DS20 Part 6: Weekend Scouting Trip

Had an awesome time camping and deer scouting this weekend. The area is in the heart of the big woods up here. The sign came in waves. A whole lot of nothing for a mile or more, then several runways then more nothing. I found one spot that would be worth throwing an observation sit at, but didnt see enough in thus area to make me excited about it.

The best spot was where four runways converged coming down a ridge from multiple directions into a little hub and then split into two. I marked a tree and followed them both but never found any bedding. More of a just passing through area for them. No buck sign from 2019 to speak of, and just one old rub, at least 3 years old.

DS20 Part 5: Winter Camping Prep

All packed up for a backcountry camping and scouting trip this weekend. Going to meet up with a buddy and hike about 2.5 miles into a local public land area and set up camp for the weekend. He plans to just kind of explore the area back there, I am going with plans to deer scout all day Saturday and maybe a little sunday morning. We will hike out sunday around lunch time.

Night time temps friday night will be the worst of it, mid 20s, and then it isnt too bad, low of around 30 Saturday night. Both days will be pretty dang nice, mid 30s saturday and low 40s sunday. Snowshoes are packed, we are sitting on around 2 or 3 feet of snow in the woods, it's been a pretty mild winter with most of that accumulating over the last month. At least it feels that way.

I'm not expecting to learn a lot from actual deer sign, most rubs are going to be under snow and all sign will be late winter sign, but I'm hoping to find a big track or two, backtrack, and locate bedding locations.

DS20 Part 4: Switching to a Saddle

It was good to kind of not think about deer in January, my batteries are fully charged again. My saddle came from Aerohunter. The flex is super comfortable. I am kind of through the weight weenie phase, but I was curious what kind of weight savings the saddle would give me. It's a lot.

My climbing method will still be beast sticks, so no weight difference there. Same for my linemans rope and tether- been using a tether style rope as a tree strap for years. The differences are going from a full body harness to a saddle and treestand to a ring of steps.

My harness is a muddy ambush or something like that and weighs 2.78lbs. My flex with sewn in webbing bridge weighs 2.36lbs. So I save a half pound there. My treestand weighed about 12.5lbs. The ring of steps (4 squirrel steps with an OCB strap) weighs 1.3lbs, so I'm saving about 11lbs there. I'm also saving the 2lbs that my hunt comfort seat added.

Roughly 13.5 less pounds is kind of huge.

I am doing homework on a new arrow build for next season. I'm really sick of all the red on the maxima reds. I know it seems silly, but it just drives me nuts looking at that wall of red in the quiver. Deer must see it for miles...  Lots of shafts out there so I let my OCD kick in and I entered the spine, grains per inch, ID, OD, and straightness for every Easton, carbon express, gold tip, victory, black eagle, day six, etc shaft currently sold. Computer isnt in front of me but it was like 450 different shafts. It took about 4 hours, but it was totally worth it cause I'm turning that spreadsheet into an arrow calculator. Working out some of the more advanced formulas and will share it with the forum when it's done. It will predict or calculate FOC, speed, KE, momentum, etc. All the numbers. Like I said, OCD...

DS20 Part 3:

February came kinda fast. Been doing a little cyberscouting here and there, and my first on the ground scouting yesterday. Floated 6 miles of river and marked all of the deer crossing and watering locations. Been packing away at the gear needed list. Picked up a ring of steps to use with my saddle purchase, also got a new pair of mittens bringing my gear purchase total to $443. Kinda hoping my wife never reads this. Still need arrows, broadhead blades, and kill tags.