Decisions, Decisions!

  Sometimes an entire Massachusetts deer season comes down to making one right decision or maybe encountering one small piece of luck. This season I didn't seem to make a good decision, or have any luck. We all know that we're not living in the midwest, we don't really know the rut is happening until its too late. By the time your friends are telling you that they saw bucks cruising or got a crack at a good buck, or that your trail cameras are showing daylight activity...it's too late...you've missed it. Based on these two pieces of information this years activity started to pick up slowly on Nov. 6th. I had a nice 8 point cruising later into the morning on that date and also had late morning cruising on the 8th at that camera as well. The majority of activity seem to ramp up around the 10th and ended around the 14th or so.
     During this time frame we had numerous bucks on there feet all day. with a couple good bucks at 10am, 11am,  and 1pm. in that date range. Those deer were at my stands, just not the stands that I was hunting on those particular days. Some I can excuse because maybe the winds weren't good for hunting those spots on the particular days, but for others that wasn't the case. One particular stand is a stand that I have had plenty of activity at and was one of the few stands that I had deer sightings at this year. I was waiting until I could confirm the rut was one before going to that stand. This stand and another were two stands that I could hunt on westerly or northwesterly winds. When that wind came I flipped a coin and ended up in one of the stands (not the right one) for one all day sit, and then a typical morning then evening hunt (never seeing a single deer) on the 12th and 13th of November. Meanwhile the other stand had deer at it at all hours on those days.
   That simple decision during a couple of the highest activity days may have cost me a deer this year. It's been a rough season, its not over but its getting awful close. Below are a couple videos and pics of some daylight deer at the stands that I wasn't hunting.


Nov. 6th @ 7:30am - the video whited out but you can still see its  a good buck. This buck is cruising a shelf in a funnel. This location had another buck come through on 11/8 @ 9am. This location had almost no doe activity so I hadn't been hunting it, but the bucks still cruised through checking.

Nove. 6th @ 4:30pm this buck we called the skinny 8, he didn't have much mass but looks to have good genetics if he survives. We had a lot of pics of this buck so we hope he survives.

Nov. 10th @ 8am this spike walked past one of my stands along the back of a clear cut. That same morning at 11am a nine point came through the same spot. I had pics of the big brow-tined 9 at another stand on 10/27 but hadn't seen him again until this video showed up. I also ended up getting a few more of him on 10/13 just before daylight.

Nov. 12th @ 4:49pm another spike wandered by one of my stands.

Nov. 13th @ 11:17am and 1pm the same buck cruised past two cameras in the same area. 

Then on the 14th following a morning hunt I returned to this stand for an evening hunt to see tracks in the snow. A doe had come though at 9am and a buck trailed her a half an hour later.

 I still have a couple cameras that I haven't checked in while...I'll update if I get something good.