For months, Brett and I have been talking about areas we wanted to scout for deer season. Scouring Google Earth, discussing our old haunts, and planning for the upcoming season have all been part of our weekly routine. Whether we draw the tags we want or not, we wanted to be prepared. The first step in locating a good deer spot is finding the deer. You can glass for hours, days, weeks (I am exaggerating), or you can do what we did; set out our trail cameras and let them do the work for us.
Much of the ‘leg’ work had to be done by us. We have been hitting the trails pretty hard preparing for hunting this year and knew that last Saturday was going to be a quad burner. I had found a spot a few months back that I really wanted to explore. I mean REALLY explore. It look so promising that I looked at it from 360 degrees on GE. In our research, we had found a trail that we could hike and get most of the way there. It was miles in and mostly uphill, but did that spot us? Heck no! It was a challenge that we met with gusto. We loaded up bright and early and set off on the trail. We anticipated it would take us quite a long time to get to the location, but it turns out that hiking with 90# on your back once or twice a week helps build strong leg muscles and strong lungs. We made it in half the time!
We spent a few minutes trying to find a way through the brush and into a decent spot to set our cameras. After some back and forth chatter, we cleared some dead brush and found our first camera spot. It looked great to us, and with a few deer tracks on the ground we hoped for the best.
Opting to go a bit deeper into the area, I set off on my own while Brett finished up. It wasn’t long before I was back to meet Brett and I had a huge grin on my face. I had discovered another spot where I could set up my cameras. More dead brush was cleared and my two cameras we set. Patience with trail cameras is tough, but we would have to wait, and it was going to be quite a hike getting back to these in a month or so with temps being in the triple digits.
We could not contain our excitement on the hike out. Talk of bucks, does, mountain lions, and bowhunting were constantly escaping our lips. We even found a really old forkie shed and that offered promise!
The hike out took even less time and back at the truck we had some ice cold water and snacks waiting. Once we sat down it was all over. While we were in much better shape than last year, we had done some serious work that morning and our legs were tired. Many miles were hiked and it was tough, but incredibly fun! Now we just have to wait!
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