It was a tough weekend of hunting. It wasn’t for lack of deer sightings or bad weather though. On Saturday night I saw 10 deer or so, but none within range. Because I can’t decide what I want to be when I grow up, I took my compound and recurve into the Tower Blind figuring anything close would give me a shot with the trad option. Talk about the epitome of not standing firm with a decision! Truth be told, I wanted to see deer and my camera was revealing plenty of them using the Buck Meadow plot nightly. I also want to fill a couple more doe tags while at the same time getting my first deer with traditional equipment. It’s too much all at once and I think it’s costing me.
On Sunday evening I had a plan to fully commit to a trad setup. I would go to the Homestead Plot and make a ground setup behind a small pine on the corner where the three plots come together. Deer had been using the area every evening and it looked like they were entering in the northeast corner and then working their way in front of the tree moving from east to west. I set myself up for that scenario and what would be a maximum 17 yard shot once an unsuspecting deer cleared the pine. I thought about the plan all day and was excited for it. Despite thinking I’d be fully prepared, I made multiple mistakes that I’ll learn from.
- I didn’t put my shooting glove on while walking to my hunting location. Naturally, as I snuck down the hill toward the pine I looked to my left to see a young doe feeding in the clover plot about 25 yards away. While that’s still out of my range, I likely would have had time to stalk closer and get a shot at the unsuspecting deer. As it was, all I could do was stand there with my glove in my pack until she eventually saw me.
- I only planned for the hunt to unfold as I had envisioned it. Naturally, I set up for deer entering the plot as I described earlier, but didn’t put much thought into what would happen if they came from the other direction. As I’ll explain later, the young doe I saw earlier came into the plot to my left where I had almost no cover to protect my movements. It eventually cost me a shot.
- My ghillie suit was too loud and I knew it. I don’t mean to throw shade at my friends at First Lite but the ghillie suit I got from them looks amazing but is a little noisy. Maybe it will soften with use, but for now it’s easily audible when there’s no other sound like wind to cover it up. Every time I adjusted my position even slightly when I tried to size up the doe, she looked right at me and knew something wasn’t right.
- I didn’t thoroughly know my ranges for potential shots. Because I was so sure the deer would come from where I expected, I only ranged the area where I anticipated taking a shot. To make a long story short, the young doe came to just inside 20 yards and offered an opportunity, but I wasn’t sure of her distance causing me to hesitate and never release an arrow.
- I didn’t consider the thermals and where my scent would go when the ground started to cool. I had more deer making their way my direction from where I originally predicted, but they got my wind and started to blow before arriving. That essentially ended my hunt. It would have been fine had they arrived 30 minutes sooner, but I should have been better prepared for scent control for the entirety of the hunt.
I have my trad bows, a compound, and a crossbow. As Angela put it, “You might have too many options and it could be a detriment.” She’s right. While I haven’t taken out the crossbow yet, it crossed my mind. If my mission was to just fill tags, I could probably shoot two more adult does in as many days with a crossbow. The problem is, that would feel like work and not be the type of hunting I enjoy. Then there’s the buck factor. I know full well it’s going to be harder to kill a buck with a trad bow. At the same time, if I always carry my compound I’ll be hurting my chances of reaching my goal of tagging a deer with a trad bow this season.
So where do I go from here? I’m leaning toward hunting with my compound to give me a better shot at filling my buck tag. Then I could fully commit to the trad bows to try and fill some of my remaining doe tags. Even though there aren’t many good bucks around this season, there’s at least one, maybe two I’d like a crack at and I worry I’d feel like I missed an opportunity if I’m holding my recurve and the buck is 25 yards away. I think in the long run I will commit fully to traditional bow hunting, but I’m just not there yet. Deciding what weapon to take will continue to be a game time decision