Deer/Fall 2013

Over the past few years I have had a lot of action on my website during the fall because I have been pretty active in posting photos of what's happening with our deer season - trail cam photos and pictures of the deer that we've harvested.  I know that many of my friends love to check out what we're seeing and usually I'm proud of all the great deer that we have here in Sunset Country.  

This season has been different.  After a long, cold winter with a lot of snow our deer population this fall was really mediocre, probably below mediocre actually.  My clients had a really tough season and we struggled to connect with the big bucks that we've been fortunate to see over the past five or six years.  Here are a couple of the biggest deer that I had on camera, both really good ones that any hunter would love to have a chance at, but usually I have several in this caliber on the go.  To make matter worse, we were getting a lot more nocturnal action than normal this year, most likely because of the high wolf population in our region right now.  

It was still a fun season, full of plenty of adventure.  My buddy Sean McAughey and I spent quite a bit of time together scouting around for deer and had some good luck with ruffed grouse, probably my favourite thing on the planet to eat.  

Sean got one one day on a big walk we did and when we got back to my boat he noticed that it only had one leg, and a "stump" for the other...pretty interesting.  He was totally healthy otherwise.  

There are still plenty of deer around, but we did seem to lose some of our mature bucks last winter.  I think the wolves get a lot of them early in the winter, after they are worn out from the rut period.  We also had a very late winter, so it was not a great growing season for antlers.  I had several deer that were actually smaller than they were last year and some of my friends mentioned the same thing.  

This was a big rub near one of my baits, always nice to see these! 

Caught plenty of fish this fall as well - some bass, like this nice largemouth, walleyes and a few crappies.  I'm getting the ice fishing gear dug out now.  

The boat has been put away and another deer season is nearing its end.  At this point I'm not sure what my plan is going to be for deer hunting next year, as far as guiding.  Hopefully we'll have a good winter without to much snow and I think we'll be on the right track for the deer to make a comeback, but another bad winter will be devastating. 

You can view trail cam photos that I captured of some of the deer around my stands and blinds right here - http://www.gussyoutdoors.com/trail-cam-gallery/2013-deer-trail-cam/ 

Enjoy.