From First Light…

VENISON MEATLOAF

1-1/2 lbs. Ground Venison (or “Deer Meat”)

1 lb. Pork Sausage, or Ground Pork

2 eggs, lightly beaten or whipped

1 Cup  Panko, or white-bread crumbs

1 large clove of garlic, pressed, mashed or finely chopped

1 teaspoon onion powder

1/2 cup finely diced or minced onion

1/4 cup finely diced or minced bell pepper

1/4 Cup diced or chopped Celery

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 teaspoon sweet paprika

Ground black pepper to taste

1 Tablespon A-1 steak sauce

1 package Onion Soup mix

1/2 cup milk

3 ounces (1-1/2 tablespoons) Catsup/Ketchup

Glaze:

1/4 Cup catsup or Tomato Sauce

1 Tablespoon EACH: 

 brown sugar and Steak Sauce, or Worchestershire Sauce

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees

Mix meats together thoroughly.  Beat together the eggs and milk.  Add to meats.  Add all other ingredients, and mix until completely combined.  Turn mix out onto a greased, high-sided cookie sheet, or baking pan.   Form into a loaf shape.  Bake 20 minutes at 450 degrees, reduce oven heat to 350 degrees and bake another 30 minutes. 

Mix together glaze ingredients, and spoon and spread over meatloaf.  Return to oven and bake 15 minutes more.  Remove from oven, and let rest/stand for 15-20 minutes before slicing. Serve and enjoy.  Goes great with mashed “taters”, or Macaroni and Cheese (both?), and a favorite vegetable or two.

GROUND VENISON STEW/SOUP

1 Lb. Ground Venison 

1 large can Veg-All, or mixed vegetables

1 Large can tomato juice (or V-8 style juice, if more vegetable taste preferred)

1/2 Cup diced/minced onion

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon garlic powder

Salt and Black Pepper to taste

Crumble meat into lightly greased skillet or saute pan.  Cook meat, stirring constantly to break up any lumps.  As meat turns color, add the diced onion, and the onion and garlic powders. Put all ingredients (meat, vegetables, and seasonings) into a boiler or stew pot or dutch oven.  Cook several minutes longer, or long enough to combine flavors and transluce the onion (maybe 15-20 minutes more). 

Serve with a pone of cornbread, a green salad, and/or or green onions, and maybe a pitcher of Sweet Tea.

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I first met Jeffrey during the 2002-2003 deer season.  He and my son were friends.  They were about 18 years old and just graduated from high school.  During visits, Jeff expressed interest in hunting, and would I take him out with me “sometime”.

  I let him use a decent little rifle, a .44 magnum Marlin lever action with a 2.5X scope mounted and sighted-in, shooting 180 grain bullets at around 1800 fps-more than adequate out to 150 yards or so.  I had Jeff take the Hunter Safety course, required by Mississippi state law for a license by hunters born after 1972, and buy his hunting license.  I allowed him to get familiar with shooting the rifle, on beavers in a pond on the property that the owner wanted controlled.  The water rats were burrowing into the pond dam and about to destroy it. 

One morning, while sitting in a ground blind we made overlooking a power-line cut, a nice, 125-130″, 3 or 4 year-old 8-point buck came out in the clearing.  I whispered to Jeffrey:  “Shoot him!”  Jeff moans:  “I can’t”.  His eyes rolled up in his head and he swooned into a semi-conscious faint, thrashing around on the ground!  The buck, only some 50 yards away, heard the commotion, high-tailed, and turned inside-out into an all-out dead run.  I shot at him, missed, shucked in another round and shot again.  I missed again.  The buck disappeared in the thicket on the other side of the cut.  Jeff was lying on the ground by his chair, moaning:  “I can’t believe that.  He was RIGHT THERE!”  We nicknamed the deer “the pass-out buck”, and we all, including Jeffrey, had many good natured laughs over the incident.

hey Mr. Ron
this is jeffrey.  i’ve been meaning to contact you for some time now but haven’t really had a chance. What’s your email address?  this “contact me” form just turned my whole email into a bunch of question marks and weird gray blocks.  to make a long story short i bought a 30-06 and want to get back in the woods.  i need some help getting there. I’m gonna get that monster that scared me into fainting years ago, haha.

Jeff:  you can hit “reply” on this email…I’m living about 45 miles north of Jackson just off I-55…I haven’t hunted at all this fall…trouble with the hip implants and the heart…maybe sometime..?

Man yeah! You name the the date and time and I’m there. By the way do you still keep in touch with that foster guy? I would like to see if I could get permission to go out there since it’s so close

I haven’t seen him in over 6 years now..since before I left Tupelo…he may be listed in the phone book…he may remember you from when we hunted out there on his place..?  ….no idea about him now…my hips are pretty bad, and I can’t get around very well…if and when I hunt, I just about have to drive to a stand or location….that’s why I haven’t been out since late last winter…

Well I got curious if there was any activity out there on his place. So i rode out there this evening and saw that the place was covered in “hunting club” signs. There was a truck parked where we used to go in.  I guess it’s WMA’s for me this season. I’m gonna go out to the canal section on hwy 6 by Amory tomorrow morning. I got a wma stamp when i got my license. What’s the deal with that? Do you have to pay at the ranger station when you go out? I know there are cards or something to fill out.  There are no good “deer for dummies” articles with info on the wma’s.

Jeff:  I had some more thoughts on Mississippi WMA’s…there is another down near Houston, MS.,  (Chickasaw WMA)…as I remember, it has about 55,000 acres….I turkey hunted on it many times.  i recall seeing a good bit of buck sign while trolling around for gobblers–scrapes, hooked/torn-up trees, trails.  By the way, scouting for bucks by turkey hunting, or getting out right after the season closes, is a really productive scouting technique.  If you find shed antlers, that is pretty good evidence that buck “made it” and will be near that area again next year.  The hooked trees, scrapes and trails are ones used in the hunting seasons, not early, summer/fall signs.  Back to WMA hunting–all have check-in/check-out stations on main access roads.  You can find maps, daily use permits, and the regulations for hunting on that area.  I suggest that you do a “ride-around” before hunting on a WMA, with a map and/or a GPS.  That allows you to see campsites of other hunters, parking areas (and how much they have been used), and familiarizes you with the overall area layout in relation to roads and other landmarks.  WMA’s are pretty heavily used, lots of hunters who may be tuned in to the same area you are hunting.  At any given time, you never know if and when someone may walk in on you, or vice-versa.  BE CAREFUL.  Wear-without fail-at least the minimum 500 sq. inches of hunter orange.  Be ever alert/aware of your surroundings.  You don’t want to get shot, or shoot someone!

Go to the mdwfp.com website…click on WMA’s-they have an interactive map…and tell on the site what, if any, fees are charged…plus, the phone number and contact info of the Area Manager is posted on the site, too….up north of Tupelo, off the Trace somewhere, you can get on the Divide Section….I can’t remember just where, but there is a lot of  Corps of Engineers mitigation land up there managed by the mdwfp…check out the website, and do a little research…the MDWFP manages a lot of mitigation land, owned (I think) by the US Corps of Engineers, lands set aside when the Tenn-TomWaterway was established;  several hundred thousand acres  It’s be a  a good bet to hunt on those areas to find a good buck.

One more:  when you find your spot, make some mock scrapes, and infuse them with both Intruder Buck scent, and Doe in Heat….will attract deer to your spot, and hold one in gun range while it checks out the “smell”…..you can double the quantity of the commercial scents by diluting them half and half with plain ole tapwater, and put it in a small spray or CLEAN spritz bottle….and use the spray to re-scent the scrapes….also, I use 35mm film cans with clean cotton balls stuffed in ‘em, tie a loop of hanging string or wire on it, and infuse the cotton with scent (carry them in and out in a ziploc bag)…hang ‘em around in shooting lanes on trails near your spot to also “attract and hold” target deer…..try these tips out…

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“BIG BUCKS”, in all senses of the phrase-both the high dollar payouts by hunters, and the big income for the preserves and/or outfitters-and too, the reason for it all, the big whitetail bucks themselves:  If YOU want one, be ready to spend, big time!

I checked the websites of a couple of the better known pay-for-play preserves and outfitters.  The approximate, average going rate for a decent trophy whitetail in the 145″ Boone & Crockett size runs around $3,500.00 to $4,000.00 base cost.  Add to that expense the mandatory tips, meat and trophy processing, non-resident licenses and fees, taxes, transportation to and from the location, to get the “real” cost.  Moving up to a minimal B & C Record Book deer, the base price goes up to the $7500.00 to $8,000.00 range, plus all the extras.  And, that’s given that the cost of equipment and gear, hunting clothing, weapons and ammo has already been experienced by the shooter/client!

Let’s say that while on the preserve, the opportunity presents to take a monster buck.  One of the sites displays a huge, widely palmated almost red stag looking 255-7/8 inch non-typical killed by a client.  Quick number crunching shows that deer cost the “hunter” (‘not sure THIS venue is really hunting!) some $40,000.00, plus the non-included extras!

If one can afford that kind of pay out, and has the inclination or desire to avail himself of a “hunt” on one of these preserves, go on, get after it, and more power to him! 

My objection is not to the venue (the outfitters or preserves) or the shooter who goes there, but to the deer he may take being included in the record books along with fair chase, public or private land hunting trophies.  Should there be an asterisk in the record books’ listing for pay-for-play trophies, a separate category altogether, or even specific exclusion from the record books?  After all, even “fair chase” hunters may put out big bucks/high dollars for outright hunting land purchase, or leasing of property, or membership fees for hunting clubs.  Add to that the price of an ATV, a 4-wheel drive vehicle, and the other obligatory expenses of modern deer hunting, (gas and oil, licenses and fees, meals, lodging, etc., ), all the other necessary gear and equipment, and maybe the preserve hunting venue becomes more attractive, if not even cheaper!

How about it?  Your thoughts, and/or comments?  Has the current recession (or depression?) affected your hunting habits?  Have you cut down on the days spent hunting, or had to quit altogether?  Have you been to one of these pay-to-play preserves? Leave me a comment telling me how you feel, or Contact Me directly, and vent, or opine…..let me have it!

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Technically, or physiologically, a whitetail buck is “in rut” from the instant his antler velvet is shed until he sheds his antlers in late winter/early spring. 

“O. K., then;  enough already on the technical stuff, get on to the meat and ‘taters:  when is the PEAK?”

We can’t go there yet.  The primary controlling factor of the rut in bucks, and more importantly, the estrus in does is a process known as “photoperiodism”.  Put as simply as possible, this is the angle of the sun’s rays striking the deer’s retina, causing the pineal gland to trigger testosterone release in bucks, and estrogen release in does.  As the sun sinks further into the south, after the Autumnal Equinox, the reduced light, and increased ( or is that “decreased?) angle of the solar rays begins to trigger the rut/estrus phenomenon. Whatever.  The shorter days of Fall and early Winter cause the hormone release in both sexes. 

There are, though, other “mitigating factors”.  (“NOW:  he’s gone  off on the disclaimers”)  Keerect!

Mitigating Factors

Climate  Temperature-may be mean average temp, protracted warm or cold spell-relative number of bright days to cloudy, rain, wind.

Genetics  Here in Mississippi, and many areas of the South, deer from other areas, even far northern deer, were brought in for stocking in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s.  These introduced outsiders’ offspring, though long ago interbred into the then few native deer, retain much of their genes.  The imigrant, stocked-in northern deer may have come into estrus/rut as early as late October.  What is the net effect on present day deer?  I have no idea, and neither does anyone else!

Nutrition  Pretty well self-explanatory, but nutritional quality or quality food availability can vary from property to adjacent property.

Sex Ratio  It is speculated that a low buck-to-doe ratio, within a given “herd” (more on this “herd” thing later) makes for delayed onset of the rut/estrus.  Fewer bucks around to breed, the fewer does get bred in any given estrus cycle.  An unbred doe will continue to cycle into estrus for some undetermined period, every 28 days or so, until late winter/early spring, making a long, protracted cycling in of several months.  Hence:  no real “peak” of rut/estrus.

Hunting Pressure.  Heavily, regularly, or often hunted deer tend to reduce their activity.  Often this results in the deer going completely nocturnal.  They are still there, still cycling into rut/estrus, just not moving around much until after dark.

Moon Phase.  This may have been listed as a “controlling factor”, rather than a “mitigating” one.  Whether or not the onset of estrus/rut is CONTROLLED by the moon’s phases, or just COINCIDENTAL to them, is still somewhat controversial.  Pretty good data, though, exists that north of the 37th degree of latitude (roughly north of the Kentucky-Tennessee border) the peak of estrus/rut occurs on/near/just after (?) the second full moon following the Autumnal Equinox.  South of there, my experience here in Central and North Mississippi-and a bit in deep South Mississippi-indicates this peak occurring on/near/just after the THIRD full moon after the Equinox.  This Full Moon usually happens the first week in December.  This year, it goes full on December 2nd.  “South of the 37th parallell” is a BIIIGGG area.  Mississippi is a long-north to south area, too.  Biloxi, on the coast, sits at 30.25 degrees, and Olive Branch, near the Tennessee border is on 35.3 degrees.  One degree of latitude is 68.833 miles.  “Experts” say that one degree latitude difference can affect rut/estrus onset by a week to ten days!

Herd Age & Physical Condition.   What defines a deer “herd”?  Let’s go with the deer population within a given area.  What is a “given area”?  It may be several hundred acres to several thousand acres.  Natural and man-made boundaries (rivers, lakes, relative forest and mast bearing tree density/availability, a major highway, high fences, agricultural usage, CRP areas) can “make” a herd boundary.  A “herd’s” age depends on hunting pressure, at what age deer are taken off a given area (older does come in earlier than younger and yearling does).   We’re back to the sex ratio, too.  In one area, under a strict DMAP (Deer Management Assistance Program) or, say,  QDMA (Quality Deer Management Association) guidelines, or a landowner or lease holder that ascribes to “let the big old does and the genetically superior bucks walk”, and takes out smaller does and bucks deemed to have little trophy potential (“whew! that’s some long sentence”), and an adjacent property that just shoots deer with no regard for herd management, –well, a herd is so nebulous, so undefinable, that only YOU know what the limits of your “herd” may be. 

Confusing?  Yeah, me too! 

Consensus of most biologists and knowledgeable deer managers say that from about 10 days before the designated full moon to about 2 weeks after SHOULD be the “peak of the rut/estrus”.  But, this same consensus allows that “mitigating factors” can affect this timing by as much as twenty days! 

So, here it is, FINALLY!  The how, when and where to hunt the peak of the rut-in THIS area.  Get out, and stay in the woods “from first light till last dark” from about the week before Thanksgiving (tomorrow!), until the week after New Year’s. 

My advice?  Find the does.  Then, stay away from them until the time-frame recommended.  Don’t spook ‘em, hunt in or around ‘em.  When the “time is right” (?), get near the area, and watch the does.  A doe “smells good” to a buck beginning about a week before her actual estrus cycle, when she will accept buck-a short, 24 to 36 hour period.   After, she continues to smell “hot” for another week or so, and still attracts wooing bucks. 

SOOOOOO:  find the does.  Watch’em.  Get out and stay out as much as possible from now till early 2010.  You (and I) will hunt the Peak of the Rut; GUARANTEED!

More information on the Mississipppi Deer Management Assistance

Program (DMAP) can be found at www.mdwfp.com/deer

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• “The Devil’s in the Details”: Tips on Tactics

"A trophy is in the experience, and in the memories"

Often-all too often-overlooking or disregarding the most minute factor, the tiniest little detail, makes the difference in success or failure in the deer woods.  The more we take care of the potential for mistakes or errors, that much more often we can look forward to having the chore of dragging out a fresh kill, even that once-in-a-lifetime trophy.  I THINK I’ve learned from some do’s and don’ts, mostly the mistakes I’ve made in my over 50 years of stand-perching, “easing and slipping”, and stump-sitting.

Skirt the Stand   Many commercially available treestands, be they ladders, hang-ons or climbers have a rail around the front 3/4’s of them.  Hanging a cloth curtain or skirt in a flat-finished, dull-colored material will hide the hunter from view, or at least, partially obscure visibility from the ground.  Inexpensive burlap, camo netting, even a cut-to-fit old bedsheet hung from the armrest/shooting rail will do.  A bit of ingenuity with some galvanized, semi-stiff wire, and the material, for the stands without the rail may make all the difference in being seen, or staying hidden.

Put Out the Welcome Mat  A mat on the footrest or floor of a stand will deaden sounds from feet shifting, standing to get a better look, or to take a shot.  It also makes the footrest less slippery when damp from dew, frost or rain.  A rubber or vinyl mat makes a good sound deadener, but can be as slippery when wet/damp as the metal mesh so often used by stand manufacturers.  I use a cocoa fiber mat, the fuzzy, kinda strawish type readily available in home supply or variety stores.  

Face and Hands  When I’ve walked up on someone in the woods, the first things I see is the stark contrast of his exposed face and hands.  In cold weather, a face mask and gloves are pretty standard attire.  In warmer weather, tho, cheap brown matte jersey gloves and a net or “bug-out” face mask won’t cost an arm and a leg, and help hide the hunter from intruding, prying eyes.  Helps, too, to ward off skeeters and gnats so we don’t have to swat and shake while we sit and wait.

Old, Faded Camo  It’s been washed so many times that it has gotten a whitish cast, almost a glow.  Don’t throw it away and spend the hundred bucks or so for a new set until you try refreshing it with dye.  Use black-that’s right, BLACK-dye, but only use a small amount from the packet.  Follow the instructions for dying fabrics, or use a 5-gallon bucket outside, if the boss of the house objects to using the washer.  Trial and error on how much dye to use in the soak solution, the time to soak, may renew the tint.  If not, only the fractional cost of the dye and thirty minutes of time spent trying is all we’ve lost.  Remember:  we were about to throw it away anyway.

Short Shots  Wrap ladder stand rungs, or steps, with pipe insulation.  Deadens sound, and makes less slippery.

Hang outer layer clothing outside overnight or between hunts.  Keeps them from absorbing household odors.  If damp from dew or mositure condensation, go on, take’em in long enough to dry a few minutes in the dryer.

As leaves and sticks accumulate on your stand trail, rake ‘em off.  Takes only a few minutes and makes for a quieter trek to and from the stand.

Use one of the squeeze bottles filled with white dust-again, readily available and inexpensive-to detect thermal movement and wind/breeze drift.  This is especially important in calm or relative calm, when the wind is not blowing steadily.

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Around 1965, during one of the first Bow Seasons in Mississippi, I was hunting a field edge on a private club “over the levee” in the Delta.  The field was known as the “Pea Vine Field”, as the club grew field peas there to attract and hold turkeys and deer, and provide extra nutrition.  We found and noted the afternoon wind direction, and skirted the field on foot and out of sight to get to the down wind side to hide and hunt.  I found a distinct, well-worn trail leading to and from the field, backed off 20 yards from the field edge, and set-up on the ground in a thicket of second growth saplings, the slight, failing breeze distinctly in my face.  I had a clear shot along 10-15 yards of the trail from my hide-out.  In a short while, deer, turkeys and a few feral hogs began to enter the 45 acre or so field.  Watching them closely as they fed and frolicked unconcerned in the pea vines, I noticed one of them was a huge bodied deer, noticeably larger even at the over two hundred yards distance.  The sun had set, leaving only about 30 minutes of available shooting light, till “last dark”.  The big deer bluffed and bulllied the smaller bucks, chased and smelled the does, and gradually worked closer to my spot.  His rack became visible in the failing light the closer to me he moved.  It was wide, with tall tines and heavy mass.  Minutes passed, and he was close enough to make out a perfectly symmetrical 6 x 6 set of antlers, a twelve-point!   He had to weigh nearly 300 pounds!  I shook and shivered, as much from adrenaline-stoked oncoming buck fever as from the falling temperature.  He edged closer.  Just as light was failing, he began to head onto the trail just in front of me, not spooked, just using the trail as his exit route.  The wind or gentle breeze had died to complete calm-or so I thought.  I came to full draw with my 53 lb. draw Bear semi-recurve bow, the 30 inch cedar arrow tipped with a deadly Bear Razor-head, slightly quivering from my anticipation of the coming shot, and the exertion of holding the full draw.  As the huge buck came into my shooting lane, he stopped, raised his head, and looked directly at me.  He snorted, wheeled and crashed away off the far side of the trail through the saplings.  “What happened?”, I wondered, and probably yelled-no, SCREAMED- aloud.  It dawned on me, then, with crystal clarity:  I had forgotten the thermals.  My scent, borne by the faint, nearly undetectable air movement of the down-falling late afternoon thermal had billowed out in all directions from my spot!  The air all around me had to be saturated with my human scent!   That buck was then the biggest I had ever seen, and now, all this hunting and observing deer time later, one of the biggest I have EVER  seen.   Is it little wonder, then, why I harp on thermal air movement, wind direction and speed, and “hunting into the wind?”

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• Scent Control (not “elimination”)
• Whitetails is the “kwaziest’ animals…

First thing to understand and accept is that human scent cannot be eliminated.  We breathe, have moist eyes and ear canals and other “openings” in our bodies that constantly exude scent.  The best we can do, therefore, is try to control or mask our “smell” to fool this number one whitetail sense.  A whitetail can differentiate scent particles as few as 2 or 3 parts per million.  To illustrate:  if a gallon of pure, 100% deer urine were poured into an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a deer smelling the water could determine the sex, age, general physical condition, probable date of a doe’s onset of estrous, what the deer from which the scent was extracted had to eat last, and many other individual characteristics.  Over 60% of a whitetail’s brain is devoted to scent detection.  They can smell over 10,000 times better than a human, and about 1000 times better than a bloodhound.  Considering that a bloodhound can pick up a lingering scent as long as 72 hours after it’s deposited, it seems futile to try to beat this sense, right?  Not necessarily.

The oldest-and truest-rule of deer hunting is “hunt into the wind.”  If the wind is felt on the back of our neck, or quartering or crossing from the rear, the deer will smell us.  Setting up two or more stands or blinds to allow for the most common prevailing winds in a given area is mandatory.  In my area, wind from the south is most common, while north wind quandrant is second.  Even in calm conditions, breezes and thermals will affect the selection of when and where to hunt a given area.  Another tip:  thermals generally rise in the morning, and fall in the afternoon and evening.  If the hunter is restricted by time and area constraints, a masking or cover scent must necessarily come into play.  Remember:  we can’t eliminate scent, or defeat the deer’s nose.  We can, tho, reduce the likelihood of being detected.

One year, I used a commercial scent killer.  It had a musty, damp leaf/forest floor scent.  It advertises being able to “eliminate up to 99% of REPLICATED human scent”:   key word being “replicated”.  What that means is that it COULD, possibly, eliminate UP TO that high percentile of scent that bacterial action in and on fabrics, textiles and exposed skin and leather or rubber may produce.  It COULD NOT eliminate the original production of the scent itself.  By experimentation, I found that by bruising and “barking” common red cedar limbs and leaves/needles, I did the same “elimination”, without the expense.  Another old-tyme varmint-type hunter  (kinda like me) used diesel fuel as a cover or masking scent.  He stated:  “there ain’t a deer alive that ain’t smelled diesel, and he ain’t afraid of it”.  He would dampen a new sponge with a tiny amount-very tiny-of diesel, tie the sponge on a cord or string five feet long or so, and use it for a drag behind him as he walked to a stand location.  Then, he’d wipe the sponge-using readily available, inexpensive rubber or plastic gloves on his hands-on the exposed surfaces of his blind or stand.  If a reader chooses to try this, use extreme caution, as diesel fuel is highly inflammable.  I’ve used this diesel-sponge and it works.  I carried it to and from hunting areas  in a well sealed, locking plastic bag.  Given, tho, the danger of the diesel sponge use, I use the bruised red cedar leaves and branches almost exclusively.  I’ve used other non-intrusive aromatics, too, like real, or “pure”-not artificial-vanilla flavoring, and fresh herbs like sage and rosemary.

Remember:  hunting into the wind is the only pretty near fool-proof way to insure a target deer won’t smell us.  If we can’t pick and choose when and where to hunt, try masking scents.  Just don’t depend on them to do more than mask or reduce our scent.

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• More on Scent Control

Being already 13 days into the Mississippi Bow Season,  a lotta beasts have been stuck, downed, shucked, chopped-up and freezered.   Due to having to make an unexpected, long drawn-out residence move, I haven’t even been out into the woods yet.  Too much packing stuff, then moving the same stuff;   now, I’m faced/burdened with unpacking, settlin’ in, getting services and utilities switched over. The only way I’ll ever move again is due to an eviction notice, armed and hostile sheriff’s deputies at my heels, and/or the county coroner taking out my mortal remains!   Primary excuses aside, the extended rains here (Central Mississippi, 45 miles north of Jackson) have made gettin’ in and gettin’ out of hunting areas tough, if not impossible.  Still, tho, I’ve heard of some successes.  Stand and blind hunting in hardwoods where the acorns have begun to fall,  in and near standing and partially harvested crop fields, over food plots,and the tried and true “easing and slipping”  (aka “still hunting”) along and near well travelled game trails (catching ‘em going and coming) have worked.  It is still too early to hunt scrapes (natural, buck made ones and artificial scrapes created to lure and hold a buck in decent bow range).  We’ll get into the creation of artificial scrapes later when the older, more mature does begin to come into estrous.  In this area, that can begin as early as mid-November (usually with the full or “Harvest” moon), but is more likely to begin a month or so later, with the December full moon.   Besides this year’s moderate to skimpy acorn crop, abundant browse is all over, everywhere.  A few persimmons have ripened and dropped, green leafy forbs-watered by the unseasonal rains-are still actively growing all over,   as are honeysuckle,  greenbrier, blackberry and dewberry (favored by deer as much as the proverbial “mule eatin’ briars”).  Food is everywhere.  The deer folk don’t need to travel far to fill their paunches, then settle back down to bed and chew their cud.  My personal, all-time favorite bow hunting method is trail watching, along the most well-worn trails, between bedding and known feeding areas, often referred to as “staging areas”.  Deer seem less alert going and coming than when exposed in open food plots and fields, or when picking up acorns-requiring a lot of head down postures.   Other favorites are near mature soy bean fields, machine cut corn areas-before the exposed, unshucked corn kernels swell and mold.  I know, too, of a persimmon tree, that every time a ripe ’simmon plops to the ground, several deer race for it.  Colder weather will ripen them even more, but, this sweet-if often fairly bitter-fruit bounty won’t last much longer.  Wild pecans are another favored carb and protein source, as is your granny’s turnip and mustard patch!  In short, hunt ‘em where you find ‘em.  Ask rural mail carriers to clue you in if and when they see a particularly good buck or a concentration of does, yearlings and fawns-which they often do on their routes.  UPS and FED-EX deliverymen, too.  Heavy use, even by the does/yearling/fawn contingent may mean a good buck is nearby-or following “the crowd”.

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• More on Scent Control