What a great weekend to be in the woods! For the second weekend in a row, I headed out to upstate NY with my good friends Mike and Hillari to chase rutting bucks. We left Boston Thursday night and arrived with high hopes and some anxiety (horrible weather on the forecast)! The weekend before, I stopped in the areas on my way home from our southern tier hunt, to hang trail cameras and scout. In four days, I had three different bucks on camera and some very patterned does. The weather forecast was high winds, around 20 MPH and occasional freezing rain. Not the best conditions to sit all day, but the rut was in full swing and deer would still have to move. I had already filled my archery buck tag, so I was hunting for meat. We hunted public property on Friday and I shot a doe walking from a thick bedding area to the hardwoods. It was crossbow season and I wanted to get everything on film.
My biggest goal this year was to capture my hunts with my go-pro!
The weather continued to be a nasty slap in the face, but we hunted hard and Mike had luck shooting a nice doe on Saturday evening. The wind was still blasting, but his efforts on the all day sit, paid off with backstraps. I was able to film some of the short track job! There is nothing like seeing a white belly in the dark. There were a ton of deer walking the thick edges of the property that night and Mike made a clean, quartering away shot at 25 yards. He did the right thing and let the deer sit for a few hours. After dinner we quickly picked up the blood trail and found her 40 yards from where he shot.
Sunday Morning looked like a great weather wise with minimal wind and cold temperatures. We were hunting a piece of private land that I had permission on that abutted the NYS State Forest. Great area with sloping hills, thick brush transition areas and overgrown fields. That same day, my high school buddy was hunting his land about five miles away. He had some great deer on camera and has been managing the property for a few years. His goal was to only shoot racked bucks (no forks, spikes or small 6pts. A few days earlier, a nice shooter was grunting up a storm chasing a doe. This love struck 8pt was making a loud racket, MAKE SURE YOUR VOLUME IS UP! His Wildgame trail camera caught the whole thing.
My high school buddy ended shooting this nice buck on Sunday night. The deer owned the area and responded to one of his grunts. He made a nice shot at 20 yards and the deer piled up after a few steps. It’s great to see deer management pay off.
That same night, my fiance and I left the area to head back home while Mike and Hillari remained in the tree. Hillari had a nice encounter with a buck, but her arrow missed the deer completely after glancing off some small tree branches. Being a bow hunter, we often have heartbreaks in the woods. Hillari had been hunting hard for a few days and seemed defeated after this unfortunate miss. Her persistence would pay off a few hours later!
I got a call from Mike at 4:45PM, frantic and excited. He said he shot a big 8pt a few minutes before and the deer actually ran right up to where Hillari was sitting. She made a clear shot at 18 yards then watched the buck disappear in some thick cover. Hillari and Mike have never killed a buck with a bow and were hard pressed on filling their tags this weekend. How cool is it that they both shot the same deer! Tag team style, the couple put their time in the stand and during the last half hour of legal shooting time, a buck tag was punched. She did not see the deer go down, so did the right thing in quietly getting out of the woods and let the buck sit for a few hours. They ended up finding the deer a little farther than expected in the early morning.
This weekend was one of the best in a long time. We had some great adventures in the woods and harvested some quality animals. Fall is my favorite time of the year and even though I didn’t punch a tag, I enjoyed seeing my close friends have success. Thank you for reading and be sure to check out our Facebook and Instagram page for more great pictures.
-Michael
Green Lake Chronicles 