside the food plot (about 60 yards from the “Top Food Plot Stand” from opening day). Two does and a fawn crossed from the “Sanctuary” (a bedding area that we don’t hunt in order to maintain a low-hunting-pressure area on the property) to the food plot at 10 yards.
3 deer, 3 shot opportunities
10/9: PM
Mid 60s, Wind Light and Variable
This evening, I hunted a treestand called “The Point” where a small field necks-down into a well worn trail. This spot is about 100 yards away from the food plot mentioned above. Deer will often travel this route on the way to the food plot in the evening. I saw three does come down from an adjacent ridge and cross at the “neck” of the field at about 20 yards. Three more does crossed the field at about 60 yards just before dark.
6 deer, 3 shot opportunities
10/21: PM
50˚, 10-20 mph Wind from the East
This evening I hunted “The Point” and saw a one-antlered spike shortly after arriving at the stand (he turned out to be one of three “unicorns” on the property this year). He came down the trail toward the field, but turned into a thicket before reaching the stand. A bit later, three does crossed in the brush in front of my stand and crossed the field headed toward “The Sanctuary.” At the same time, four does came down the logging road from the food plot (behind me), and crossed the field at 30 yards. A possum walked past the stand at about 20 yards just before dark.
7 deer, 4 shot opportunities, 1 possum
10/22: AM
30˚, Wind Light and Variable, First Frost
I hunted a stand that we call “The Bottom” this morning. It’s a tree stand sitting near the outside corner of a fenced field, in some pretty thick cover. This stand is about 150 yards from the food plot, and 60 yards from the bottom of “Cedar Ridge” which is where most of the deer on this property bed.
There were two deer just in front of the stand as I came in, they walked to Cedar Ridge. Just at legal shooting light, six does came in from directly behind the stand. The first three crossed behind the stand through a 25 yard shooting lane. The second three fed around a bit and came by me at 4-10 yards. About 15 minutes later, a doe and fawn crossed in front of the stand at 5 yards. 20 minutes after those deer left, one doe walked down the small hollow in the thicket straight toward the fence. Two more followed from the same direction before crossing in the 25 yard lane behind the stand, and then feeding around for a while. All the deer continued into Cedar Ridge. I saw four more deer headed toward Cedar Ridge on the way out.
17 deer, 10 shot opportunities
10/22: PM- Wiley Coyote
60˚, Wind Light and Variable
I hunted “The Point” this evening. About 15 minutes after settling into the stand, I caught movement in front of the stand and to my left and realized that it was a coyote. Since I had never seen a live coyote previously, my brain took a second to process exactly what was going on. Since he was walking toward my treestand, I stood up and came to full draw. He was walking straight toward me, and I waited as he approached the trail in front of the stand, expecting him to turn one way or the other presenting a better shot opportunity. I was wrong. He trotted directly to the bottom of my tree and stopped. At this point, I have the bow at full draw and I’m looking straight down through the treestand grate at the coyote. He then continued into a thicket behind the stand and I had no shot. I tried to call him back in range to no avail.
About an hour later, two does crossed in the thicket in front of the stand and continued into the field at 20 yards. A small buck (maybe a 4-pointer) followed on their trail with his head to the ground grunting, but he didn’t go into the field. One of the does doubled back and she left with the buck. The other doe continued toward the food plot. Just at the edge of dark, ten deer (does and fawns) crossed into the field about 60 yards from the stand. They were dead downwind from me, and seemed a bit skittish but never freaked out. They left in the same direction that they came from.
13 deer, 4 shot opportunities, and one very lucky coyote!
10/23: PM- Second Doe
70˚, 5-10 mph SW Wind
The wind was favorable for the Upper Food Plot Stand this evening. I arrived in the stand at 4:00 and saw a doe enter the opposite side of the food plot at about 6:00. She fed around the food plot, out of range, for 30-40 minutes. I ended up coming to full draw and taking a shot at 21 yards with the doe slightly quartered away. The shot was a bit back, and she exited out the side of the food plot toward the Sanctuary.
A spike chased a doe through the food plot about ten minutes after the shot. Two does came in a few minutes later, and one doe came to the food plot right at the edge of dark. All of these deer continued toward an alfalfa field on an adjacent property.
Since the shot appeared to bit a little back, I decided to leave the stand in the opposite direction and give that doe some time. Dad had taken a doe that evening, so we took her to the processor and came back a few hours later to recover my doe 80 yards from the stand.
5 deer, 2 shot opportunities, 1 doe taken
10/28: PM- The Country Club
70˚, 10-15 mph NW Wind
Some friends of ours have been asked to bow hunt at a country club in Central Virginia in an attempt to alleviate an over-population of deer. Dad has hunted with these folks for some time, and I got an invite for this season. This scenario makes for some interesting situations as we are asked to be very discreet to prevent angering property owners who may not agree with hunting in general, much less hunters in their neighbor’s yard.
I was positioned in a ladder stand in a power-line clear cut, overlooking a ravine. My stand is 70 yards off the property owners back deck, and shortly after arriving in the stand, she came out on the deck to have a glass of red wine, and watch me sit in a treestand. She evidently got bored with me after 15 minutes and went back inside. A few minutes later, I caught some movement near the creek at the bottom of the ravine. Over the next 30 minutes, I watched 29 turkeys filter across the clear cut 80 yards from my stand. The turkeys exited quickly once two ladies came along walking their little dogs. I don’t know if I’m going to like hunting at “The Club.”
0 deer, 29 turkeys
10/29: AM
50˚, 10 mph W Wind
Back to the farm, that country club business freaks me out.
I hunted the “Lower Food Plot” stand this morning. This food plot is small (maybe 60 yards x 40 yards) but we have treestands on three sides in order to take advantage of different wind directions. This stand is actually my favorite as it sits in a cedar and is very well concealed. I saw one deer cross an adjacent field about 50 yards away while it was still very dark. I didn’t see anything else this morning.
The trail camera later revealed that deer had been in the food plot most of the night. It turns out the alfalfa field on the next property had been cut this week. Previously, deer would use our food plot as a “secondary” food source when travelling to and from the primary alfalfa. It appears that the trend has changed.
1 deer
10/29: PM
50˚, Light and Variable Winds
This morning was disappointing, so back to the country club. I was assigned to a different stand this evening in the back yard of a vacant house (on the market for $1.5 million if you’re interested). I was excited to hear that this property was vacant, as that reduced the possibility for confrontation and the likelihood that some lady would stand on the deck watching me. Unfortunately, a male neighbor was evidently alarmed to see a man with a bow climbing a tree next door. He and another guy walked down to the fence and discussed this strange situation but were evidently soothed by my smile and wave, so they went away.
I saw a doe come down a ridge just across the street from my stand, but she never came on my side of the road. I heard several deer chasing in the thicket after dark.
1 deer
10/30: AM
32˚, 5 mph NW Wind
The country club scared me away again. I hunted “The Point” this morning in part because it is easy to exit without bumping deer, and because I had to leave a bit early to attend a college football game. I wanted to hunt the food plot, but was afraid to jump deer with my early departure. I could see the trail camera flashes from the food plot right at sunrise, but here I sat at The Point. I saw two does cross in the thicket behind me just after sunrise but didn’t have a shot. I left about an hour later for the football game.
Dad called me during the game to report that the trail camera revealed a pretty nice 7-pointer, and a few scrub bucks checking a scrape in the food plot this morning.
2 does, a few missed opportunities, and a terrible football game
So that wraps up October. It was an interesting start to the season, and I’m thankful to have seen so many deer. At the same time, I’m hoping that the coming months will bring something in the way of bucks.