Live Hunt w/LPJR & Haskell Hunter/North Country

[hunterbob1]

Remember me.

20 minutes ago, Haskell_Hunter said:

To add to Lou's note above:  Hunting in the north is not like hunting in NJ, and this is a always a northern DIY hunt.

We have local intel and folks who hunt with us up here.  We know the CO, and always touch base with him a few times before coming up.  You can't bait for deer, the trees really don't accommodate tree stands, and you have to work the deer to get one.  This isn't bait and wait.

Your ally here is the snow.  The snow is your equivalent of a game cam.  You need to know how to age a track in the snow (how long has it been there), and with experience it's not too tough to know if a track is fresh, an hour old, or a few hours old.  Anything older than that isn't important.

Your nemesis is the terrain.  You're hiking up and down hilly terrain that is also boggy and swampy.  Eventually you'll find some lakes, but it's wet up here.  You've also seen some of the photos.  It's pine forrest, when you're in the middle of it, a 100-yard shot is a long shot.  There are parts where you can't see more than 10 yards because it's so thick.  The deer know this terrain better than you ever will, and they know how to use it to protect themselves.

Ironically, wind is your friend and enemy here.  It's your friend because mountain wind acts differently than in the valleys.  In the mountains the wind blows and spins.  It will disperse your scent instead of carrying it along.  So a windy day is a good day to be hunting in the mountains.  Still days means your scent will pool around you, giving you away.  Wind is bad for the obvious reasons:  You'll get cold quickly if you aren't dressed properly.  We were all good in the wind, we had the right gear.

Another difference is the work you have to do to get close to a deer.  It's a very simple approach:  Go into the woods looking for fresh tracks, and when you find them you start following them at as brisk of a pace as you can.  Follow them not matter where they go.  Uphill.  Downhill.  Uphill again.  Into the swamp, and up the hill on the other side.  Each of us put in about 3-4 miles of hiking through the mountains each half of the day.  We each easily put in between 6-10 miles over the past two days.  Unfortunately, that wasn't enough.  It would be better if we could put in about 14 miles each day.  I think that's the goal for next year.  And don't forget, these aren't flat miles.  These are miles where you'll be going from about 1500 feet to over 3100 feet, up and down.  The deer's best defense is their ability to wear you out.

Event though we didn't come back with a monster buck, we have a plan for the next year.  We had the opportunity to hang out and work the woods as a team, and come back to the cabin to go over maps, aerial photos, and waypoints to pattern the movements of the deer we wanted to get.  And every time we got into those woods, the 11-pointer we were stalking was always a step ahead of us.  More on that later...

Here's a video of the last spot I was sitting in today.  Snow was coming down, air was mostly still, and the 11-pointer in those woods, had snuck past me an hour earlier.  I crossed his fresh tracks getting to this spot.  I was waiting for him to circle back and visit.  Not this year, maybe next.  I will be back.

 

 

Great pic!!Of Louis HH.Remember me!

Edited November 25, 2019 by hunterbob1

[Woodsman416]

What a great trip! Thanks for posting and letting us follow along!

[Njpddet]

It was fun following the hunt. Tanks.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Nomad]

You guys were into a lot of sign for the area.  Just takes a little luck to put one down sometimes in addition to all the work you did.   Will post a short thread on my trip to Maine, when I recover. lol  Definitely pays to work together as a team.    Nice trip.

[Haskell_Hunter]

7 hours ago, Nomad said:

You guys were into a lot of sign for the area.  Just takes a little luck to put one down sometimes in addition to all the work you did.   Will post a short thread on my trip to Maine, when I recover. lol  Definitely pays to work together as a team.    Nice trip.

Definitely want to hear some ME stories!  Share some photos if you have them!