Planning Ahead for 2010 Hunting Season.

The end of deer season has passed us by now and I've started compiling a list of landowners to visit in Rutherford County, Tennessee where I used to hunt growing up. Using this list I hope to be able to secure at least a couple of farms this year to hunt on with a couple of my hunting buddies and my grandkids. Though it may take an entire weekend or more time to do this I believe it will increase my chances of once again taking whitetail deer. Many of the landowners that I know have either gotten older or passed away and the farms either sold or passed on to family members but none the less I've got to try something. I talked to an old friend who is more like a family member and he told me that he hadn't hunted the area in over 20 years now. He told me that most of it was either leased out now or that the landowners weren't letting anybody hunt any more. There is one farm that I ask him about and he told me that the owner was letting anybody that wanted to hunt hunt it. This farm was one of my first farms to hunt when I started hunting whitetails some 40+ years ago and was where I took my first whitetail. The good thing is that I know the farm well and the deer trails and bedding areas but the bad news is that there may be too much hunting pressure on the farmland and I may have to hunt the thick brushy woods that's hard to get to even during daylight hours. In any event I'll be checking for land to hunt come spring and will also be checking some management areas around home for the short time trips to hunt. Fishing season is also coming on me now to so I'll be posting on my other blogs a bit more too about that so check those sites if I'm not posting here. I've been on Facebook alot now making new friends all over the world and adding just about everyone that sends me a request and have found several of our Outdoor Blogger Summit bloggers there as well so look us up and have a good year this year everyone.

Closing the Seasons.

With deer hunting season coming to a close this year it's time to re-cap my adventures in the wild. In late summer I plowed and planted a small food plot then with the help of my grandkids and dad built a 2 man blind and watched the food plot grow. Fortunately approximately 2 weeks before bow season started the deer disappeared from my hunting area. I hunted from my blind, from my stands and even hunted by large trees throughout my hunting area but nothing, not a single deer was to be found. Muzzleloader season and special antlerless season came and went and still no deer. I scoured the woods on my hunting area for any signs of deer using the area but with no prevail. Rifle season then opened but by then I had already became so disguished with my hunting experience this year that I'd just about given up hunting for the year. All I could think about was the deer I'd seen last year and throughout the spring and summer months of this year and just knew they had to be somewhere in the area. Then 2 weeks before the end of rifle season came I finally got a break and found deer even though they were only does at least hope had come back that they would bring with them the bucks. January 2nd, 2010 I was able to go hunting with one of my grandkids ( Bobby Rubio )and we were in the woods watching a big bottom with 3 ridges coming into it. At 7:30 a.m. Bobby spotted 3 dogs in the bottom heading up one of the ridges. 5 minutes later the dogs struck a trail and began chasing deer through the woods. We both waited and watched the woods carefully for deer and had hopes of seeing a buck but everything was does, 5 to be exact. After about 30 minutes of the dogs chasing deer through the woods and barking loudly I decided we wouldn't see any more deer that morning so we headed home. January 3rd, 2010 I was to go hunting again with another of my grandkids ( Cody Botkins ) but when I got up and checked the weather report on the internet I found out the temperature was 9 degrees and a weather advisory issued for the area and decided we neither one of us needed to be out in that kind of weather so we opted to stay home in the warm house and Cody returned to bed to sleep in under the covers. Come spring I'll be out looking for new property to hunt and planting food plots all over again. Hopefully next years deer hunting will be a better year for me and my grandkids then this year was as it can't get any worst. Hope everyone had a better year then mine was.