PA Archery season – Day one – October 5, 2013

Weather: upper 60s – low 70s, hazy
Wind: light out of the southwest
Time: Dawn – 10am

I spent the morning hunting over an oak flat that has about 25 mature oak trees in a 30 yard radius, making it a deer magnet when the acorns are dropping.  I was not expecting a lot of movement with the unseasonably warm temperatures.  It seemed for a while that I would not be seeing anything except squirrels today.

At about 7:45, I caught movement down below me.  A quick glassing with the binoculars revealed a deer that I am becoming very familiar with seeing.  Only a three point, but he is probably about 13″ wide and showed up on my one trail camera for 9 consecutive days in September.  Shortly after spotting him, he casually made his way up the hill munching on acorns the hole way.  He came to within 15 yards before continuing up over the hill.

After he left, a heavy fog came through the area, which made visibility about 40 yards for a good 30 minutes.  I started considering getting out of the tree around 9 am, that was until 8:45, when I caught more movement.  This time it was a large doe and 2 fawns.  They worked their way up the hill and all came within 5 yards of the base of my tree.  The one fawn spent several minutes milling around directly underneath my feet.  They stuck around for about 30 minutes before working their way up the hill and out of sight.

At about 10am, I decided to call it a day and climbed down the tree.  With afternoon temperatures expected to be in the mid 80s, I decided to not go out in the evening.  I will hit the woods one or two mornings this week, hopefully the good deer movement will continue.