First Legit Sit

Finally got out for a legitimate "sit" Sunday night. I DID go almost ceremoniously on opening morning and sat in a blind for a couple hours. There is so much cover in the woods that I just wanted to be on a field edge where I could see a little bit.

I setup on the south side of an alfalfa field that, though only 150 yards off a gravel county road, is very secluded. You have a climb a hill and get 15 feet off the ground to even get a look at it. This is the field right in the center of the aerial photo below. The field to the west is corn and the field south of the gravel is beans. They travel from the river to the south and up into this field to feed in the evenings. Looking at the photo, there is not much cover, but the elevation change is significant enough that the deer can travel in relative seclusion. I knew that it was more of a scouting trip than anything as I just wanted to watch that field and see where the deer were coming into it. I have seen a couple good bucks in this area through the late summer. Both of those buck I thought were in the 145-150" range and I have seen them in the last couple weeks after shedding velvet.

I was facing north 30 yards off the alfalfa with a ladder stand in a big oak tree. Had a southwest breeze which was not ideal going in, but worked out in the end. 13 does and fawns came into the field from the west and slowly meandered down the field and were only about 40 yards away by dark. There was one more deer that came out really late, but the edge of the field where they were entering was about 125 yards to my west. Likely a decent buck, but we'll have to keep watching again.

Though there are not lots of trees, there are some good oaks and I am going to move that stand more into the southwest corner of that field where the deer are entering. There is a large cornfield off the west end where they are coming in from. I had a big owl come and land on a branch close to me which was very cool. You could clearly see the yellow in it's eyes. That alone made the night a winner. It was a great night at the end of an 80 degree day.

Here are a couple trail cam photos from preseason.
One on the edge of a small CRP field and another from a
river crossing on the Little Cannon River(post later).