Welcome to TheOhioOutdoors
Wanting to join the rest of our members? Login or sign up today!
Login / Join

Cotty's 2013-14 season

cotty16

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
With the season starting tomorrow, I figure I'd get started with my journal. I was off today. It was a teacher workday for new teachers doing a child abuse seminar. I already know how to abuse kids so I didn't need to go. I spent the morning putting up my final stand. With Kody and Klay running me all over the place with football practices and games, I haven't had the chance to get my last one up until today. It is a new spot for this year, but I am very optimistic. I've hunted this farm off and on the last 6 years and always see a lot of doe. It is also the farm where Kody shot his first buck a few years ago. I have visions of this being a fine rut spot. Only two people are allowed to hunt this farm. My buddy Dave being the other one.

The stand location is on a field edge with a nice panoramic view to the east and south.
The stand itself is 10 yards inside the tree line:

stand1.jpg

The actual location is a finger lot that runs east-west with a big open field to my right and a smaller field to my upper left. The upper field is like a table top. Nice and flat with lots of bedding all around it. I am 25 yards to the edge of that field with a few small shooting lanes.
The finger lot connects a large hollow that is on the other side of a field full of pines that used to be for a tree farm to a hollow the runs behind me. It is just a great spot for a sneaky buck to slide through.
Here is the view in front of where scrapes have been in the past...

stand2.jpg

Here is the view of the field to my right. We have had blinds set up and the doe just pour into this field in the evenings. Dave's buddy stand for him and his boy is across the field from the second picture below. He killed a real nice 10 point out of it a few gun seasons ago.

stand4.jpg

stand5.jpg

There are usually a few nice ones running around this farm. It gets heavy pressure all around it on the neighboring farms so I'm hoping they stay on this sanctuary.

All in all I have 4 buddy stands set up. 1 on this farm, 2 on the usual property I hunt, and 1 at our club property. I also have a ladder stand with a hang on in the same tree at our usual property to serve as another buddy set up. Finally I have a few single sets on the usual property. I'm hoping to bounce around so as not to overhunt a spot like I have done in the past. We shall see!
 
Last edited:

cotty16

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
Had a pretty good start to the season. Kody and I sat in the buddy stand on the farm in the pics above. When we were walking in, there was a fawn feeding along the woodline about 50 yards before our stand. She took off and I saw 3 other tails in the woods follow suit.

We were in the stand for about 30 minutes when we caught movement in front of us. 2 doe were feeding in the ticket about 60 yards away. They continued to feed for a good while, then made their way into the field and never got any closer than 50 yards as they headed to the pasture.

As the evening rolled on, we watched doe pile into the pasture from all directions, but nothing came close enough for a shot. In all we saw close to 20 doe at different times moving into the field. That's the most deer I've seen on stand in many years. However, I'm usually hunting deeper woods or old overgrown fields. This one is kept plush and always serves as a magnet for the deer.

On the walk out, we had no choice but bust up a group of 7 doe in between us and the driveway where we were parked. One deer busted out last and it was big bodied with a rack. It was too dark to say for sure ho big, but he looked pretty good. The land owner said he'd been seeing a good one pretty frequently. Thiso one came out of the woods about 100 yards up from us.

We are in the ballpark, just need one to come on down the line.
 

CJD3

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
14,629
201
NE Ohio
Nice read Cotty. I'm excited for your son and seeing that many doe should keep him pumped!
Best of luck and keep the camera charged up!
 

cotty16

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
Seeing that many deer in one sitting is very unusual for me. My usual sets are in deeper woods and it is 1-5 deer most times with some sits producing nothing. There is something about this pasture that has always drawn deer from all directions. I'm very excited for the rut in this spot. We may not get one in range, but I think it will be a helluva show.
 

Curran

Senior Member
Supporting Member
7,971
172
Central Ohio
Good start to the season Cotty. Glad you and Kody got to get out. Looks like a great spot to take the boys especially if you're seeing that much action. Good luck buddy!!
 

finelyshedded

You know what!!!
Supporting Member
31,855
260
SW Ohio
Great first hunt Mike! Hope you and your boys have an awesome season with the help of ole scout. Great to see 3 generations sharing experiences and building lasting memories.
 

dante322

*Supporting Member*
5,506
157
Crawford county
I think I'd crap myself if i saw that many does in one spot. i cnat even bring myself to shoot one around here, there just arent that many left.

good luck this season. sounds like its gonna be an adventure.
 

cotty16

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
On Saturday I headed out in the evening. A storm was moving in and looked to be a short one, so I hopped in my truck and headed to my spot and decided to sit the storm out in my truck and get to the stand immediately after it quit.
The rain let up about 6:00 so I smoked up and headed to the stand. My first solo sit of the year and first sit in this particular stand. Unfortunately, the fog rolled in heavy and my visibility was low. I did spot a 4 point and a nanny doe feeding in the field about 60 yards from me. That was all for that evening.

I was unable to hunt anymore until tonight. I took my younger son, Klay to the same stand as big brother went the other night. We sat down at 5:30 and got settled in. Around 6:00 we heard running behind us, straight downwind, and saw a nice 10 point running the opposite direction of us. For awhile we wondered what spooked him but later realized it was us. 4 doe came from the same direction and blew at us tipping us off. We smoked up, but struggled to get it good because of the strong breeze. Next time I'm hunkering down in the truck and suffocating ourselves!

The wind was from the southeast and at first I thought that would be ok, but these deer mustve been bedded behind the neighbors house. I did not expect that. Looks like West is the best wind. North being a close second.

The evening was a good one though with a herd, and I mean herd, of deer rolling into the pasture just like last time. This time though, 2 small 8 points and 2 spikes joined the party. I can't wait until the rut for this spot! It will be a show. There were 18 doe feeding at one time there. As I said before, I haven't seen this much activity in a long time. Must be crack in the pasture grass.

All in all, it was a good sit. We saw deer and Klay seemed to have fun. If only we could get the deer closer. The closest ones in the field were 110 yards. We could reach out and touch one with the muzzy this weekend, but we are set on both boys getting their first compound kills so I think we are leaving the muzzy's home.
 

cotty16

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
Stepped outside around 4:30 after work. No breeze... kinda hot. Figured I'd go sit anyway. I offered to take Klay (Kody was at football). He turned me down so I put him in charge of my daughter and headed out. I took the 20 minute drive to the spot I hoped to hunt tonight. Got out of the truck and there was a stiff breeze out of the NE. Not good at all fro the stand I wanted to hunt. No breeze at home, pretty good one there. I jumped back in the truck and headed back home not wanting to booger up that stand.

I have one stand set up that works for this kind of day, but I'm saving it for Kody tomorrow since he has no football and it is where the 9 point on his hit list hangs out. I just decided not to press the issue with it being so early. I hated making this decision. I wanted to hunt.
 

cotty16

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
Went out yesterday evening... got skunked other than the the two doe I saw feeding across the field on my way out.

Kody was supposed to go, but he was offered a small job for the evening at the sporting clay range unloading boxes and he chose to go make some money. Damn kid needs to get his priorities straight. So, I skipped out on the stand I'm saving for him and instead hunted the club ground. It was my second hunt there this year. The first was the foggy one form the earlier post.

I'm not doe hunting today unless the kids can go this evening, so I'm going to go hang a new set in a swamp that is usually a pretty good buck crossing.
 

cotty16

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
Need to do an update...

Saturday (10/19/13) - Took Kody to the private property to hunt a stand we havn't hunted yet in hopes of him getting a crack at the 9 point we call Semper Fi. We got in the stand a little late and sat down about 7:20. It was a quiet walk in as the leaves were still wet. About 8:30 two doe passed by. We do not shoot doe on this property, but even if we wanted to they were out of range. As we sat in the stand for the first time, I noticed that it is not in the exact spot I would like. You guys ever do that? Put a stand up and like the looks of it until you actually put a long sit in? I'd like to make a minor location adjustment but a buddy stand is a pain in the ass and I don't want to booger anything up.
On the way out I checked the camera we have in the area of this stand. It is above us on the ridge about 60 yards north of us. Found out that Semper Fi was at the camera at 7:30! He licked the salt block and went west... we were southeast of the camera.

Sunday (10/20/13) - Hunted the evening at the private property solo. I'm on the opposite hillside of the morning hunt from Saturday. A nice ridge trail that runs above a creek bottom and above a lake. No sightings, but I like the spot.

Tuesday (10/22/13) - Today was Klay's turn. We decided on the farm where we'd been seeing a lot of deer on the move into the pasture. Klay climbed the buddy stand first and stopped just before getting to the top... looked down and said "we scared them". It ended up there were two doe above us on the flat top by the small field. Oh well, there is more... we sat down and got settled in around 4:30.
Around 5:45 we saw our first deer. It was a spike strolling the fencline between the farm we were hunting and the neighboring property about 300 yards away. He fed our way but never closed any closer than 200 yards. Pretty soon a small herd of doe came from the same property out of the pine thicket... 12 doe crossed the fence into the farm pasture we are watching. All 200 yards out. Right before dark another spike and two more doe came out below us about 75 yards out, but that was the closest we got to a deer.
I'm starting to question our location. We have seen a lot of deer, but nothing in our zip code. The problem is my buddy has a stand (that he NEVER hunts) on the side of the field where we are seeing the deer and the farm is really limited on trees and huntable land. I might have to make a move with a blind behind one of the hay bales in the field.

Total Hours: 11
Hunts with Kody: 2
Hunts with Klay: 2
Solo Hunts: 3
Doe seen: 41 (distorted by "crack" pasture)
Bucks seen: 6
Shooters seen: 1
Coyotes seen: 0
Skunked Hunts: 2
Shots Taken: 0
 

finelyshedded

You know what!!!
Supporting Member
31,855
260
SW Ohio
Sounds like you have a ton of does in this area Mike. Hope you and the boys start having more up close action here pretty soon, I think you will! Good luck!