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Mark Burton's Personal Log
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9-5-09 5:00pm Opening day of bow season and I took Brett on his first ever bow hunt. We went to my favorite farm where we have a double stand set on a small ridge surrounded by deep hollows. We haven't found any acorns dropping yet, so he was hunting over corn. Today was slow with thunderstorms popping up all around us, causing the winds to swirl all afternoon. We didn't see any deer, but it wasn't all bad because Brett got to get the first day jitters out of his system.
9-6-09 5:00pm Day 2 was a day Brett will remember his whole life. We got settled in and the wind was perfect. At 6:05, Brett said "here comes a deer and it's a buck". The 4 pointer came right in and Brett shot him at 23 yards, making a good hit right in the middle of the rib cage. He shoots 45 pounds, so he didn't get a complete pass through. The deer turned and run off, stumbling all the way. We waited 20 minutes and climbed down and got all of our stuff down before starting to trail the buck. We trailed him about 100 yards before finding part of his arrow. By this time we had lost almost all of daylight, so we decided to back out and look for him in the morning.
9-7-09 8:00am Today could have very well been the worst day of my hunting career. We headed back this morning to look for Brett's buck, but the rain beat us there. We stuck his broken arrow in the ground on our last blood last night and headed right back to it today. With the rain coming down, we had no blood trail to follow. But even with the rain I was convinced the deer wouldn't be far and we would find him. Boy was I wrong. 4 of us searched 2 hours in the pouring rain and thunderstorms combing the woods for this deer, and no luck. I have lost deer of mine in the past, but none of them made me as sick feeling as losing this deer of Brett's. I could understand it if he had made a bad hit, but he made a hit center of the rib cage. Last night we had a double pouring blood trail right up to where his arrow broke off, and then it diminished quickly for about 10 yards and that's where we decided to stop. The really bad part is that not only was it his first shot with a bow, but it was his first shot ever at a buck. I hope this don't affect his love for hunting. All I could do was explain that this does happen sometimes and as long as we gave it our best while looking for him, that's all we can do. We're going to regroup and get prepared to go back next weekend.
9-12-09 5:00pm This afternoon me and Brett headed back to see if he could get another crack at a buck. At 6:20 we had a velvet 8 pointer come in directly down wind and I knew the jig would be up. He caught our wind when he was about 30 yards away and stood motionless in one spot for about 7-8 minutes trying to figure out what was going on. We had took our scent free showers and sprayed scent killer on our clothes, but he had got just enough of our scent to know something wasn't right. Finally he turned an bolted, never offering Brett a shot. That was the only deer we saw for the evening.
9-30-09 I haven't hunted in a couple of weeks mostly due to all the days of rain. The last week I've been trying to scout and get stands hung so that I can get back to hunting. It's hard to get all the stands hung because I hang doulble stands everytime so that my son can hunt with me. While scounting I've found that acorns are everywhere. The White Oaks are really dropping right now, so I'm trying to focus my scounting in and around them. I have found a few rubs but no scrapes yet. I plan on getting the last of my stands hung this weekend, so I can hunt hard next week.
10-7-09 wind SW temp 52 - Me and Brett finally got to sit in a stand this morning. After spending the last couple of weeks scouting and putting up stands we decided to give it a try today. The forecat was winds out of the south turning to the north so we hoped that this would be a productive sit as long as the wind stayed out of the south. Brett decided to let me hunt, since he hadn't got to shoot his bow in the last week, and I knew what was going to happen. The morning started off without a deer, but at 7:50 a spike and a 4 pointer came right in 20 yards from the stand. It would have been an easy shot for him, but all he could do was sit and watch. Now that's bad luck. The first day he goes with me and lets me hunt, 2 small bucks come right in. We didn't see anymore deer after them. The acorns are still falling, but I think most of them are already on the ground.
That afternoon the wind had switched to coming out of the north, so we switched to another farm. This farm has a standing cornfield, so there isn't much sign in the woods here like there usually is at this time of year. We decided to hunt it anyway but didn't see anything. I hope the wind is right for this weekend's youth hunt so I can take Brett back to where we saw the little bucks at.
10-10,11-09 Well the youth weekend was a bust for us. After running deer off our stands both mornings, 2 doe was all we were able to see Sat. afternoon. They came out in the final minutes of light in our food plot and gave Brett a shot at about 75 yards, but he missed. That was the only deer we saw all weekend.
10-13-09 wind NE temp 62 5:00pm Trying to beat the rain, me and Brett headed out bowhunting this afternoon. Figuring this would be our last chance to hunt this week because of the weather, we went to our creek crossing stand to try and shoot a doe. No luck, we didn't see a deer. This stand is usually our best place to see a doe, but the corn is still standing and the deer have not been pushed back into the woods yet.
10-24,25,26-09 After being sick and missing the last week of hunting, I finally was able to get back in the woods. I found some fresh sign Thurs. so I hunted over it Sat., Sun., and Monday but I didn't see anything. Hunting the big woods of southern Adair County is really tough. Not only is there alot of land, but very low deer numbers make it less than ideal for bowhunting.
10-28-09 4:30pm temp 63 winds calm Me and Brett went back again today to try and see the deer that made the scrapes by our stand last week. Finally the fourth day in there I got a look at a descent buck. I had been grunting right before dark and at 6:05 I heard a limb snap and looked down and there he was standing only 20 yards away. The way I have our stands set I don't have a shot when I'm letting Brett be the hunter. I assumed Brett knew the deer was there also, so when the deer walked out into the shooting lane I figured Brett would take a shot. But that was not the case, the deer just walked off and I turned to check on Brett and he didn't even know the deer was there. He was focused on looking the other way. I told him the deer was there but he couldn't see him because it was too dark. Since he is color blind he losses the ability to see deer in low light. The deer continued to stay close to us while eating acorns, so we stayed in the stand until complete darkness hoping to get out without spooking him. The deer let me get on the ground before he blew and then another deer that had come in on our other side decided that it would blow too. So todays hunt was a total mess.
11-1-09 3:30pm temp 55 Today is the greatest day there is when you're teaching a young hunter. Me and Brett went into a new set of stands for the first time today. At 4:30pm 2 doe came in and Brett made a perfect shot at 22 yards, harvesting his first ever deer with a bow. The deer ran about 100 yards all downhill after the shot. He is shooting mid 50's poundage with Tropy Taker's Undertaker broadheads and it did a great job. He did not get a pass through, but we had an excellent bloodtrail. The broadhead made a very big entry hole and I was pleased with it's performance. Brett did get a lesson on dragging out a deer. He had to have most of the work done by his uncle, but he helped out as much as he could. It left him exhausted by the time they got it to the truck, but he said it was worth it. I'm very proud of him for keeping his composure and making a great shot. I have let him hunt every trip but one this year, but now he's going to give ole dad a few trips in the hunter's seat to see if I can get one on the ground. See his pic...
11-7-09 5:00 am temp 50 I thought 11-1 was a great day in the woods, but this morning tops it. When we got out of the truck this morning it was warm and windy and I thought we wouldn't see anything. After making alot of noise getting to the stand and then dropping the flashlight and it hit the stand, I really thought me and Brett wouldn;t see anything. At 6:00am I heard an approaching deer, so I told Brett to stand up. I quickly relized it was a buck coming from my side of the tree so I grabbed my bow also. The buck came directly to a mock scrape that I had made earlier in the week and worked it. He then came to 10 yards of the tree and made a new scrape of his own. It was at this point that I was able to get a good look at his rack and determine that I didn't want to shoot him, so I knew this was Brett's chance. The buck then got on the trail that goes beside our stand to the left. When the buck went behind a tree I told Brett to draw his bow and when he came into an opening I bleated and stopped him and Brett made a perfect shot. He made a double lung shot and the deer only ran 50 yards, but we didn't know that yet. Since it was still so low light in the woods, I told Brett that we were going to sit there until the sun came up and we could see the blood, because I didn't want to chance anything. It about killed him but we sit there until 7:00am before getting down to start to look. We found blood immediately and had followed it about 20 yards when Brett looked up and said there he is laying about 30 yards from us. He was so excited and I am very proud of him for making such a good shot. See his pic..
11-27-09 It is now the end of day 14 of the gun season and it has been the worst one I've ever had. I've hunted 11 out of the 14 days so far and I have not seen the first buck. I've hunted 4 different stands, a ground blind, and several sits on the ground on 3 different farms and had no luck at all. I did manage to take a doe off my food plot on 11-25, but that's the only shot me or my son Brett has fired. I am sure glad I was able to get Brett on a buck with his bow, or a gun season like this would completely ruin a young hunters' desire for deer hunting. I can't speak for other counties, but Adair county's deer numbers are worse than 20 years ago. EHD has been detramental to our deer herd and I don't know how long it will take to come back. Most of the hunters I talk to are all saying the same thing as far as very low deer sightings. There are a few places in the county that still have some deer numbers, but they are few and far between. I think we are definately in for a zone change here, because even the eastern mountainous counties are harvesting more deer than us and we used to be better than them. 2008 was reportadly the third best on record for deer harvests in Ky., but even then hunters here were reporting very low deer sightings. Now a year later and things are very bad. I've got 2 more days to gun hunt, let's pray for a miracle for a good buck to appear somewhere I know he's not!
11-29-09 Well the last day of gun deason is over and I hunted 12 of the 16 days without seeing a single buck. I'm glad it's over, but I'm truly sick at my stomach. I've never gun hunted this much because it never took me this long, or I got my buck with a bow. My hunting is probably over for the year because I'm suppossed to have another back surgery. Hunting is my passion, but when you hunt as much as I have this year and not hardly see anything , it almost turns you against it. I hunted one farm 17 trips in 3 different stand locations without seeing a single doe, and only seeing 5 bucks. One of them my son shot and lost and another was the one he harvested. Deer numbers have to be almost none for this to happen. This includes from opening day of bow season through gun season. Another farm I hunted 8-10 trips without seeing a single deer, and another farm I've hunted about a dozen trips in 2 stands, a ground blind, and on the ground and saw 3 adult doe, 2 fawns and no bucks. Me and Brett took a doe apiece out of the 3 doe we saw. This has been my entire season. You can't really call it deer hunting if you don't see any deer. I might as well be saying "I'm going squirrel hunting with my bow and 30-06". I think there really needs to be some zone changes throughout the state because of the low harvests numbers. If something doesn't change, it's going to take years just to get back to where we were pre 2007.
12-20-09 2:30pm temp 37 degrees I finally scored on a buck this afternoon with my muzzleloader. It's not the biggest buck, but this stage in the game I'm pleased with him. I'm on my fourth farm of the year that I've hunted. I set this stand and a ground blind up a week before muzzleloading season to finish out the year in. It was an interesting hunt, got in the blind at 2:30pm, had 17 turkeys come into the corn at 3:00, then at 3:45 had a yearling doe come in and she was acting very nervous. Then just a couple of minutes later I heard a deer come running out of the hollow and he stopped about 25 yards in front of me (almost directly under my stand, I wish I had been bowhunting) but I couldn't get a shot because of the brush. He stood staring at the doe for a couple of minutes and then he lowered his head to the ground and took off running at her. Thank goodness she didn't take off running, but just squatted down as if to let him breed her. The buck stopped just a few yards from the doe, and I was able to get the shot. I put the crosshairs right on his shoulder and pulled the trigger, and when the smoke cleared I had dropped him in his tracks. I waited a couple of minutes and reloaded my gun before getting out of the blind and going to the deer. He is the biggest six pointer I have ever seen while hunting. He is probably a 2 1/2 year old and he has a 17 inch spread with good main beams. He is definately not the deer I set out to get this year, but after spending a record number of trips in the woods this year I was just not able to get on a really big deer. Me and Brett are going to do some more bowhunting while he's out for Christmas break and he's got the late youth season hunt next weekend. Hopefully we can fill another doe tag before the season is over. I'm scheduled for another back surgery on Jan. 19 so we'll be able to hunt right untill the last day.
9-6-09 5:00pm Day 2 was a day Brett will remember his whole life. We got settled in and the wind was perfect. At 6:05, Brett said "here comes a deer and it's a buck". The 4 pointer came right in and Brett shot him at 23 yards, making a good hit right in the middle of the rib cage. He shoots 45 pounds, so he didn't get a complete pass through. The deer turned and run off, stumbling all the way. We waited 20 minutes and climbed down and got all of our stuff down before starting to trail the buck. We trailed him about 100 yards before finding part of his arrow. By this time we had lost almost all of daylight, so we decided to back out and look for him in the morning.
9-7-09 8:00am Today could have very well been the worst day of my hunting career. We headed back this morning to look for Brett's buck, but the rain beat us there. We stuck his broken arrow in the ground on our last blood last night and headed right back to it today. With the rain coming down, we had no blood trail to follow. But even with the rain I was convinced the deer wouldn't be far and we would find him. Boy was I wrong. 4 of us searched 2 hours in the pouring rain and thunderstorms combing the woods for this deer, and no luck. I have lost deer of mine in the past, but none of them made me as sick feeling as losing this deer of Brett's. I could understand it if he had made a bad hit, but he made a hit center of the rib cage. Last night we had a double pouring blood trail right up to where his arrow broke off, and then it diminished quickly for about 10 yards and that's where we decided to stop. The really bad part is that not only was it his first shot with a bow, but it was his first shot ever at a buck. I hope this don't affect his love for hunting. All I could do was explain that this does happen sometimes and as long as we gave it our best while looking for him, that's all we can do. We're going to regroup and get prepared to go back next weekend.
9-12-09 5:00pm This afternoon me and Brett headed back to see if he could get another crack at a buck. At 6:20 we had a velvet 8 pointer come in directly down wind and I knew the jig would be up. He caught our wind when he was about 30 yards away and stood motionless in one spot for about 7-8 minutes trying to figure out what was going on. We had took our scent free showers and sprayed scent killer on our clothes, but he had got just enough of our scent to know something wasn't right. Finally he turned an bolted, never offering Brett a shot. That was the only deer we saw for the evening.
9-30-09 I haven't hunted in a couple of weeks mostly due to all the days of rain. The last week I've been trying to scout and get stands hung so that I can get back to hunting. It's hard to get all the stands hung because I hang doulble stands everytime so that my son can hunt with me. While scounting I've found that acorns are everywhere. The White Oaks are really dropping right now, so I'm trying to focus my scounting in and around them. I have found a few rubs but no scrapes yet. I plan on getting the last of my stands hung this weekend, so I can hunt hard next week.
10-7-09 wind SW temp 52 - Me and Brett finally got to sit in a stand this morning. After spending the last couple of weeks scouting and putting up stands we decided to give it a try today. The forecat was winds out of the south turning to the north so we hoped that this would be a productive sit as long as the wind stayed out of the south. Brett decided to let me hunt, since he hadn't got to shoot his bow in the last week, and I knew what was going to happen. The morning started off without a deer, but at 7:50 a spike and a 4 pointer came right in 20 yards from the stand. It would have been an easy shot for him, but all he could do was sit and watch. Now that's bad luck. The first day he goes with me and lets me hunt, 2 small bucks come right in. We didn't see anymore deer after them. The acorns are still falling, but I think most of them are already on the ground.
That afternoon the wind had switched to coming out of the north, so we switched to another farm. This farm has a standing cornfield, so there isn't much sign in the woods here like there usually is at this time of year. We decided to hunt it anyway but didn't see anything. I hope the wind is right for this weekend's youth hunt so I can take Brett back to where we saw the little bucks at.
10-10,11-09 Well the youth weekend was a bust for us. After running deer off our stands both mornings, 2 doe was all we were able to see Sat. afternoon. They came out in the final minutes of light in our food plot and gave Brett a shot at about 75 yards, but he missed. That was the only deer we saw all weekend.
10-13-09 wind NE temp 62 5:00pm Trying to beat the rain, me and Brett headed out bowhunting this afternoon. Figuring this would be our last chance to hunt this week because of the weather, we went to our creek crossing stand to try and shoot a doe. No luck, we didn't see a deer. This stand is usually our best place to see a doe, but the corn is still standing and the deer have not been pushed back into the woods yet.
10-24,25,26-09 After being sick and missing the last week of hunting, I finally was able to get back in the woods. I found some fresh sign Thurs. so I hunted over it Sat., Sun., and Monday but I didn't see anything. Hunting the big woods of southern Adair County is really tough. Not only is there alot of land, but very low deer numbers make it less than ideal for bowhunting.
10-28-09 4:30pm temp 63 winds calm Me and Brett went back again today to try and see the deer that made the scrapes by our stand last week. Finally the fourth day in there I got a look at a descent buck. I had been grunting right before dark and at 6:05 I heard a limb snap and looked down and there he was standing only 20 yards away. The way I have our stands set I don't have a shot when I'm letting Brett be the hunter. I assumed Brett knew the deer was there also, so when the deer walked out into the shooting lane I figured Brett would take a shot. But that was not the case, the deer just walked off and I turned to check on Brett and he didn't even know the deer was there. He was focused on looking the other way. I told him the deer was there but he couldn't see him because it was too dark. Since he is color blind he losses the ability to see deer in low light. The deer continued to stay close to us while eating acorns, so we stayed in the stand until complete darkness hoping to get out without spooking him. The deer let me get on the ground before he blew and then another deer that had come in on our other side decided that it would blow too. So todays hunt was a total mess.
11-1-09 3:30pm temp 55 Today is the greatest day there is when you're teaching a young hunter. Me and Brett went into a new set of stands for the first time today. At 4:30pm 2 doe came in and Brett made a perfect shot at 22 yards, harvesting his first ever deer with a bow. The deer ran about 100 yards all downhill after the shot. He is shooting mid 50's poundage with Tropy Taker's Undertaker broadheads and it did a great job. He did not get a pass through, but we had an excellent bloodtrail. The broadhead made a very big entry hole and I was pleased with it's performance. Brett did get a lesson on dragging out a deer. He had to have most of the work done by his uncle, but he helped out as much as he could. It left him exhausted by the time they got it to the truck, but he said it was worth it. I'm very proud of him for keeping his composure and making a great shot. I have let him hunt every trip but one this year, but now he's going to give ole dad a few trips in the hunter's seat to see if I can get one on the ground. See his pic...
11-7-09 5:00 am temp 50 I thought 11-1 was a great day in the woods, but this morning tops it. When we got out of the truck this morning it was warm and windy and I thought we wouldn't see anything. After making alot of noise getting to the stand and then dropping the flashlight and it hit the stand, I really thought me and Brett wouldn;t see anything. At 6:00am I heard an approaching deer, so I told Brett to stand up. I quickly relized it was a buck coming from my side of the tree so I grabbed my bow also. The buck came directly to a mock scrape that I had made earlier in the week and worked it. He then came to 10 yards of the tree and made a new scrape of his own. It was at this point that I was able to get a good look at his rack and determine that I didn't want to shoot him, so I knew this was Brett's chance. The buck then got on the trail that goes beside our stand to the left. When the buck went behind a tree I told Brett to draw his bow and when he came into an opening I bleated and stopped him and Brett made a perfect shot. He made a double lung shot and the deer only ran 50 yards, but we didn't know that yet. Since it was still so low light in the woods, I told Brett that we were going to sit there until the sun came up and we could see the blood, because I didn't want to chance anything. It about killed him but we sit there until 7:00am before getting down to start to look. We found blood immediately and had followed it about 20 yards when Brett looked up and said there he is laying about 30 yards from us. He was so excited and I am very proud of him for making such a good shot. See his pic..
11-27-09 It is now the end of day 14 of the gun season and it has been the worst one I've ever had. I've hunted 11 out of the 14 days so far and I have not seen the first buck. I've hunted 4 different stands, a ground blind, and several sits on the ground on 3 different farms and had no luck at all. I did manage to take a doe off my food plot on 11-25, but that's the only shot me or my son Brett has fired. I am sure glad I was able to get Brett on a buck with his bow, or a gun season like this would completely ruin a young hunters' desire for deer hunting. I can't speak for other counties, but Adair county's deer numbers are worse than 20 years ago. EHD has been detramental to our deer herd and I don't know how long it will take to come back. Most of the hunters I talk to are all saying the same thing as far as very low deer sightings. There are a few places in the county that still have some deer numbers, but they are few and far between. I think we are definately in for a zone change here, because even the eastern mountainous counties are harvesting more deer than us and we used to be better than them. 2008 was reportadly the third best on record for deer harvests in Ky., but even then hunters here were reporting very low deer sightings. Now a year later and things are very bad. I've got 2 more days to gun hunt, let's pray for a miracle for a good buck to appear somewhere I know he's not!
11-29-09 Well the last day of gun deason is over and I hunted 12 of the 16 days without seeing a single buck. I'm glad it's over, but I'm truly sick at my stomach. I've never gun hunted this much because it never took me this long, or I got my buck with a bow. My hunting is probably over for the year because I'm suppossed to have another back surgery. Hunting is my passion, but when you hunt as much as I have this year and not hardly see anything , it almost turns you against it. I hunted one farm 17 trips in 3 different stand locations without seeing a single doe, and only seeing 5 bucks. One of them my son shot and lost and another was the one he harvested. Deer numbers have to be almost none for this to happen. This includes from opening day of bow season through gun season. Another farm I hunted 8-10 trips without seeing a single deer, and another farm I've hunted about a dozen trips in 2 stands, a ground blind, and on the ground and saw 3 adult doe, 2 fawns and no bucks. Me and Brett took a doe apiece out of the 3 doe we saw. This has been my entire season. You can't really call it deer hunting if you don't see any deer. I might as well be saying "I'm going squirrel hunting with my bow and 30-06". I think there really needs to be some zone changes throughout the state because of the low harvests numbers. If something doesn't change, it's going to take years just to get back to where we were pre 2007.
12-20-09 2:30pm temp 37 degrees I finally scored on a buck this afternoon with my muzzleloader. It's not the biggest buck, but this stage in the game I'm pleased with him. I'm on my fourth farm of the year that I've hunted. I set this stand and a ground blind up a week before muzzleloading season to finish out the year in. It was an interesting hunt, got in the blind at 2:30pm, had 17 turkeys come into the corn at 3:00, then at 3:45 had a yearling doe come in and she was acting very nervous. Then just a couple of minutes later I heard a deer come running out of the hollow and he stopped about 25 yards in front of me (almost directly under my stand, I wish I had been bowhunting) but I couldn't get a shot because of the brush. He stood staring at the doe for a couple of minutes and then he lowered his head to the ground and took off running at her. Thank goodness she didn't take off running, but just squatted down as if to let him breed her. The buck stopped just a few yards from the doe, and I was able to get the shot. I put the crosshairs right on his shoulder and pulled the trigger, and when the smoke cleared I had dropped him in his tracks. I waited a couple of minutes and reloaded my gun before getting out of the blind and going to the deer. He is the biggest six pointer I have ever seen while hunting. He is probably a 2 1/2 year old and he has a 17 inch spread with good main beams. He is definately not the deer I set out to get this year, but after spending a record number of trips in the woods this year I was just not able to get on a really big deer. Me and Brett are going to do some more bowhunting while he's out for Christmas break and he's got the late youth season hunt next weekend. Hopefully we can fill another doe tag before the season is over. I'm scheduled for another back surgery on Jan. 19 so we'll be able to hunt right untill the last day.