I'm getting tired of my "bad timing"

[hardertr]

I'm on my 3rd and final year of a lease 20 minutes from home.  I EASILY spend 3 or 4 times more hours in the field than the other 4 guys on the lease.  This year, I am holding out for anthing 8+ pts.  I haven't seen a single big one yet.

Just last week, the owner of the land shot a NICE 11pt right out of his back door.  I've never seen deer there (and I park my truck within 100 yards of the field), and never even knew THAT deer was around.

THEN, the owner lets a guy day hunt this past Wednesday and Thursday...and the guy shoots a very nice 10pt the first 15 minutes in the very same field I usually hunt.  Once again, I've never seen this deer before.

What gives?  I'm seeing 10-15 different deer a day (mostly doe being followed by young bucks with less than 5 pts and yearlings, with the occassional 6 pt).  What am I doing wrong??

Last night, I walked up on a buck that WOULD be a 10+ pt...if he would have had an antler on the right side of his head     He had a really nice 6 or 7 pt antler on the left side, and not even a nub on the right.

The same thing happened last year too.  The owner whot a big 9 and 2 other guys shot a 9 and 10pt.  I was lucky enough to get 2 nice 8's that I had been watching most of the season.  Never even knew the big guys were around then either.

[Graybeard]

Isn't it obvious? The deer have YOU patterned rather than you having them patterned. The other folks are NOT following the same pattern as you the person who is there most often so when they do something different than you it works since it's not part of the pattern the deer have learned.


You just need to mix things up some and taken them by surprise.

[flintlock]

Yep, agree with Graybeard....But....YOU have a LEASE and the OWNER and SOME OTHER GUY are hunting....Bud, you don't have a lease....With a lease YOU have control over who hunts...With this type "stuff" going on, I'd be looking for a real lease...

[Chuck White]

hardertr
I agree with Graybeard!

Sometimes you need to mess with the deers head!

We do mostly deer drives here and when it seems like we are seeing very few deer we will make the drives backwards!  In other words, put the watchers on the other end of the drive!  Also, where it's practical, we will make a drive sideways!

Sometimes we will even start the drive as normal and about 5-10 minutes after the drivers start, another hunter, "a still-hunter" will follow the drivers and more times than not, the still hunter will see deer that sneaked past the drivers!

[rihmfire]

DITTO
I am having  the same problem
So i start changing my stand locations,  and
this past weekend...I missed a chance at a nice 8 pt.

[dw06]

G B is right they are onto you!About that lease,flintlock is right with other people hunting that you have no control over it is not a lease!I would clear that up with owner before paying anymore,and if you can't then its time to move on and lease somewhere else!

[hardertr]

I'm headed back out there in the next few minutes.  I am going to hunt the oposite end of the place I normally hunt.  NOBODY has ever hunted back there because the brush is so thick.  If I do shoot one, it will take me an hour to get him out of the brush and onto a road.

As for the lease.  It's not an official lease.  Four of us pay the owner about 1/3 of what a regular lease goes for.   Part of the deal is that he lets a select few of his friends hunt once in a while.  He lets us know a couple of weeks in advance if he is planning on letting someone hunt.  We have  a pretty good deal worked out.  I've met everybody he's taken out so far, and I have no worries.

"Fortunately", this is my last year out there.  He smells the money of the "day lease" concept.  It may take him a year or two, but he's going to ruin his deer heard.  I've talked to him about it, but all he sees is the "easy money" of charging folks $100 a day to hunt.   He was talking about doing it this year, but the 4 of us that hunt his place all the time convinced him to wait until next year.