I just got home from a bowhunting trip in central Ohio with my friend Bill Pyles of Ohio Bowhunting Outfitters. Bill’s operation is based in Knox and Licking Counties, a part of the state known for lots of big bucks. He’d been sending trailcam pictures of some of those giants, and I was looking forward to a great hunt.
When we go there everything looked good. Each of Bill’s hunters the week before had taken nice bucks, the fall colors were in full swing and the first morning of our hunt was a very chilly 28 degrees.
As we headed out to my favorite property, one called the “Hammock Farm”, I was optimistic for a close encounter with a nice buck. Our stand was near the top of an oak ridge overlooking a standing corn field and thick bedding area. It was a spot where I’d seen big bucks before and hunters in past years had taken several trophy animals.
Surprisingly, the morning was pretty slow, we saw a few does with fawns and one year and a half old four point. At the time I had no idea how significant that buck would be.
The evening hunt from that same stand wasn’t much better so the following day we jumped to a new farm…this one called “The Thicket”. The Thicket was also known for big bucks, in fact I have video of Jim Barta of The Hunter Safety System missing a 160 inch ten point there a couple years ago.
About the same time we jumped farms, the temperature started to jump up and we had several days of seventy degree weather. That, combined with lots of standing corn for the deer to hide in, made for a very tough hunt.
We tried a couple of stand locations on the Thicket farm over the next few days, but again we only saw does and fawns. On our last two hunts there we didn’t see anything at all.
The lack of deer movement was very surprising…almost to the point of being surreal. I knew there were big bucks on that property and I knew Bill had several very nice stand locations set. In fact, our second stand on the Thicket was one of the most promising locations I’ve ever hunted. It was in a tree line sandwiched between standing corn, a food plot, an orchard and a bedding area. Even so, our efforts turned up nothing more than a couple of does and fawns.
Finally, we had a cold front come through, and I was hopeful the change in weather would ramp up buck activity. Our last night in Ohio we set up on an oak ridge between two bedding areas. Bill had seen lots of activity on that hilltop in previous seasons and I still had hope it would produce a shooter buck for us.
After several hours of scanning the timber and looking for any kind of movement, we saw nothing…again.
By then I was out of time and had to come home. In six days of hunting, and almost forty hours in a stand on three different farms, I never saw a mature buck. In fact, the only racked buck I saw was the little four point on the first day.
I never dreamed this hunt would be so slow. Unfortunately, I think the warm temperatures had a lot to do with the lack of movement and I’m sure lots of animals are hiding in all that standing corn.
The good news is temperatures are dropping now in Ohio, farmers are starting to take down the corn and the rut is just around the corner. That’s great news for Bill’s hunters over the next couple of weeks.
It’s also good news for me. Bill Pyles has invited me back in a couple of weeks if I can fit another trip in my schedule. By then those bucks will have no excuses to disappear on me again.