Bait station and timing. UPDATE: 09-24, Final Update

[Ranger91298]

Good luck brother!!!

[dirty24d]

Truck is packed. Book is in pack. Rifle is ready. Rounds are double checked. Arrows are tipped. Seat is there. Sticks are there. Machete, gloves, head cover, boots, knives, tarps, all ready. FJ loaded down. I'm ready for a deer with the bow or a bear with my rifle. If that silly bear comes over the hill he's a gonner. If deer come out in front of me...yep, gonner. Gonna sit all day. Its my day. Gonna whack something...I can feel it.

I'll be around for most of the day tomorrow. You know the drill call and text me if you need a hand!!  Knock something down!!!!!!

[Goldeneye]

No napping in your blind! 

[h20hunter]

"No napping".....

Did you sneak up on me this afternoon?

I went, I hunted, I saw nothing. I did meet up with D-Rocks cousin at the gate. He spooked a bear that was lurking in the brush but this stuff is so think and marshy you wouldn't ever have a chance of going in and finding boo boo. I did some huge black red headed woodpecker looking birds. They kept flitting around and basically banging the hell out of every individual piece of tree and downed wood in the area. I swear I almost shot one for kicks and giggles.

Now regarding the napping. Yes, yes, I did take a nap. I swear I was about falling off my little chair. So, I just kicked back, closed my eyes, dozed a bit.

Overall a nice day and evening hunt.

[Goldeneye]

One time Muzzy Hunting I took one of those mid day cat naps.  Woke up a little later with elk tracks going around both sides of me.  A whole darn herd went around me!  Those big things can be very quiet when they want to.  I know your hunting deer but the same thing can happen with deer.

[h20hunter]

In this case time will defenitely tell. I've left the cam set while I've been in and out. Its on 1 min video capture with a short break in between. My hope is that I'll get a bow kill on video using the trail cam. What it will probably end up being is exactly what you mentioned. Me asleep with a masher walking right past. At least I'm well armed. I'll be up there before light tomorrw. See if the deer are moving earlier in the morning. I figure with heat and moon early early am may be better than the evening hunt. We'll see.

[h20hunter]

Well, my morning am hunt started and ended as planned. My goal was to get in and settled before the sun came up. Check. Hunt all morning. Check. Walk out around lunch, drive into town, eat. Check. Walk back in and get settled with my book for the long afternoon hunt. Check. Sit in the drizzle.....well I'm not getting but a few drops here and there so I figure I can sit tight. After about an hour I'm getting a little wet and it is coming down a little bit more. I figure hell, I'm a mighty hunter, woo 'er of woman, eater of meat...I can hunt in the rain. Yeah, that lasted about 15 more minutes. I didn't expec the rain until tomorrw so I only had an extra hooded sweatshirt with me. So, early afternoon I packed it in. No real excitement other than a few sticks snapping off in the distance, one freaked out chipmunk when he figured out I was not a stump, a few tweety birds.

However, I did have some deer on my cam from this morning. I was in the woods at 6 and had deer milling around the camera at 3 am this morning. I'll post a few pics of what I have but they are not very good. Some *censored* hiker person draped some stuff over my camera yesterday. I posted what I have of the offending person in my trail cam thread. Here are a few that I have of deer from this morning.

[h20hunter]

Why 100% do you ask? Well, I'll tell ya. I'm going for walk to look around and am only taking my .22. Since I'll only have about an hour of time I just want to go for a walk. Bunnies and grouse will be fair game. I won't have my bow or rifle so no deer or bear. That is usually when you see 'em out in the open lounging around. Basically, I'm just looking forward to a walk with the basics in mind. Some time to kill, a few bends and turns, a berry here and there, and the old .22. Maybe I'll even take a few pics.

[h20hunter]

Well, I had a nice walk. Shot a tree and a rock. Saw some tweety birds but no grouse. I've decided that since this coming Saturday will be my last day bow hunting this spot I will recap my days hunt, share some of what I've leaned, what I'd do diffrently, and what I've got planned for next year. Keep reading though, I'd like to hit 10k views before shutting the thread down.

[Rooster1981]

I just read the entire thread, very cool
Thanks for shareing

[h20hunter]

It has been a good time. I'm going to hunt my spot this weekend. Thanks for reading.

[h20hunter]

Here I sit. Truck is packed. Bow is ready. Chatting with D-rock about hunting whidbey on Sunday. He double checks the regs, yep, today was last day. So......tomorrow I'll bear hunt, pull the cam, and think of interesting things to say about what I learned about baiting blacktails and what ever else comes to mind. I'll be pulling the camera tomorrow and working on finding a new spot for a new project next year.

[h20hunter]

Well, here I am. Almost 10k views, who knows how many pounds of apples, cob, cracked corn, pressed blocks I've been through. Lots of miles. Lots of Gatorade, plenty of sweat. Did I kill a deer? Nope. Was it worth it? Yep. In random scatter brained order here is what I'm taking away. Scouting early spring doesn't tell you crap about an area. It can grow up a get thick real quick. You won't know how many people use an area until the day hunting season starts. Bears will eat everything including cams. Positioning a cam is critical. So is protecting it. I lost one cam, got a better one. Did I mention bears will eat everything? If you didn't get that and are thinking baiting deer will equate to a slam dunk you better have a few things going for you that I didn't. Number one is private property, yours or access. Two is more deer than bears. I know there are deer in the area. However, I now know that the bears like one area more than the other. I would day of the 640 acres I've been walking I've learned about 1/4. Of that half is better for deer, half is full of bears. It was a lot of fun. I'll do it again and probably learn more.

Thanks to those that have followed and offered advice and help learning some areas. If anyone new stumbles upon this thread and wants to ask a few questions please do. However, for this one, it's done. The cam has been pulled. Come Jan 1st I'll have a new spot, new dreams of blacktail bucks with chocolate horns, and a new thread. Here is a final pic or two for you.

Cheers
H20Hunter

[dscubame]

Thanks for taking us on this trip h2

[h20hunter]

My pleasure.