Get out and scout for food and water
Most serious bowhunters have probably already done some scouting. If you haven’t, get out there.
Hopefully you can locate a big buck, but more importantly you should check your favorite hunting areas just to be sure deer are present.
In past years, when the summer has been as dry as this one, deer movement patterns changed dramatically, and deer all but disappeared from many of the high ridges, where they depend on finding water in depressions or around spring seeps.
Those depressions have to be refreshed frequently, but this year, many are drying up as are the small springs.
I recall two previous years, when then Fayette County WCO Stan Norris noted that deer were very scarce on the high elevations. He said the lack of water had pushed them down the mountain and suggested hunting halfway up the mountain instead of along the ridge from the top of Mud Pike to Route 40.
He suggested hunting where the deer could satisfy his need for food and water. To enhance your chances of bagging a deer, find water and mast such as acorns, hickory nuts, beechnuts or apples and crabapples, or better yet a cornfield.
It may just be me. I have been doing quite a bit of driving the past couple weeks, and I can’t recall when I saw as many deer moving about in the middle of the afternoon. They don’t appear to be feeding, just moving. Are they just thirsty and going for water? As a rule deer are most active in the early morning and evening hours, but the experts say they do feed some in the afternoon.
I want to know why they are out in 90-degree weather in the mid-day sun. One would think that if the deer were that hungry they would feed in the shadows or in the woods.
It is hard to get deer moving in warm weather once the season begins, yet now they spend their afternoons the sun.
It seems as though I see most of them in parched, burned out grassy areas almost ruling out the feeding theory. Plus, most of the moving deer seemed to be heading from high ground to low ground, further advancing the notion that hunting near water is probably going to be the best bet, unless we get some serious rainfall before the season begins.
– n –
One of the highlights of archery deer season for local hunters in the annual opening day doe contest staged by Kevin’s Archery.
To give everybody a better chance at winning, the contest is held in three divisions – Greene County, Fayette County and all other counties.
The entry fees will be divided 50, 30 and 20 percent among the top three finishers in Fayette and Greene counties, while entrants in the all-other-county category will receive all of the money in the pool.
In all divisions, the winning deer must be two pounds heavier than the nearest competitor. In event of a closer division, prize money will be split.
Kevin’s also features a free buck pool with the prize being a free mount by Brian Krupa.
All bowhunters are welcome to sign up.
Rod Schoener is the Herald-Standard outdoor writer.