I got out to the Gametamer fairly early
on Saturday afternoon, hoping to see an early feeding
buck. Referring back to the map on the main page,
which I'll also insert below, the Gametamer is situated
to the west of the Hi-Line road on the edge of a draw
that runs east-west through a "pasture" that
was cleared many years ago. The Gametamer is
denoted by the red "dot" along the edge of the
draw, and from it, I can see clearly for several hundred
yards to the south, east and west. It's a great
vantage point for early season scouting. In
addition, there are fresh rubs along the draw. The
lack of access roads makes the area a great place to sit
when there are other people at the ranch, like my Dad
and step-mom or brothers who like to drive around the
roads and look at deer.
There
is, um, should I say was, a feeder set up 30 yards west
of the treestand, that mainly in the past has served to
attract hogs. It doesn't look like it'll be
attracting anything now!
The
hogs obviously did a number on this feeder, as well as
several others on the ranch. I've decided, for
obvious reasons, that the best strategy is to simply
throw out corn in specific locations rather than waste
it on hogs! It was a couple of hours
before I spotted deer about 200 yards south of my
stand. I watched them browse for a while before I
spotted a small buck. Though the wind was blowing
pretty hard, I blew on my grunt trying to get his
attention. Finally, after a brief rest in the
wind, I managed to turn the buck and he headed my
way. I
saw a lot of deer activity during the afternoon.
Each of them came from the same area to the south and
west of my stand. In addition to the buck above, I
also managed to call in another eight point buck from
the same area. As he was coming in, a coyote
popped out from the direction the buck was headed, about
15 yards from my stand, and watched the approaching buck
before finally turning back and leaving. The
buck followed the path of the coyote and disappeared
behind him in the brush. Later,
a young buck appeared, seemingly from nowhere, as I
turned to see him feeding below me, less than 10 yards
from my stand. Well
concealed in my Brush Country Camouflage, neither of the
deer, nor the coyote, ever suspected that I was lurking
above, capturing their every move on film! I
was excited by the sheer number of deer that I had seen,
both on the roads as I drove in and from my stand, even
though I didn't see a true trophy class animal.
Although the bucks still showed some signs of rutting
behavior, they were beginning to group back together,
and were definitely enticed by the corn on the
ground. I returned to camp, and
asked Michaela if she was going to get up with me before
daylight on Sunday morning to sit with me in the I.C.E.
Blind. We were both excited about the prospect, so
much so that Michaela had trouble falling asleep!
How would I know that? Because I did too!
This was gonna be fun! Check back tomorrow to see
how we fared! |