No Blood Yet

So far this fall I’ve been concentrating half on killing a bear in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and the other half chasing whitetails in Wisconsin and Michigan. Early September I hunted 3 nights in the UP and saw a single, small black bear. I then drove through the night to get to my spot in Wisconsin for the bow opener. I had a close call with a 160” 10 point on opening evening, but some sudden gusts of winds made a doe freak out a bit and the buck didn’t stick around. My partners have each seen some nice bucks there too, so we’re excited about this fall’s opportunities. I hunted there the following weekend but saw nothing good.

Last weekend I was in the UP again chasing bears, but they got the best of me again. After four evening hunts, I saw zero...zilch. One bait went cold. The others were getting hit late at night. I’ll be heading up one more time this next weekend for a final crack at those bears...

Back on the deer front, here in Michigan, I missed a golden opportunity on a nice buck this past week (Tuesday) because of work! I saw a nice 8 point, about a 125-130" 3.5 year old, which is a nice buck around my parts of Michigan here, on my way to work. I glassed him for several minutes and knew right where he was headed to bed. I just KNEW he'd be back out in the evening in a certain spot I've regularly seen them return to in the evening. But as work and luck would have it, I got caught up in a meeting until 6:30pm and wasn't able to scoot out early, hang a stand and kill this buck. Sure enough, when I passed by the area at 7pm, there he was, feeding contently right where I would have been setup....so it goes.... I setup for a morning sit at midnight that night. Overnight rains helped the setup but I don't think helped the buck stay on a pattern. I saw a small buck in the morning was all.

Now it's Saturday night and I just returned from a scouting mission. I saw that buck again... I'll be setting up on him tomorrow evening....we'll see how it goes this time! More to come.