Scent Control

As I have said before keeping your scent to a minimum is crucial while deer hunting. You can buy scent eliminator spray bottles at Walmart or just about any other store with a hunting section but there is a lot of other ways to go along with the constant process of keeping your scent to a minimum. In my opinion the most important key is yourself, when I say that I am referring to using the scent free body wash, soap, shampoo and deodorant. Your body and hair is a very difficult part of your scent to control. Next is keeping your hunting clothes in a scent free bag or storage container. I have a locking air tight container that stays in my truck during hunting season all the time, except for when I bring them home to wash them in scent free clothes soap. I don't wear my hunting clothes anywhere but in the woods during deer season. I also break up pine branches for some cover scent and put them in my container with my clothes. After you get the previous two down pat you're ready to go hunting and that is when the spray bottle from Walmart comes into play. It is imperative to make sure and spray down every bit of your clothes before and after you have put them on. I also spray some in my hair and kind of scrub it in as an extra precaution. Another important tool to use is a cover scent. Sounds kind of funny but I like to use raccoon pee. Now I don't put it in my hair or on my clothes but I do put it on my boots just as another precaution to make sure the deer don't pick up on my scent where I walked in. With all this being said nothing can eliminate 100% of your scent but if you can make yourself stick to this above and hunt with the wind in your favor it will increase your chances greatly.

Early Bow Season

Okay so most of the time when the temperature is in the upper eighty's you don't deer hunt. However, when you hunt in south Alabama you kind of expect that in the early part of bow season. When it's hot outside the deer are less likely to get up and move around which makes the hunting much harder and I have had a really tough season until yesterday afternoon when I decided to hang my climber off the back side of a cow pasture in some hardwoods with plenty of oaks that are dropping acorns. It's a spot that I have hunted in years past but haven't hunted it in a couple of years and considering the fact that I have seen eighteen deer combined between yesterday afternoon, this morning, and this afternoon. With the amount deer activity in this area even with the weather being as bad as it is for hunting this will be a spot that I will hunt very hard for the next few days with a cold front that is supposed to be blowing in tonight. 

This afternoon I actually got in the stand a little late but still managed to see six deer. I had only been sitting there about fifteen minutes when I took the picture you see above. It's kind of hard to tell but there in this picture it is a mature doe along with her three spotted fawns. 

Around an hour later I had two other mature does come passing through and it is almost impossible to see them in the picture but if you look very closely there are both pretty close to the center of the frame. I enjoy hunting whether I see any deer or not but it definitely helps getting to see a hand full deer. Hopefully this cold front will get some bucks moving in the day light hours over the next couple days so I might have the opportunity to take a crack at one of them. 

Finding New Bucks to Add to The Hit List

In the last week I have had three new bucks show up in a spot that I have been wanting to hunt but had just not gotten any pictures of any good bucks on camera. All of these three would be fine deer to take in Covington County but the biggest of the three has my full attention at the moment.

This mature eight point is a stud of a deer. His main feature is tine length but he still has descent width and pretty good mass throughout his rack.I feel like he is a very solid four and a half year old deer.

This is another solid eight point even though he isn't quite as big as the previous deer he still has plenty to catch my attention enough for me to want to harvest him with a bow. This particular buck doesn't really have features that really stand out more than others but still has good all around qualities.

 Lastly the smallest of the three which is still a pretty descent deer and I would love to get an opportunity to take him with my bow. He has a pretty tight rack with good mass but not much tine length and also the best way to recognize him is that his ear is cut.

With all the hot weather lately it has been pretty much impossible to even think you have a chance of harvesting a mature buck but starting tomorrow a cold front is moving in and I am hoping to take full advantage of it by spending a lot of time in the woods in hopes of getting a shot at any of these three but hopefully I'll get an opportunity on the first one. 

2016 Hit List

Each year I like to keep a tab on what bucks I have at our farm via trail cam pictures and I try to get an idea for which ones I think are mature enough to shoot. The ones that qualify get added to the hit list. I have been somewhat successful the last three years by killing four bucks that I was specifically hunting at the particular time. Being able to harvest the deer that you are after is something that most any deer hunter will take pride in. This being because it is not an easy feat to harvest a mature buck, especially in South Alabama. So far this year I have five bucks that I have my eye on that qualify for the hit list. 

1. Number one on my list is a nine point that looks to possibly be the biggest deer I've ever hunted at our farm and would be the biggest I've harvested if I am fortunate enough to take him. I know for a fact that he is for sure a mature shooter that score will measure out to somewhere around 135 to 140 inches (120 and up being a fine deer around here) and feel that his age is probably around five and a half years old. 

2. Coming in second is a good looking eight point that looks to be a mid 120's deer and four to five years old. He has a solid all around rack with plenty of mass and width.

3. Up next is another solid eight point and he has a lot in common with number 2 as far as having good width. I've actually had this deer on camera for three years now counting this year and feel pretty confident he is five and a half.

4. Up next is a nice looking eight point that I'm not completely sure about his age and will have to make a decision on whether or not to take him if I am fortunate enough to see him while hunting. He has a lot in common genetically with buck number one and I also get a lot of pictures of them together so I have a feeling that they are closely related. 

5. Lastly is a buck that mainly needs to be harvested for management reasons. He's a mature seven point that just doesn't have the best genetics for a deer herd. Never the less I would love to get the opportunity to harvest this deer. 

Safety Harness and Tree Stand Safety

Lock-on

Harvesting a deer is the ultimate go when deer hunting obviously but safety while hunting is imperative. When my dad was nineteen years old he fell out of his tree stand while bow hunting and broke his neck. He is beyond blessed to not only still be walking but to be alive after an incident like this and he has made it very clear to me to be safe with tree stands. The stand he fell out of was a very basic set up, it was just a platform that you stand on (just big enough to fit your feet on) with no seat. Even though the stands of this day an age are much more safe it is still critical to take safety measures to try and keep disaster from happening. When I was about fourteen I started hunting out of tree climbers and lock-ons and my dad immediately informed me that I had to have a safety harness if I wanted to hunt out of these stands. I did then and I do now make it a priority to wear my harness so that I am strapped in at all times so that if I did happen to fall it would catch me. I also like to use a Hunter's Safety System "Life Line". It is essentially a rope that ties to the tree directly above your stand and also the base of the tree, it keeps you strapped in all the way from the ground up and then back down when  you're done hunting. This is a key feature that the first hunter safety systems missed out on because the most common time for a hunter to fall is when they are getting in and out of the stand and the original harness didn't do you any good until you were already in your stand and did you no good once you were done hunting and starting to climb down.