Thanks for the updates! Still enjoying this thread. Does can be tough to hunt when they travel in their usual small groups. Too many eyes!

Sure I go on vacation get home to see you have taken a nice buck and you already have the euro done! Congrats buddy on a fine deer! I have enjoyed your posts and good luck on the hunt for a doe!

Thanks guys!! No hunting this am, but I'll be out later in the day .

Over thanksgiving I also tweaked the " sure thing: stand and moved it 15 yards down the trail This is the tree it used to be in.

I bought a stand that works in crooked trees and now this stand is perfect for hunting the normal NW winds we get in December.

Now I can have the wind in my face and hunt this stand both Pm and AM.  Three major trails converge at this spot.

With all the foliage off of the trees, it is now very hard to get in to your afternoon stand with getting busted. On flat land you can stalk your stand when the wind is right and if you are 50 yards or more from the bedding areas, no big deal. Not here!  Here is what it looks like looking up hill from my stand tonight.
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it was 26 degrees with a 12 MPH wind out of the NW when I set out from the yurt at 2:30.  I made my way through the old hillside pasture and slowly worked my way up to timbers edge just below the stand. As soon as i stepped into the timber I saw three white flags waving bye bye up hill about 80 yards! RATS!!

Daylight is short these late season days and it is pointless to try and go somewhere else and risk it happening there as well. I decided to sit it out and climbed up the big oak. The spot is much improved . I watched to the north intently all afternoon and around 4 pm I spotted three deer down in my clover field which is about 200 yards below me to the north. By 4:30 there were seven deer in the clover , one being a buck that was constantly pushing the same doe around. The other deer would get out of the way and then go right back to eating. I could make out a pretty good rack with the naked eye but am unsure as to how good of a buck he was. Eventually he chased her out of the plot but in the wrong direction. The other deer moved as well further down hill onto the neighbors place and into his first Brassica plot just a 100 yards from his front door. If he was at home. he was getting a good show! Nothing came near and I left for home confident that this spot will produce a shot for me yet this season

Here is the new view looking to the west.

The weather today was almost identical to the weather the day I took my buck. So I returned to the Bwana stand early this afternoon. I brought along an extra wind stop sweater and was glad I did. The wind came up a bit and I was still very comfortable.

I spotted three deer coming up out of the bedding area below and got ready for a shot that really looked like it was going to happen. The first deer past was a fawn. The 2nd deer turned out to be the doe but she veered around my shooting lane and got out into the rape field to my left. The 3rd deer was another fawn. I had one iffy shot on the doe as she fed and passed on taking it hoping for a better one. Eventually one of the fawns smelled me and then the mom did too and off they trotted to the west.  It was early and since the other night I saw nine deer here, I was confident more deer were on the way up. But nothing showed and another day in the woods has ended.

Keep after them Jim, your persistence will soon pay off!!

Well the possum stand lived up to its name tonight as that was the only critter sighted while on stand. One solitary big ugly possum!

While I did bump two does from their  beds on the way up the stand and bump 5 0r 6  out of the food plots on my way back down it was an incredibly quiet evening. I was definitely in the wrong spot tonight.

A little late but congrats on that buck and good luck for what's next      

Glad to get caught up.

Just got back from a trip and had some luck...it was good to be back to into the woods.

Well the last three sits have been totally unproductive! While I did see deer at a distance nothing remotely close. I have actually been skunked this am and lest evening as well.

The trail camera did catch these two dancing in the beets

And also this buck this am . He has good potential if he   can make it another year or two!

hoping to catch a deer coming down to the turnips i stalked my way in to the lower end of Apple alley at around 3pm. It was a little later than I liked but I had two friends come to hunt and needed to get them situated.

The wind kept changing directions and eventually was how I needed it to be. About 15 minutes prior to dark I saw three deer slip down the point and head to the turnips field. They were about 50 yards to the south of where I was. Then at the very last minute a lone doe came down the mowed trail that goes past me. I was putting tension on the bowstring when she turned on to a cross trail and headed directly away and under an apple tree. She sniffed around for the non existent apples and then headed  back out , But she popped out on the other side of the tree and was completely shielded. Down the trail she went and another day here ends. So close tonight! Sometimes its so easy to get a shot at a doe and sometimes so very hard!

Jim, it's been a tough doe season for you.  Keep at it, soon it will happen  

Great trail cam pics Jim....  I'm envious, you're still hunting  


 

Kip  sometimes ( like today) I think I am just out sitting in a tree all day!  Got skunked both this am and pm!! Spent all day enveloped in fog. Warm temps are blowing in bringing humidity and maybe a little rain.  Its December for crying out loud! Where did September, October and November go?  The day time deer movement has been minimal and I think I will take the day off tomorrow. Back at it Monday.

Jim, it could be worse. It was 70 degrees here today. Supposed to be 73 tomorrow. It was windy also. If we didn't have so many deer I wouldn't have gone today myself. We get 6 tags here. Two can be used on bucks.

Chris

I am dreaming of the winters of old. hoping for some real snow so late season hunting can really begin. Its so much fun to wear white!