The Delaware hunting seasons are almost over. As usual, I have been trying to cram in as many hunts as possible (which leaves me little time to post hunt updates). Here’s a chance to catch up. Details of my past 4 weeks of hunts are listed below.

12/28/2011 – Duck hunted a private pond with no success. As soon as I walked into the pond before dawn, about 25 ducks flew out — all before shooting time. None came back. I tried the pond again in the evening and saw nothing. As an added bonus, I stepped in the deepest hole while walking out and flooded my waders.

12/30/2011 – Had a great pheasant hunt at Meadowview Preserve in New Jersey. Two neighbors, one of my daughters, my vizsla Gus, and I went on a stocked pheasant hunt in 60-degree weather. Weird weather for the end of December, but we had a nice hunt. We harvested 12 of the 16 stocked pheasants.

Great Pheasant Hunt at New Jersey's Meadowview Preserve

12/31/3011 – Curt Barkus, Gabriella, and I went on our last Delaware woodcock hunt of the season. What a great day it was! Gus pointed 3 woodcocks, and we harvested two. What’s more, Gabriella harvested her first woodcock — ever! Beautiful!

Steven and Gabriella Kendus with Gabriella's First Delaware Woodcock

1/7/2012 – I had the privilege of covering a 4-H Shooting Sports youth hunt. Literally, I saw about 100 deer. I will provide details in an upcoming post.

1/14/2012 – Since the Maryland woodcock season is still open, I purchased a Maryland license and hunted woodcocks with Curt Barkus. Within one hour of our bitter cold morning hunt, Gus got Curt his limit of 3 birds. We pushed on for 3 more hours, and I harvest one woodcock.

Curt Barkus with his first woodcock of the 2011-2012 season

1/16/2012  – Paul Quigley, Curt Barkus, and I hunted woodcocks in Maryland. It was even more cold than the previous hunt. We hunted hard and Got Paul his first two woodcocks in several years.

Paul Quigley and Steven M. Kendus with Quigley's First Woodcock of the 2011-2012 Season

1/21/2012 – Hunted deer in a snow, sleet, and freezing rain storm. I braved the elements for a morning hunt. While I could take the weather, my bow couldn’t. Ice from the freezing rain encased my bow, quiver, and arrows, so I left the woods by 8:30 AM.

Gus pointed and retrieved 36 birds on a stocked pheasant and chukar hunt

I know many of you count on reading my hunting updates to give you ideas of how things are going in the Delaware woods, fields, and waterways, but I also record my hunts on HuntingTheFirstState.com so I have a record to refer back to in future seasons. As usual at this time of year, I forget to record info about my hunts on this site.

However, I make sure I jot down hunting notes on scraps of paper and post them around my office so I can record them later. Here are my quick notes about my various woodcock, pheasant, duck, and deer hunts over the past several weeks.

11/17 New Jersey Woodcock and Snipe Hunt – I headed to New Jersey public land with my vizsla Gus to hunt woodcocks and snipes before work. Gus pointed and flushed several woodcock in one public hunting field, but I just couldn’t get shots through the thick brush. I then went to another public location that typically holds snipes. Gus and I found no snipes, but I somehow managed to lose the controller to Gus’ e-collar from my lanyard. I spent 40 minutes walking the field until I found it.

11/19 New Jersey Woodcock Hunt – I hunted woodcock on New Jersey public ground with daughter, my friend John, and his son. Gus pointed about 7 birds. John shot 2, and I shot 1. Again the cover was so thick in areas that we couldn’t get good shots.

11/21 Delaware Duck Hunt – I hunted a private Delaware pond with my friend Bill on Monday 11/21. The fog was extremely dense around first light, so we couldn’t see birds, and I am sure they couldn’t see our pond, let alone our decoys. We heard some shooting, and after about 90 minutes, a pair of wood ducks buzzed our blind. They flew over our heads, and we lost sight of them. About 20 seconds later, the two wood ducks dropped in from my left on the edge of the wood line. I fired at the lead duck, and ended up dropping both with one shot. Not wanting to push my luck, I packed up and headed to work.

11/24 Delaware Deer Hunt – I bowhunted deer on Thanksgiving morning in North Wilmington and saw nothing.

11/25 Delaware Woodcock Hunt – I brought my neighbor’s 22-year old son Sean on his first woodcock on Friday 11/25. Gus pointed several birds, and Sean got a couple shots that were close misses. I bagged one woodcock.

11/25 Delaware Deer Hunt – I hunted deer with my bow in North Wilmington. Saw nothing but 2 red foxes.

11/26 Stocked Pheasant and Chukar Hunt (with bonus woodcock) – My daughter, six others, and I hunted stocked pheasant and chukars over Gus. Gus had his best day of all time. He pointed and retrieved 36 birds (yes, 36), and got every hunter a limit. After the stocked bird hunt, my daughter, my friend Bill, Bill’s son, and I drove to a Delaware public hunting spot for a quick woodcock hunt. I arrived later in the day than normal, and the birds moved to the edge of the woods and into think briars. Gus pointed two woodcocks, and we harvested one.

11/26 Delaware Deer Hunt – Went to Greenville with the bow. Six does came into the meadow about 10 minutes before the end of shooting time, but none came closer than 100 yards.

New Jersey opening day of woodcock from Steven M. Kendus.

It is officially my favorite time of year. The deer rut is on, and woodcock season is open locally.

Opening day of New Jersey’s small game season was yesterday, November 12. While many hunters chose to hunt deer, I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to bring my vizsla Gus out for his first woodcock hunt of the season. I arrived at my New Jersey public land woodcock hunting spot around 8:15 AM, and by 8:25, Gus was locked up on a woodcock. With one shot, Gus and I had our first bird of the season. The cover was unbelievably thick, so while Gus was pointing birds, I just couldn’t get to them before the birds flew. Or, they would fly low, giving me no good shot through the thick brush. After about 8 points from Gus, I managed to harvest my limit of three woodcocks. Check out the photo.

After my harvest my woodcock limit, I switched to steel shot and tried my luck for snipe at another spot. The field where I normally find snipe was bone dry, so it didn’t produce any.

I arrived home in Delaware around 1 PM and hit the deer woods by 2:30 PM. I made a mock scrape several days ago, and I placed a tarsal gland in a bush. By 4:45 PM, I noticed a buck walking toward me. At first glance, I figured he was a basket rack 8-pointer. Being early in the season, he was a borderline shooter for me, but I clipped my release onto my bowstring just in case. (I was hunting with my bow, even though the Delaware shotgun season is open.) The buck was sticking his nose to the sky smelling the tarsal scent, and he began walking right to me. He stopped to lick several branches on the way, and he gave me a perfect view of him. His right antler was broken off near the base.

Not wanting to shoot this buck (he would have been small even with both antlers), I gave him a pass at 20 yards, 10 yards, and 5 yards. He never knew I was in my stand, so that was a benefit. I figure he lost that antler in a fight with a bigger buck, so I will try that spot again soon.

*** UPDATE – 11/13 ***

Damn. I was out checking a trail camera today, stepped awkwardly on a pine cone, and rolled my ankle. I have a tennis ball size knot on my ankle that I have been icing for four hours. What a time for this to happen! I will continue to ice and hope for the best!

With so many things going on in everyday life, I sometimes overlook posting my hunting updates to HuntingTheFirstState.com. I haven’t hunted as much as I would have liked, but I do have some interesting updates. See below.

Duck Hunt – 10/28 – My friend Dave and I hunted ducks this morning on a nice little pond near the Delaware River. Today was a ‘blue bird’ day, but since it was sandwiched between moderate rain yesterday and a nor’easter tomorrow, we tried our luck. We finished setting out the decoys around 6AM, and waited until shooting time around 7AM. I figured ducks would fly early, and they did. Within minutes of legal shooting time, hunters were shooting all around us. We had some shots at few ducks, but we left empty handed around 8:30 AM (since I had to work).

Duck Hunt – 10/24 – Dave and I hunted another pond near the Delaware River. We bagged a mallard and a wood duck before calling it quits around 8:30 AM.

Duck Hunt – 10/22 – Afternoon – I tried a little duck hunting spot in southern New Castle County and had shots at a pair of wood ducks. I bagged the beautiful drake pictured below.

Delaware Wood Duck 2011

Deer Hunt – 10/22 – Morning -  I took one of my daughters deer hunting in the morning. We thought we had a good chance at a deer until all hell broke loose at first light. Today was the opening Saturday of the first Delaware duck season split. It sounded like a war zone. After 2 hours, we left the deer stand. My daughter opted to hunt squirrels instead. She shot one gray squirrel.

Deer Hunt – 10/15 – Afternoon – I was running late and arrived at my Delaware muzzleloader hunting spot at 5:30 PM. I quickly changed and entered the woods at 5:40 PM. As I walked to my stand, 3 does walked across the path in front of me. I dropped one with my Thompson Center Encore at 5:50. Sometimes things just work out! I was thankful for the nice doe for the freezer.

Deer Hunt – 10/15 – Morning – I went to a bowhunting spot before first light. I hunted for an hour and had one little doe behind me. A construction crew showed up near by, so the noise ended my hunt.

Here’s another video of the fawn that walked up to me while bowhunting in Delaware on Saturday 9/10. Cool stuff!

I was in the Delaware deer woods by 5:15 AM today, and I was glad I opted for an early hunt. While I didn’t harvest a deer, I had multiple opportunities.

I jumped a small buck and a couple mature does as the sun was coming up, but I had no shot with my bow. I set up on the ground and noticed a fawn walking to me. My bright green camo worked superbly, and the fawn never saw me. It ended up bedding down directly behind me.

About 30 minutes later, two more fawns walked right to me. Seriously, one came within 5 yards of me. It never saw me until I reached for my iPhone. Check out the video.

I just pulled my memory card from one of my suburban game cameras near Middletown, Delaware. Out of 22 photos, only two of them showed deer near my stand during legal hunting hours.

This big boy came through around 2:30 AM.

Hunting The First State Suburban Buck on Game Camera

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According to the DNREC Division of Fish and Wildlife, Delaware hunters harvested 14,183 deer during the 2010-11 season. The total harvest was more than 14 percent higher than the 2009-10 season and ranks as the third highest harvest all time. Good hunting weather during the October muzzleloader and November shotgun seasons contributed to the high harvest numbers.

“Unlike last season, we did not experience any major negative weather events during any of our productive deer seasons, which resulted in an overall increase in the harvest this past season,” said Joe Rogerson, deer and furbearer biologist with the DNREC Division of Fish and Wildlife.  “The seasons impacted by weather during the 2009-10 season were the October muzzleloader and November shotgun seasons and the harvest this past year was up considerably during these two seasons but relatively stable during the other seasons.  This clearly shows that the nor’easters were a primary cause of the harvest decline during the 2009-10 season.”

Of the total harvest, 28.1 percent were antlered deer and 71.8 percent were antlerless. Fifty-three and half percent were female deer and 46.5 percent were males.

2010-11 marked the first time that hunters could use crossbows to harvest deer from Sept. 1, 2010 through Jan. 31, 2011 within the newly created crossbow season.

“Although the season was new, Delaware hunters still managed to harvest 398 deer during the crossbow season, compared to 1,400 during the traditional archery season,” said Rogerson. “When the harvest from the two seasons was combined, 1,798 deer were harvested which ranks as the all-time highest harvest for archery equipment, 116 more deer compared to the previous high of 1,682 deer taken during the 2008-09 archery season.”

My column from Thursday’s News Journal.

Last weekend marked the first time I could see my entire lawn since Christmas, and the melted snow and warmer temperatures prompted me to grab my bow and shoot a few arrows in the backyard. I shot well, but the rattling of my quiver and the faded pins reminded me that I want to make a few adjustments to my bow.

Rather than storing my compound bow until August when the bow tune up rush begins, I decided I will make the necessary adjustments now and practice with the modified bow all spring and summer. I suggest that those of you who hunt with compound bows or crossbows do the same because if you’re like me, you know that your bow has an uncanny ability to find its way to the basement rafters until late summer.

Don’t just take my word for it. John Massey, owner, bow technician, and archery instructor for Shooters Supply in New Castle, says now is the time to tinker with your bow and practice your shooting. “Bow season just ended, so bowhunters should be aware of any adjustments they need to make to their bows,” says Massey. “Moving sight pins, changing draw weights, and adding new accessories should all be done as soon as possible so shooters have enough time to adapt and practice. Far too often I have hunters adjust their bows at the last minute, and their lack of practice causes them to be unprepared when deer walk by.”

Spring turkey hunting is another reason to tune up your bow now. I know that turkey hunting is hard enough with a gun, but for the gluttons for punishment among us, using a bow to harvest a wild turkey is a feat worth bragging about. Delaware wild turkey season begins April 9 (youth season begins April 2), so you only have a month or so to get your bow in top shape. Wild turkeys are large birds, but proper shot placement with an arrow leaves little rooms for error. Your bow must be sighted in properly, which means you should change your sights and pins soon, if necessary. Likewise, to increase your chances of harvesting a wild turkey with a bow, your bow should be entirely camouflaged and as quiet as possible.

A tuned up bow with all the bells and whistles is only as good as its shooter. Therefore, offseason archery practice should begin now (if you haven’t started already). Practice can be as simple as shooting a few arrows a day several times a week in your backyard, or it can be more formal. If you choose to shoot in your yard, several variations of archery targets can be purchased from local hunting and sporting goods stores. I like to shoot at foam block-style targets until I get my pins sighted in, then I progress to 3-dimensional deer, turkey, and varmint targets to help me visualize proper shot placement on game.

If you have access to no property suitable for shooting your bow, several archery shops offer indoor and/or outdoor shooting ranges. For a more realistic approach to practice, Shooters Supply offers a non-traditional archery range called TechnoHunt that provides bowhunters with virtual reality hunting situations displayed on the arrow backstop. According to John Massey, “TechnoHunt allows hunters and target archery shooters to practice real-world scenarios in a controlled environment. Instead of just shooting at stationary targets, the TechnoHunt video targets look like real animals and move like real animals, which makes for better practice.”