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Hortontoters 2014-15 Season Journal

It has been a short summer for me. The wife being retired has kept us on the road quite a bit and time has flown by.

Everything is ready at my hunting property. The number of bucks is down this year and good bucks are pretty scarce. Splitter is still around, but has been very erratic this summer on my cameras. Other than him I only have two bucks that I would even consider shooting. My plan is to hold out for Splitter until around mid November. I am not going to chase this ghost all season long, I plan to wrap my hand around some antlers this year.

Here is wishing everyone a safe and successful season. Can't wait to read the IKS threads and see some big smiles framed by big antlers. Good luck everybody.
 
Spent the day in Carroll County with my dad today. I helped him make a new setup on the farm he hunts not to far from my cabin. We set up a ground blind along a newly placed gas line right of way where it intersects with his favorite ag field. He has killed deer in this field every season for years. We placed the stand to be hunted with a W NW wind. He has good visual of nearly the entire west and north side of the ag field and any deer that uses the right of way to enter the field from the north will be at his mercy. My dad likes to see a lot of area when he is on stand and really liked the setup I choose for him. I wish we could have made the pop up a little more concealed but I'm sure the deer will get used to it in no time. The ag field this year has tons of red clover in it and the field had deer beds everywhere. I'm sure he will draw blood early as he usually does.
 
Had a pretty good weekend. I had a chance to meet Treed and chat a while. I borrowed his old smoker, but haven't tried it out yet. The campfire did the job this time.

I hunted Sunday morning in my creek bottom funnel. Only thing I saw was a black squirrel. When I got back up to the cabin my wife asked how it went. I told her the woods were dead this morning.

About noon I pulled cards from my two cameras, one in the creek bottom and one near my outhouse stand. I found that the woods were actually alive about 100 yards from me that morning. While I was in the creek bottom these does were parading in front of my outhouse stand. All were within shooting range if I had been in that stand. I'd have passed on them anyways. I never pick the right spot!
 

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Hunted Saturday evening and Sunday morning and evening. All three were very nice sits. I had an encounter with a little 4 point on Sunday morning at 8:20. He acted a little suspicious and kept looking my way from about 40-45 yards. He never spooked, but made me wonder about my setup. This was the only deer I spotted.

The woods are pretty thick at my setup and until the leaves fall it will be tough to see deer before they are pretty close. I plant to use next weekend to try to reduce the height of my shooting window. It has always been a little taller than it needs to be. The smaller opening should make me harder to pick out inside of it.