You know hunting season is getting close around my house when the little orange dots disappear from my GlenDel Full Rut target. I spend the summer months shooting at the little target dots to hone my accuracy, but when it comes to the last few days before opening day, the dots come off and I focus on the vitals.

Another thing I do is shoot just one arrow, then walk to the target to retrieve it. This way I focus on the accuracy of each and every shot, without standing there shooting arrow after arrow, and possibly picking up bad habits. Shooting this time of year is more about quality than quantity. Most of my shots are from 30 yards or further, but my final shot is always no more than 20 yards. I always like to end with confidence, and that 20 yard shot after a bunch of shots beyond 30 is a sure thing. The bottom line is, when it comes to the moment of truth, I want the shot to seem easy, and be as automatic as possible. If you have a Pope and Young quality buck bearing down on you and you have doubt in your mind as to whether or not you can make the shot, you’re in big trouble. You put a lot of time and effort into putting yourself into position for a shot, so you need to do everything you can to make sure you deliver in crunch time.

Things are starting to happen in the deer woods. My cameras and some fresh scrapes indicated that deer activity is rising, and licking branch activity is on the rise. This doe is working a licking branch and scrape that opens up about this time every year. It has been in this location for at least the last five years.

I found a couple of fresh scrapes this evening when checking my cameras. There is no doubt that they were made within the last 24 hours. Here’s a little hint for you. When you find a pre-season scrape, count ahead about 30 days and try to get into the woods on that day. You just might catch that one or two-day “mini rut” window. This has worked for me in the past, and unless you think I’m completely nuts, you might just want to give it a try yourself.

This borderline shooter seems to hang out in all of the same places that my 2008 buck did. It's amazing how there is always a new buck to take the place of one that gets harvested. I would likely let this buck pass since he appears to be only 2 1/2 years old. If he makes it through, he'll be a dandy next season.

Just a few things on my mind this morning that I thought I’d share as I sit down to my Saturday morning cup of coffee. First I’ll just mention that I’m a bit tired from being out at a football game last night. There’s always a conflict for me in the fall between high school and college football, and archery season. Somehow I always manage to squeeze it all in, but it certainly wears on me. My alma matter has a really good team this year, so it looks like long Friday nights on bleachers leading to tired Saturday mornings on stand this year.

Since I had to travel to Harrisburg this week for an early meeting, I was able to pin down when I need to be on stand next Saturday for the opener. It looks like if I’m settled in by 6:30, I’ll be fine as shooting light doesn’t come along until almost 7:30.  I’m not one of those guys that believes going into your stand hours before daylight does much good, so I’ll take the extra hour of sleep. Heck, as I look out the window now at 7:33 I’d say there still isn’t quite enough shooting light, especially in the woods.

The leaves seem to be turning a bit early this year in the north east. We have quite a bit of reds, organges, and yellows already in Pennsylvania, and with high temperatures only reaching the low 60s today, it’s going to really start to feel and smell like archery season. My wife even mentioned last night at the game that it was the first time you could really smell autumn in the air. I’m sure I’ll notice it again this morning as I try to beat the rain and retrieve the memory cards from my cameras.

I’ve been shooting the lights out again now that I have my bow back in shape. I did have to make a slight adjustment yesterday afternoon after putting in my Tracer nocks made by Easton. They perform SO much better than Illuminocks! I tried Illuminocks last year and proceeded to break two of them before I even got to the woods. The Easton Tracers work a little differently, and you don’t have to “wiggle” them to turn them off. The only concern I have is the magnet that you attach to your bow, which triggers the nock. I know how hard I am on my equipment, and I worry that I’ll lose it somewhere in the woods on may way to or from my stand. We’ll see how it goes.

Today’s tasks include checking cameras, getting my early-season camo ready, and getting all of my accessories organized. Everything is in one place, but it’s time to fill my field bag with everything I’ll need to start the season. I imagine I’ll get a little shooting in as well as I try to shoot every day leading up to the season. It’s hard to believe that one week from today I’ll be back in a tree. I can’t wait!

Just watched Whitetail Properties and saw one of the guys I took the Deer Steward I course with. Wes McConnell is the producer of the show and he got to hunt this time around. He took a decent 10 point in Illinois on one of their properties. Just figured it was worth mentioning.

Thanks to the guys at Ultimate Outdoors, the bow is back in time. They did it for…get this…FREE! You can bet I’ll be buying something there soon. After a little tweaking by Art Grguric at Full Draw Archery (also free), I’m driving tacks again. Now let’s see if I can remember to fully nock the arrow this time!

Okay, I’m beat. Off to bed.

I've been following this massive buck since late July. This was the first photo of him out of velvet.

Okay…now that I’ve got just about everything behind me (baseball season, vacation, QDM certification, etc.), I think I’m ready to fully focus on adding another trophy to the wall. I took some steps toward getting ready for the season this evening as soon as I got back from Erie. The first thing I did was collect the memory cards from my cameras. It was a somewhat productive trip as I got some pretty good buck photos. Unfortunately I’m only running three cameras at the moment due to retiring one, and technical difficulties with another. Add to that the fact that I forgot to turn one of the three on before I left and you end up with a frustrated hunter.

One of pictures that made me feel a bit better is of the buck above that I’m going to name “Basket Bob” for his giant basket rack. I first met this deer a couple of months ago when I first started getting photos of him in velvet. I knew he was at least a solid 3.5 year-old, and the above photo confirms that. I’d still like a good photo of him from the side so I can properly age him on the hoof. At any rate, this is a pretty good deer, obviously. I think he’s a 9-point, but I’ll need a couple of more photos to be sure. What’s most impressive about him is his beam length. Pretty impressive. It would be hard to pass on Basket Bob if he gave me a shot opportunity, but as always, I’m not sure what I’ll do until the moment of truth.

I jumped another nice buck during my walk that is a 3.5 year-old. I have some photos of him, and he’s very similar to Crabby, the buck I shot last year. He has about an 18-inch spread, and is a 9-point. I’ve already decided I won’t take that deer if I see him, but I’m enjoying the photos of him. I may throw up a photo of him in a future post.

On a sad note, I accidentally dry-fired my bow tonight. I think the arrow came off of the string just as I was releasing. It didn’t harm the bow structurally, but my peep sight is long gone, and I had strings and cables everywhere. I poped the bow into my press and put the strings and cables back where they belong, but now I’m concerned that I may have to do some tuning as well as sighting in (again). It sucks because I was shooting the lights out at 40 yards with my Muzzys, and I was fully confident. It will be interesting to see where things are when I launch my first arrow tomorrow. It’s always something!

Learning about proper seed bed preparation before planting food plots in one of the morning sessions.

As expected, the QDMA Deer Steward II certification course has been tremendous so far. We finished day one yesterday and will be going through the second full day of the course today before tomorrow’s exam. We covered everything from advanced food plot considerations to measuring fetuses to determine conception dates of adult does.

Learning how to measure fetuses was one of the coolest sessions yet, especially since it was instructed by the man who "invented" the idea. Joe Hamilton is incredible! This practice enables you to determine exactly when the doe was bred, which gives you an indication of when the rut peaked on your property.

The highlight of the day for me was hanging out at the campfire with everyone in the class and the instructors talking about how they first became interested in Quality Deer Management, and also about their families. There were some amazing stories that I’ll always remember. For a bunch of “tough guys” at a deer course, there was a lot of emotion there. Should be another great day today.

Talking food plots at the Grigsby in Illinois during Deer Steward I training.

I’ll be headed for the Bastow Farm near Edinboro in Erie County, PA this weekend for the second part of the QDMA Deer Steward Certification. I completed the first part about a month ago at the Grigsby Ranch in Talulla, Illinois, and it was excellent. I’m looking forward to the course as I’m sure it will be just as good, if not even better, than the first. Level one was mostly spent in the classroom with just a small amount of time in the field, but Level II promises to be much more hands-on, and I’m looking forward to that.

We’ll start with a welcome dinner on Friday night, which is a great way to meet the other participants and talk with the instructors. On Saturday, we’ll get right to it with outdoor and classroom sessions on everything from property evaluation to management plan development. Most of Sunday will be spent talking about food plots, working with planting equipment, antler measuring, and interpreting harvest data. By Monday, we’ll wrap things up and have our graduation ceremony. No exam this time, so that’s one less thing to worry about.

They just established a Deer Steward Level Three certification, and I hope I meet the qualifications for that. That’s like being a deer steward ninja! If I can make it that far, I’ll be one of a select few people across the country certified to that level. For more information about the QDMA Deer Steward program, check out this link:  http://www.qdma.org/qdma/reach-certification.asp

On the way home from our vacation, my wife and I stopped by Cabela’s to…well…spend money. I spent enough to earn a $25 gift card so now the task was to find something else that I wanted to add to my hunting gear inventory. After a brief look through the store, I settled on a new high-quality blind. The blind I chose is the Eclipse by Primos. Originally a $200 model, it was on sale for $129 so once I added my gift card to the mix, I was walking out with a great blind at half the original price.

The Primos Eclipse blind comes with a handy carry bag that makes it easy to transport it to your hunting location.

I’m not going to pretend to know much about blinds, but I will say that I think what I ended up getting was the right blind for the best price. The featured model was the “Bone Collector” series with Micheal Waddell’s name embroidered on it. To be honest, there was nothing better about this blind in my opinion than the one I got for a lot less. Of course it’s going to cost more when a hunting celebritie’s name is on it, but I figured I could live without it. I like Micheal Waddell, but not enough to spend more for a blind because his name is on it. That left me deciding between another Primos model for $169 and the Eclipse. For the most part, the binds were the same, but the other model was just over six feet tall, allowing me to stand up if necessary. Although I was tempted, I figured there wouldn’t be a need for me to stand in the blind for hunting purposes so I opted for saving a few bucks.

Admittedly I’m not planning to hunt a lot from the blind, particularly for deer. I will use it for turkey though as they seem to be more easily fooled. If it wasn’t for a blind, I wouldn’t have tagged my gobbler this spring because the hunt was during a driving rainstorm, and we were trying to film it. Bottom line…no blind…no turkey…no film. My friend Mike Groman of Mike Groman’s Weekend Warrior Outdoor Productions brought his blind along that day, and I loved it. Now he can leave it at home as we’ll have one available here now.

Since the blind blended in pretty well for scouting puposes, I didn't bother to brush it in.

I plan to mostly use the blind for scouting where I can see for a distance while being concealed. I took it out today and set it up over a field that I can see for about 350 yards in any direction. I was immediately pleased with how easily the blind went up. Just pull a small rope at the center of the roof and each wall and it pops right up. Once inside, I tested the windows and shoot-through screens and again I was impressed. Of course, I won’t be able to give a good review of the product until I put some hours in it in various weather conditions, but generally, I think I’m going to be pretty happy. I plan to scout from the blind a night or two this week.

While I was setting up the blind, I did find a small scrape and two fresh rubs. It’s starting to get a little more interesting.

The first buck I caught on film without velvet was on September 1, although I got several other photos of bucks still in velvet as late as September 3.

Immediately upon returning from vacation, I headed out to get the photos from my trail cameras and couldn’t wait to see what turned up. Although I was a bit disappointed in the overall collection of photos (a.k.a. no giants caught on film), I did get my first picture of a buck without velvet, and found a nice-sized rub that had to have been made within 24 hours of my being there. Also, I got a beautiful photo of a red fox, as well as photos of a bear with two cubs.

This is when it starts to get exciting as an archery hunter. Although it’s nice to see bucks developing over the summer, it’s not until the velvet drops that you can tell just how good a particular deer is. There are several that I’m hoping to get photos of without velvet, so now the trick is placing the camera in just the right spot. The other trick is not educating the deer too much while tromping in and out of the woods. I know that last year I saw rub activity really picking up around September 16. That’s also when I found my first scrapes. I’ll be anxious to see if the same holds true this season.

Once the velvet is shed, you can expect the more mature bucks that may have been running around together all summer to break up and become more solitary. I have photos of a pair of nice mature bucks running together over the last few weeks, but I suspect I won’t be catching any new photos of them together. As each day passes, testosterone levels get higher and higher, while the tolerence level between bucks gets lower and lower. If there is uncertainty among the bucks as too what the pecking order is, there will be some light sparring to determine who fits where among the group.

I got a new blind from Cabela’s on the way home from vacation so I may set it up overlooking a nearby field to do a little scouting before the season. It will give me a chance to see what bucks are roaming around the property, while trying out the new blind. I may take the video camera along to catch the action.