I had a nice Saturday of hunting. After I bird hunted, I went to one of my suburban deer hunting spots on Saturday afternoon 1/8/2011. It was cold and snowy, and I saw nothing but a fox from 2:30 PM to about 5:00 PM. Around 5 PM, things got interesting.

As I was fighting the numbness in my toes by wiggling my feet back and forth from my deer stand, I noticed a deer coming toward me on a heavily used trail. I gently grabbed my bow off its tree hook, and patiently waited. It took about a minute for the deer to pass the stand, but she was followed by 4 more — all does.

All of the deer kept looking behind them, so I waited a minute or two more. Seeing no other deer coming, I picked out the biggest doe and drew my bowstring. I put the pin on the vitals, and released the string. The string caught the hand muff I had around my waist, and the arrow went off to the right, driving straight into the ground. The deer bolted about 10 yards away, but to my surprise, they came right back! That’s when I heard a grunt.

I looked towards the grunt, and I saw a big-bodied deer coming down the trail. I then realized the deer was a buck. He walked by me at a quartering away angle. I picked a spot where I could drive an arrow through the left back quarter in front of the back leg and up through the vitals. Aware of my hand muff this time, I let the arrow fly. I saw and heard the arrow hit, and I watched the buck run away.

I waited about 40 minutes before coming down from my stand to look for the deer. I found my first arrow, but didn’t find the second — and I found no blood. With the newly fallen snow, I was able to find the buck’s tracks. I noticed that the tracks showed at least one limping leg, so I followed those tracks in lieu of any blood. Within 60 yards of my stand, I found the buck on the ground. He was a smaller rack 7-pointer with 3 points on one side and 4 points on the other.

Knowing I put a good shot on the buck, I filmed my tracking him. The video is below. (The video is a bit dark since I filmed it with my iPhone and a flashlight.)

With so many things going on I have found little time to post actual hunting updates. I had some time off over the holidays, so I spent some time hunting in Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey. Here’s a quick recap.

Steven Kendus Bow Hunting Delaware 12/27/2010

12/18 New Jersey Snipe Hunt – I tried for some New Jersey snipe 12/18, although we were in the midst of a deep freeze on the east coast. During my two-hour hunt with my vizsla Gus, we got up two snipe. One was on the edge of an unfrozen stream, and one was hunkered down in the underbrush of a hedgerow. I manage to get some shots off at the second bird, but they were clean misses.

12/24 Delaware Woodcock Hunt – My friend Curt, my 11-year old daughter, and I hunted Delaware woodcocks on Christmas Eve morning. The ground was frozen solid, but we still found woodcocks. Curt and I each shot one, and my daughter got a shot off at one with her single-shot .410. At one point, Gus pointed three woodcocks sitting together. Two flushed at once, but only my daughter shot. As we commented on the double flush, the third one flushed, and none of us was ready to shoot!

12/27 Delaware Deer Hunt – We had a nice snow storm the day after Christmas, which left about 5 inches of snow at one of my suburban hunting spots. I braved 40 mph winds and 25-degree temperatures to get in a late afternoon bow hunt on 12/27. I saw a ton of tracks, but no deer.

12/28 Maryland Deer Hunt – I hunted in Maryland with my muzzleloader for about 3.5 hours on the afternoon of 12/28. I saw a ton of tracks, and even tried to follow some fresh ones. Unfortunately, the tracks all crossed onto the neighboring property, where don’t have permission to hunt. I heard some deer blow, but I saw none.

12/31 Delaware Deer Hunt – I went back to my suburban deer hunting spot on New Year’s Eve. Legal shooting time ended around 5:16 PM. Around 5:05, a fox walked passed me. I made a few calls to him, and he stopped. As I watched him, I noticed a lone deer coming toward me. As the light faded, I lost sight of the deer, but I could hear it moving. After shooting time ended, I began climbing down from my stand. The deer was about 10 yards behind me, hidden by a pine tree. It bolted away.

1/1 Delaware Deer Hunt – Well, if I wanted to shoot geese with my bow, I could have done so easily. I went to a suburban spot for some bow hunting, and there were about 150 Canada geese all over. I was able to creep into shooting range of a few, but I opted not to shoot since I didn’t want to spook any deer that could be around. As I walked toward my stand, I saw a deer jump up about 80 yards away and bolt. Again, I waited until the last minutes of shooting time. As I turned to grab my bow off the tree hook, I saw a buck standing 50 yards behind me. 9 times out of 10, the deer approach from the exact opposite angle. This one caught me off guard. I waited to see what he would do. He continued walking another 10 yards, until he got got right into the wind that was apparently blowing my scent right to him. He stopped, turned, and silently trotted away. The was the second close call in as many days.

Delaware Doe with a bow on opening day of shotgun season

Yesterday, November 12, 2010, was the opening day of Delaware’s shotgun deer season, where hunters can harvest does or bucks. I met a friend at 5:00 AM to deer hunt with our shotguns. We arrived at our hunting spot with high hopes, but neither of us saw a deer. I heard one shot nearby around 6:20 AM, but not many more until around 8:30 AM, when I heard a few more. I left the woods around 9:15 AM.

Not wanting to waste a day off, I drove home to switch guns, gear, and clothing, and to grab my dog Gus. My dog and I headed to New Jersey to try for some woodcocks around noon. Traditionally I haven’t had any difficult finding woodcocks in the afternoon. Yesterday was a different story. I went to my favorite woodcock spot, and Gus pointed or flushed no woodcocks. The leaves and ground were extremely dry, so I think after the moist dew evaporated in the late morning, the woodcocks moved to wetter ground. However, there were a lot of rabbits moving about in the afternoon sun. Gus pointed and flushed one rabbit, which I bagged.

Remembering that New Jersey stocks pheasants in some closeby locales, I opted to change tactics and pursue pheasants. I drove to a public hunting spot where pheasants are stocked, but we found none. (Interestingly, Gus did get a bird up on the edge of the pheasant field. I couldn’t tell if it was a woodcock or snipe. I managed to get one shot off, but we came up empty.)

The 62-degree heat was a little much for Gus and I, so drove home. I again changed guns, gear, and clothing and grabbed my bow. I went to a private bowhunting spot, hoping the public land gun hunters would push some deer to my spot. As I walked in to my stand around 3:30 PM, I saw two deer jump up and run. I blew my grunt call, and they stopped. Rather than running, they then just gently walked away.

I climbed into my stand and saw no other deer until around 5:00 PM. A single doe was feeding about 70 yards from me, slowly making her way toward my stand. After about 10 minutes of watching her, she came into range. As she put her head down, I drew my bowstring, picked a spot, and let the arrow fly. The arrow hit a good spot. She jumped up, ran a few yards, and fell.

My plan was to hunt this morning, but I needed some extra sleep! I will butcher the doe now, then head to the woods later.

Here is my Delaware hunting column from Thursday’s edition of The News Journal.

The allure of modern technology is sometimes too much to ignore when I’m sitting in a deer stand with little more to do than count falling leaves. I really tried to maintain focus during a recent deer hunt, but the familiar buzz of my iPhone provided me with a needed diversion.

The fully charged phone, set to vibrate mode, nearly shook me out of my tree. Hours of solitude and background noise provided by crickets, blackbirds and far-off geese lulled me into a heavy-eyed stupor that would normally have ended with the sound of a deer’s footsteps or a forceful forward head nod reminding me that sleeping in a tree is way too uncomfortable. This time, the vibrating phone in my right side pocket jolted me back to a heart-pumping reality.

Wearing a full-body harness over my multi-pocketed cargo pants and thick fleece camouflage shirt, I encountered some difficulty in getting to my buzzing phone. Since I loaded my pockets before I put the harness on, I didn’t realize that one of the harness’ leg straps was covering the pocket the phone was in, and making matters worse, the phone was at the bottom of the pocket (which also contained a grunt call, flashlight, and two bottles of deer scent).

As the phone buzzed, I awkwardly thrust my hand into the pocket with total disregard for the two uncapped spray bottles of deer urine that just happened to be situated in upright positions. It seemed like the double-pump of deer urine mainly saturated my glove, but unfortunately the hand inside that glove was now wrapped around my still-buzzing phone.

Grasping the phone with just my middle finger and thumb, I was mere inches away from answering the call. Pulling the phone out of the pocket, my bow trigger release briefly caught on the harness strap. The slight tug and break in my upward momentum was just enough to cause me to lose my grip on the phone, and I subsequently watched it tumble 20 feet to the leaf-littered ground below.

With about 45 minutes of prime hunting time left, my mind was torn between leaving the phone on the ground or climbing down to get it. Never one to back away from a challenge, I decided to climb down. After all, I could be down the tree steps and back up within a minute or two. What could happen?

Leaving my bow and backpack on their hangers at the top of the stand, I scampered down to retrieve my fallen phone. I picked up the face-down phone with my dry hand and flipped it over to see who called me at such an inopportune time. After several unsuccessful and frustrating attempts at unlocking the phone by sliding my gloved thumb over the touch screen, I knelt down, removed my glove, and swiped my index finger over the screen.

Then I heard a twig snap.

I quickly turned my head and saw a buck 15 yards from me. Instinctively, I reached to the ground for my bow. I reached again. Then reality kicked me in the gut and reminded me that my bow was still up in the tree. The buck saw me at the same time I saw him, and all we could do was stare at each other. Somehow knowing he was safe, he chewed a leaf, shook his head a bit, and silently walked away.

I did finally check the phone.

You would think telemarketers for a deer hunting magazine would know not to call during the late afternoon hours of deer hunting season.

Ready for opening day

For those of you who follow my Delaware deer hunts on Facebook and/or Twitter, you didn’t miss much today.

I braved the 93-degree heat and headed to one of my suburban hunting spot after work today. Seriously, I have seen deer at this spot every time I went to check over the past month. Today, I saw nothing.

Because of the extreme heat, I honestly didn’t expect to see much. I am sure the deer were bedded down in the shade and were waiting for the sun to go down before they moved to feed. I will try again later this week.

On another note, I leave for a Maine black bear hunt this Sunday. I will try to post updates on this blog, as well as my Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Delaware Archery Deer Season Opens September 1

Here is my article that appeared in The News Journal on 8/5/2010.

When the Delaware deer hunting season ends each January, I try to keep my mind somewhat focused on hunting by creating a list of hunting-related chores that I promise to complete before the next season begins.

Somehow — year after year — many of those promises go unfulfilled.

This year is no different. Sept. 1 marks the opening of mourning dove, resident Canada geese and archery deer seasons. Rather than counting the days to opening day like a school kid counts down to summer vacation, I find myself trying to add days to the calendar.

I want to shoot my bow more, because after all, practice makes perfect. Sounds hokey, but it’s true. I put on an old pair of eyeglasses this week (since my everyday pair was lost when I was buying salt licks for my deer hunting spots) and began practicing with my bow. Something about the glasses was causing me to shoot high. To make sure my bow sights weren’t off, I switched to a newer pair of prescription sunglasses. I shot perfectly with them. I am now scrambling to get a new pair of glasses and practice with them before archery seasons opens.

There’s nothing like waiting ’til the last minute.

Likewise, I really need to scout some more deer hunting spots and hang some more tree stands. I joined a new hunting club in June. I am embarrassed to say, I have spent less than an hour familiarizing myself with the property, and I have placed a whopping total of zero deer stands. I really don’t want to get lost walking through unfamiliar woods at 5 a.m., and I would rather hunt from a tree somewhere above the early season vegetation and bugs. However, with only several weeks to go before opening day, I am asking myself where the summer went. As one who frequently discusses the benefits of scouting and choosing hunting locations wisely, I have been lax in my preparation.

It gets worse.

In my June column, I talked about the importance of realistic-looking decoys, and I went so far as to write, “Upgrading my decoy stock is now on my summer agenda.”

After my experience with the bald eagle attacking my turkey decoy, I vowed to get new goose decoys before Sept. 1, and I am considering purchasing new duck decoys and maybe even a deer decoy. Well, guess what? Not only have I not even purchased a single decoy, I haven’t even started researching decoys yet.

I really need to get on the ball.

While many of you are snickering and asking how I procrastinated on completing my list of offseason chores, I know some of you are thanking me for reminding you of the uncompleted items on your list. It’s OK. We still have nearly four weeks to get our acts together.

If there is no way to finish up before opening day, there is a fallback plan. We can complete our chores on Sundays during the hunting season (unless Delaware finally drops one of its last blue laws and joins the other 40-plus states that allow Sunday hunting).

First State Hunters and Shooters – I received this notification in my inbox today. This sounds pretty cool! We need some Delaware representation! Good luck! — SMK

History Channel is now casting for season 2 of its hit new show “Top Shot”!  We are looking for excellent marksmen of any skill level ready to take on the best in a multitude of historical, physical, and unusual challenges.  Contestants have the chance to win $100,000 in prizes as well as test their skills agains the best marksmen in world.

If you are skilled with a pistol, rifle or any other firearm, you could win $100,000 in prizes on season 2 of History Channel’s hit competition show TOP SHOT. Producers are looking for anyone with mind-blowing shooting skills and a big personality to take on exciting physical challenges with multiple guns and mystery projectile weapons.

Today the Delaware Division of Fish and Wildlife announced new hunting regulations, including:

• a new crossbow season
• a statewide red fox season
• the use of pellet guns for squirrel hunting
• new requirements for displaying hunting licenses
• archery safety zone restrictions
• the requirement for hunters and trappers who are exempt from licensing due to age or property ownership to obtain a Hunter and Trapper Identification Number

Starting this fall, crossbows may be used by all hunters during a general crossbow season that runs from Sept. 1, 2010 through Jan. 31, 2011. During any overlap with a deer gun season, crossbow hunters must wear 400 square inches of hunter orange as do gun hunters.

A new statewide red fox hunting season runs from Nov. 1, 2010 through Feb. 28, 2011.

Hunters can us .17- through .22-caliber pellet guns for hunting squirrels in Delaware. These guns must have rifled barrels.

Hunting licenses no longer have to be displayed on a hunter’s back tag. However, they must be carried while hunting.

The safety zone for hunting with vertical bows and  crossbows has been reduced to 50 yards. Gun hunting safety zones were not changed.

Hhunters and trappers who are exempt from licensing due to age or property ownership will be required to obtain a Hunter and Trapper Identification Number. Like a license, this number must be carried by the hunter or trapper when they are in the field. To obtain this number, hunters can call 877-939-3678 toll-free or visit www.dehip.com. According to Wildlife Program Manager Rob Hossler, “The information generated by this system will allow the Division to know the total number of hunters and trappers in the State and provide a way for these sportsmen and sportswomen to be included in game harvest and hunter opinion surveys.”

For more information on hunting season changes, see http://www.fw.delaware.gov/Hunting/Pages/Wildlife.aspx and  http://regulations.delaware.gov/register/july2010/final/index.shtml#TopOfPage.