On December 9 I had had 21 days of sitting on stand, had seen a LOT of turkey, a few deer and a few hogs, missed two hogs (on different days) at 250+yards, and put 2 gobblers (the first day) and one deer (the 13th day) in the freezer. On Dec. 10 I shot 2 hogs. Five game animals in the freezer in 22 days. Maybe that isn't slow. To me, it is slow.
Since then I have taken one day and one weekend off making my total 29 days of SITTING (which is why its called hunting and not killing). My butt is officially TIRED of sitting.
In the last 7 days I have seen no legal bucks, no hogs, one doe, one screw horned spike whose right antler extended to 4", but at a right angle to his other normal 6" spike (I saw no leg abnormality and surmise the antler broke at its base, which then grew sideways), and more hen and Tom turkey than I care to count at distances of 10 and 20 yards from the stand!
The deer know where I sit. They knew from day one as my "postage stamp" sized property "is nothing" to them in comparison to the 100+thousand acres of riverine flood plain they can wander, some 14-thousand acres of it immediately adjacent to me that is NO HUNTING. I plant food plots (rye grain, wheat, sorghum, that are gorgeous to hunt over) to make my property different - so they will wander through in daylight. They don't. There are sighting by trail camera of nocturnal activity there and the woods this year are FULL of white oak trees raining acorns. They do not have to travel far to get a full belly.
Regardless of my scent, after a MONTH of my sitting there observing day in and day out, SOME deer should be seen in daylight on their random meanderings (if they were there and they were there earlier). The Law of Averages suggests that to be so. Zero, zilch, nada on sighting more than one legal deer in 30-days. Seeing no more hogs in daylight is difficult to understand. The 6 hogs that were sighted can't be the last hogs on the flood plain and there are still white acorns on the ground, which the turkey are thankful for. My deer and hog Processor says his business is "off" this year and that hunting is slow...so it isn't just me noticing.
My Sis and BIL come for the day today and offer some pre-holiday relief. I am taking this weekend off from hunting. I don't know about hunting next week, but with nothing more to do, being retired, I might as well "go insane" doing the same thing and expecting a different result though
I'm not certain how much more sitting in the woods my rear end can take. There have been countless measures tried to ease the pain of sitting on plywood. In the end, no pun intended, the pain of just sitting still (absorbing the 38-degree cold) is taking a toll on knees, derrière, and attitude.
