Always Learning

As the deer season comes to a close, it always provides a chance to reflect back on that season’s hunting opportunities. I was not able to hunt as many times this season as usual. The club I joined with my son Jared was quite a haul from us. However, I did manage to drop a nice doe in December to provide me with some freezer meat.

Just before the holidays, a friend contacted me to hunt Ohio’s muzzleloader season. I jumped at the chance and had a flight booked on Delta before I really grasped the depth of this type of hunt. I knew cold-weather clothes would be required, but I didn’t realize how much. We would be hunting farmland over harvested corn fields in temps that stayed in the teens to low 20s and felt like temps in the single digits. Combined with 8 to 12 inches of snow and a whipping wind, it proved to be quite an accomplishment of endurance.

These deer had arrows shot at them at the beginning of the season, centerfire bullets zipped at them in December and were very wary. Although we knew we might see a little chasing, January is mainly about foraging for food. It’s legal to throw corn in Ohio on private property, and that’s really about the only way to see them at this time of year during legal shooting hours.

The farm where we hunted had blinds set up in the corn fields, but we did not have access to the woods surrounding them. Deer would hang out most of the day in the woods and come out in the late afternoon. With that schedule, it would really only pay off to hunt those late afternoons as they hopefully came out to hit the corn, so we passed on the mornings. That would be fine by me considering the temps. The shooting blind that I hunted from had three large window openings—but no windows installed. That wind and snow would come whipping through and just about turn me into a popsicle.

Although I saw deer every day and had several shot opportunities, I did not take one. One nice 8-point with a huge body stepped out of the woods about 140 yards away to join a few does on the corn. However, he never presented a good shot angle and jumped back into the woods after about 30 seconds. I had two young does make their way up to the blind about 15 yards away with several larger does about 40 yards away and even more about 75 yards away, and I could not move to take the shot. This type of hunting was much different than my Georgia hunts. My friend was able to shoot a doe (donated to the farmer) on the last afternoon hunt. His shooting blind was about 20 feet off the ground—a great advantage. On the flight home, I realized if I was going to shoot a deer there, I’d have to have the gun up and ready for a shot as soon as I saw them, no matter how far away they were. You just could not wait for them to close the distance without being busted. Lesson learned.

I hope to get the invite again in the future and will be loaded with the right clothes and a better shot plan!