Start of the 2009 Whitetail season

Well I have been out in the woods about a dozen times since the end of Deer season on 15 December. My goal this year is to be in the woods 250 days this year. Four days into 2009 and I have scouted 3 days, the first, the third and the today the fourth.

I plan on pulling most of my stands this year and doing some maintenance on them painting them. I plan on moving several stands if only 25 feet and there are some that I will just give up on and find a new spot for them.

New Year’s Day I scouted an area that I have one stand in. I hunted that stand 3 times in 2008 and never saw a deer. From the sign that I saw on New Year’s day I had my stand in the wrong place. I will move that stand to a better area when the snow is a little less on the ground.

Yesterday I scouted the farm that I shot a doe the last day of the NH season. It was the first year hunting this property and we took 2 doe off of it and saw several buck including 2 yesterday. We are going move a couple stands as we found a perfect staging area. We had heard deer in this thicket almost every time we hunted this stand but never investigated. From what we saw we missed the buck (pun intended!).

T0day I spent 4 hours scouting a pumpkin farm that I got permission to hunt in the last two weeks of the season. HUGE amounts of deer sign. There are two other guys who hunt it but only during muzzleloader season so it should not be bad. I found their stands and they are right on the field edge and I found several spots that are about 200 yards in that are ideal funnels.

I also pulled three stands today. Two I may move but one is going back. I have shot several deer out of it and have put people in it who have shot deer. The seat is squeaking so I pulled it and the others to work on it to stop the noise. I think I am going to spray RINO lining on some of my stands to quiet them down as well as giving them a camo paint job. Not so much for the deer but to make it harder for the hunters to see it.

Looks like I will get at least 2 days in the woods this week as it is going to storm and I can not work in the bad weather so I might as well put the time to good use!!