Nathan's First Bass

I started packing today for our Canadian Fishing trip today and the boys got excited about going fishing. So after supper we went to my Grandpas and Nathan caught his first bass by himself and Jacob got one to.

$200 Shed and a new name

The farmer that farms the field on Barry's property got a flat tire last week. You can see the culprit below. At first all I knew was that it was a nice 5 point side and pretty big. Barry had Andy the farmer send me the picture below and I had to see more of course. Here is another picture of it. The G2 got cracked off in the tire. After hearing where he road over it and looking at this picture I am 95% sure that its the other side to "The Sanctuary Buck" You can see the pictures below. Next time I am down there I am going to Andy's and we are going to hold them up together but I would be very surprised if they don't match.

You can see the mains are both pretty wide the brows are very similar and they both have long skinny tines.

So this is also brought me to a name change. "The Sanctuary Buck" doesn't really have a great sound to it but I thought it was fitting. I think his name will be "Flat tire" from now on. I will post pictures of the two of them together when I get the chance to go down there and compare them.

My Plan for "the sanctuary buck"

Well by now most of you know about this buck that I saw 3 times last bow season and missed my chance at during gun season, with Julie there to see him as well. I figured its time to give him a name so I have named him "the sactuary buck" named after where he is living and spending most of his time, well last year anyway. I have become quite obsessed with him, especially recently after finding one of his sheds. (see my post 2x ago) He is going to be a 4.5 year old deer this year and that is going to make things even more difficult but this is the best chance at a deer of this caliber I have ever had, so I have to give it my best try. Well the sanctuary is a small 5 acre area that is all tall grass, scrub brush and thorns. It is tucked behind some houses and the topography makes it a very secluded area and perfect for holding a big mature deer. It has little or no trees to hang a stand in, well one tree and that is where I sat last season. Its an ok spot for a stand but I was just a little to far away from the action and my approach route was to much in the open. If you look below at the ariel photo you can see what I am talking about and see why I needed to move. The blue "X" on the top left is where my treestand was last season. The blue "X" on the top right is the ground blind where I missed him from. The yellow circle is where he was when I missed him. The dotted lines are the different routes he took everytime i saw him last year. The area inside the yellow line is the corn field, I know part looks like grass but its all crop field now. The green dotted line is my new access route through the corn field and the red "X" is where I put my tri-pod stand last sunday. The yellow arrows are the only wind directions that I would hunt this stand, south or southwest. Also, one more thing to note where the blue and purple lines converge in the upper left those are apple trees. They did not have any fruit last year but he still was bedding down in there. If there is fruit on them this year its going to be even better. 2 years ago the corn field was beans and I watched dozens of deer pour into this area every night for a week strait from accross the property early season and I didn't know why. I found out that these trees were in here last spring but the late frost killed all the blossoms I believe. So what I did was move my tripod stand into this area. I put it as far into a white pine tree as I could and even dug the feet of it down about 18" into the ground to get the platform lower into the tree. You can see by the pictures below that it worked really good. I will be able to get into this stand when the corn is up undected and when I am in it i am shielded from the sanctuary because of the two trees, so if he is laying anywhere in the sancuary he should not see me get in or sitting in it. Also, this spot is uphill from where i was last year and I can see much better into the sanctuary. I am going to bring more branches in my first sit and zip tie them onto the stand and that will give me even more cover. So now that I have it set up, I am not going to go by it or near this are until Oct. when I hunt it for the first time. I want him to think its safe and to go back in there again and I have learned that if he senses the least bit of pressure he is gone. It would be nice to have a trail camera in there to know what I am up against but I can't risk it so I just have to go off of what I learned last season and my instincts that he will be back in there or worst case scenario, another shooter buck. Anyway to say I am excited about this stand is an understatement.

You can see how well the platform is hidden. My only concern is being silohetted against the sky if the deer are withing 15-20 yards of me so thats why I want to bring in a few more branches.

Barry was on Spring Break but he let me use his tractor and hay wagon which worked awesome because we moved it with just Julie and I. Thanks Barry.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share with everyone because I am pretty excited about this stand and this buck, but also to show what process I use to decide how to set up a stand and that sometimes you have to be a little creative. I love using ariel photos(even on property I know very well) and mapping out the information I know, it gives me the big picture and I use that to determine where I need to be, how I need to get into that spot, what wind, etc. Then after that I figure out how to set up in that spot, hang a stand, ground blind, or what I did here. Hopefully I will get a crack at "the sanctuary buck" and I can feel really proud about how much thought and work myself and Julie put into going after him.

More Sheds!

Me and the boys went for a "little" walk this past Saturday looking for some more sheds.


Jake was pretty proud of himself because he kept up with me all day. Naters really did good to even though I did have to carry him a couple times. We put close to 2 miles in so I was more than impresssed.


Here are the two we found this Saturday. The 3 point is a shed from a six point that I saw 4 times this past fall. I am really excited to see what he becomes because he looks like he has some really good potential and he is only a year and a half. I hope he makes it 2 more years because he will be a stud if he does.

Here is all four of the sheds we've found this year already. All from different deer. You can see there is quite a differance between the three 1.5 year olds as far as size and quality. Also you can see the differance between the 3.5 year old and the others. Also the 3.5 year old and the 6 point bedded together a lot this past fall for most of Oct. and into Nov. So should be interesting to see what happens this year.

I know a lot about that 3.5 year old so I am really excited for this fall. He is going to be quite a deer. I just hope he goes back to his old patterns, because I have a new plan to go after him and if he does what he did last year, we should cross paths.

Jake could resist climbing on the lay downs and my ladder stands. Kind of interesting about this particular lay down. I found a buck bed under it last season and there is one under it again this year. I don't know who is laying here but its a big bed and I have a stand set up about 100 yards behind Jacob. Hopefully I can catch him sometime next fall.

Great Day Shed Hunting

Julie, myself and the boys went shed hunting yesterday (Sat.) down at the farm and found 2 sheds. One was a 1.5 old that I have a ton of pictures of 2 of which are below. The second was a 3.5 year old that I am 90% sure was the deer I was chasing during bow season and then the same deer I missed during gun season. There was still quite a bit of snow in the pines where I know some really big bucks have been bedding so we will give a couple weeks and see what happens weather-wise.

This is how we found the big shed. I could actually see it from quite distance away. This is actually the first shed I have ever found myself. Julie found the smaller one and also a shed 2 years ago.

2010 One to remember!

Well most of you know how my season went this past year. It all started with me and Jacob putting down a turkey in April and then in October I was blessed with a great buck. Having encounters with other bucks and finding a fully in tact skeloton of a nice 9 point. I for one will remember and cherrish this past year as being a personal best for me. From all the great encounters and stories to being able to harvest some awesome animals in some great settings.

I am really looking forward to this coming year. I have already started thinking about where my stands will be and how I am going to hunt them. Jacob has told me we are going after a "big boy" turkey this year so no more jakes for us, I guess. My semi-annual fishing trip is this coming June and that is always a great time. I feel very fortunate and blessed to be able to spend the time I do in God's creation and I hope everyone else does to. Take care and lets make it a great year.

Made a great find

I went hunting on Saturday the 4th of December at my moms. Well the wind was out of the North so I decided to try a spot I was looking at putting a stand at next year. I decided for now to just build a ground blind and give it a go that way. There are a bunch of small pines around there so I was using branches from thos for cover. I was cutting some branches off of them and I looked down at the ground and I saw antlers sticking up out of the snow. I grabbed them and pulled them up and they were attached to a perfect skull. I was really excited as some of you already know. Its one thing to find a shed but to find an intact skull with the antlers is unreal. There is not a chew mark on them either. There was a little skin on it just under the antler bases so best we can figure is sometime early fall. Maybe a bowhunter but its impossible to tell. We did go back the next day and dug in the snow and the rest of the skeleton was there. You can see from the pics he is for sure a 9 point with a little 1/2 inch tine that could make him a 10 point. His spread is 15 inches. Thats compared to 13 inches on the one that I shot. I think that this one was also a 2.5 year old. It sucks in a way because this is one less that made it but at least I found it and it didn't go to a complete waste. Anyway it was a once in a lifetime find and I thought I'd share.