COLUMN: From bow season to gun season

     The first season of hunting deer with a bow is ending this Friday and over the next three weeks, deer will be dodging bullets instead of arrows. Bow and muzzy seasons will start up again after shotgun season.

     Why might you ask am I bringing this up? My first reason is I am sending the DNR my recently completed Bow Hunter Observation report. I receive one of these every season and kind of enjoy keeping track of my bow season.

     After filling out last year’s survey, I discovered I didn’t spend nearly the amount of time I normally do hunting deer. I also looked over last year’s dates to see which days had more deer activity than others.

     This year, Nov. 7 was one of the more exciting days. I skipped Nov. 7 last season but Nov. 5 was the best day that year. This year I didn’t make it out Nov. 5 or 6. From Nov. 8 on it quieted down where I was hunting.

     This season I got out 20 days and hunted a total of 76 hours. I probably would have made it a few more days but we welcomed two new grandchildren into our lives. Like my son Dillon has said, I wish these kids of ours would quit having kids during hunting season.

     Honestly, I say that tongue in cheek. You can’t beat seeing your family grow, even if it’s during the rut.

     So let’s get back to my survey. I spotted 45 antlered deer over the course of those 20 days. Not 45 different ones. Many of those I saw numerous times. Like I wrote earlier, the peek day was Nov. 7 and I did actually see fifteen different bucks that day.

     Of the fifteen, I would say only one was a big enough buck to harvest. And only two, both little 6-pointers, gave me a close enough shot.

     The best day for does occurred on Nov. 18. I saw a total of twenty-two that evening. The night before I saw sixteen. I’m guessing most of these were the same ones both days.

     The fresh snow on the ground that weekend definitely played a role in seeing so many come out to feed as well as seeing deer stick out like a sore thumb in the white landscape.

     I did see a total of 133 does according to my survey. I attempted to take a doe twice, once in early season and again Nov. 17 and 18. Luck wasn’t on my side either time due to the deer seeing me first or coming in from the wrong wind direction.

     Hopefully I will fill both those tags during the second bow season. Dillon did shoot a doe early on so we could put some venison in our freezer.

     The survey also asks for us to keep track of other species. Of the eleven different species I only saw three turkeys, four raccoon and one opossum. The lack of turkeys really surprised me.

     Another part of the bow season that became frustrating for us was on our list of the top five deer we had on camera, three are now running around missing one side of their antlers.

     One of those three presented me a perfect opportunity on Nov. 17, just 15 yards standing broadside in front of my stand. Hopefully those half racks survive the shotgun season and get even bigger next year. I hope everyone has a safe shotgun season, please know what you’re shooting at before you pull the trigger and make sure no one in your group is in between you and that deer!