Good luck to our "yoot" hunters tomorrow!

[Bucksnbows]

I might be more excited than the 15 year old I'm taking out.  Partly because of his son getting into hunting this year has a buddy of mine hunting again after more than 30 years, partly because they make a great pair of ethical hunters in the field as I learned last Saturday when I ran my Brittany for them pheasant hunting at Whittingham WMA, and partly because I always make it a personal goal to start a new hunter every season and this is my "yoot" for 2013.

 

His father told me the son has some fear he'll see a bear up close from the ground blind.  When I told my buddy he had an 80% chance of seeing one bear, a 70% chance of seeing two bears and a 50% chance of seeing three or more, he said his son would (to make it PG friendly) "evacuate his bowels in his jeans" or something along those lines.  Hope he gets his deer and sees a bear up close and personal.         

 

Good luck to all of our youth hunters tomorrow during youth shotgun deer day!  Be safe and shoot straight.

[nycredneck]

Good luck to you and all the yoot's going out hunting tomorrow. 

Can't wait to take my own yoots out!

[BowhunterNJ]

Good luck yoots! Get em!

[Rusty]

Best of luck to all you youngins!!   

[Haskell_Hunter]

Counsel, what is a yoot?

[boomsox24]

Good luck to all the yoots and thank you to all the good people getting them out there and showing them our great sport.

[BHC]

good luck to all the kids today.......I will be out but I want to hear two things: one is shotguns going off, and kids laughing with happiness of their harvest

[Axiom]

good luck..

[Hatchet]

Good luck to all the young ones!

[robnj]

good luck today . perfect day

[Matty]

Sat in a great little deep woods saddle this morning in Zone 6 but.....nothing. Wind was perfect too, just nothing shaking there this morning. 

 

We'll be back out shortly in a different spot for the afternoon. I've been seeing decent deer activity in the afternoon spot every time I've been able to hunt it and luckily this NW wind is just right for the spot tonight. Here's to hoping we have some action.

 

Good luck again to all of the other yoots out there!

 

[Bucksnbows]

Matty - nothing moving in my Z6 spot either this morning.  No deer, bear or turkeys which is unusual.  I sent my youth and his dad back up just now to sit until dark because the deer haven't moved since early yesterday according to camera pix but they should by later today.  I'm too tired to stay out all day as I just found out.  Can't wait to be back to normal!  

[Rusty]

Sat in a great little deep woods saddle this morning in Zone 6 but.....nothing. Wind was perfect too, just nothing shaking there this morning. 

 

We'll be back out shortly in a different spot for the afternoon. I've been seeing decent deer activity in the afternoon spot every time I've been able to hunt it and luckily this NW wind is just right for the spot tonight. Here's to hoping we have some action.

 

Good luck again to all of the other yoots out there!

 

Good luck this afternoon Matt.   Love the picture, it brings back memories of when my daughter was 5 and she would sit with me in the woods.   

[Gruntmaster]

best of luck to the youngins.

Edited November 23, 2013 by Gruntmaster

[Matty]

Tonight we were sitting at the end of a point that meets a nice edge. The winds were already whipping pretty good as we snuggled into our natural groundblind at almost exactly 2pm. I made this blind in a giant red oak blow-down earlier in the season. It puts us about 30 yards off the edge which is caused by a really old clearcut bordering mature oak forest.

 

It's a great spot to catch bucks cruising the edge looking for does or any deer coming out of the thicket. We had the cold NW wind slightly quartering into our face right back up our entry route.  That makes everything pretty much perfect.

 

3pm came. Nothing.

 

4pm came. Nothing. Man, this is unusual. But the wind is really cranking now, so who knows.

 

Walker kept saying things like: "This is disappointing, we froze our butts off all day for nothing". "How much time now? We're not gonna see anything".

 

I feel bad for him, because he doesn't get to hunt much at all, but I know all too well that this is just hunting. I told him a few times, "You have to stay vigilant up until the last second, because it can go from nothing to deer in less than a minute." 

 

Suddenly at about 4:45 we both hear something trotting towards us. Turns out to be a really big doe. With nothing following it that I can see and time fading, I tell Walker to get the gun up and take the safety off.

 

When the doe stops at about 17 yards, Walkers getting ready to shoot when the doe suddenly gets nervous (saw Walker move the gun) and bolts out to about 45 yards. With her standing broadside I tell him to shoot...shoot. BANG!!!!

 

Clean miss. (as far as I can tell). I looked all over and couldn't find any sign of a hit where she spun in the leaves, but I'll go back tomorrow and double check and do a quick grid search in daylight just to be absolutely certain.  

 

At least he learned the all important lesson that it really does only take a few seconds to go from zero to deer. 

 

At the end of the day, he thanked me again for taking him out and so did his dad. I really do enjoy youth day. One of my favorite days to hunt. 

 

Hope everyone that got out made some memories.

 

Edited November 23, 2013 by Matty