Tuesday 10/18: Summer is here!

What a beautiful day to be out on a boat, fishing, swimming, or riding with the top down, not so much for deer hunting.  Some how I avoided sweating on two trips into the stand today, it was a balmy 60 degrees this morning which stayed decent with cloud cover and a breeze until the sun came out, then it was summer time weather, killing my high hopes and deer movement.  I sat downwind of my bucks bedding area this morning with a southerly wind that blowing a lot out of the east, luckily that still keeps my wind out of the clear cut bedding area.  In the afternoon, with my buddy freed up and 80 degree temps, we figured it'd be worth a shot sitting our food plot in hopes of dropping a doe tonight in front of the video camera.  The morning turned up no deer, but it was encouraging as I sat my new stand set for the first time, very scenic, very hidden and while I thought the acorns were light in the area, they were actually pouring down around me all morning long, which has me looking forward to more sits there.  When I got down at 11:00 am to check my camera and leave the woods, I found huge fresh tracks in the mock scrape I opened the Thursday before while I was checking the camera, and then I found fresh urine in my bucks scrape in front of my stand, could he have been through since Thursday?  Yeah, he came through alright, at 6:08 pm yesterday, he's still killable and I'm only a step behind him.  My first thought was "should have been there", but in reality if I wasn't helping my friend track his deer I wouldn't have been in that stand anyway.  So the fact I got the 3rd daytime pic of my buck in 3 weeks right near my stand is certainly encouraging for the weeks to come.  He's still in his core area, and he seems to be sneaking around during daylight as often as he did during the summer, the next couple weeks could be key if I want to get him down before he's running doe's and traveling everywhere.  The food plot turned up some encouraging turkeys, a nice tom with a 10"+ beard and 1"+ hooks hanging with a few hens, and then 17 hens later on were seen, looking good for the future crop of turkeys.  We saw no deer, just two random people from the neighborhood walking our field coming to check out the food plot, that generally doesn't mix well with hunting success.  The wind was sketchy at best all day today, only blowing South about half the time, I hope the westerly winds coming tomorrow settle in more consistently, I'll be down wind of my buck for the next 3 days rain or shine.

View from my stand overlooking the clear cut.

One of my favorite spots to sit in Western MA, my food plot.

My buck Bullwinkle surviving opening day while I helped my buddy blood trail a deer.