No sir. Been a tough week with all the wind and Noreaster. Probably the worst 6 day week I have had in many years. Not even a whole lot of deer been seen all week. Damn coyotes are really bad in the area. How bout you???? Any Luck?????
Yes, I killed a nice buck in zone 21 Monday evening. The second biggest buck I got on camera in the pines this year. He was the ninth deer I had seen in two hours. I shot him at 4:30, he reacted at the shot like it was a solid hit. I gave him a half hour before I got out of the tree and hit the blood trail. 50 yards into a faint blood trail I jumped him out of his bed. By the condition of the bed I knew he was a dead deer and was not going far if not pushed. Even with the forecast I knew it was time to back out. I marked the bed as a wayoint in my GPS and headed home for a long sleepless night spent pacing the house with a pit in my stomach. I was back at the bed I jumped him out of the eveing by 7am in heavy rain and strong winds. All blood was a wash, now it was a body search. With a little searching I found him dead in his bed 50 yards from the bed I jumped him out of the evening prior. It was a long wet drag back to the truck, but well worth it. He was a heavy horned six pointer, would have been a nice eight pointer if he was not lacking brow tines.
The area I hunt in the pines is on the up and up with the deer numbers. I see a lot more than I did four years ago. I pulled out of deer hunting in the pines for half of the '10 season and all of the '11 and '12 seasons. From 2006 until 2010 I was having a hard time even seeing deer let alone killing any in the pines. I started hunting suburban Monmouth County. I was seeing deer but the hunting just did't feel the same. One of my best stands had a view of a nice stand of white oak along with an auto body shop, a strip mall and the hum of a major state highway. Yeah, I killed deer and seen plenty more but it was not quality hunting. I was also spending mor time hunting my little 7 acre private piece in Barnegat east of route 9. I killed some nice deer there also, but the hunting there depends on how much human activity is going on in my friends yard while I am hunting. If the kids have play company and the dogs are out and barking I know it will be a slow hunt. I got back into the pines last year. I was tagged out by Tuesday evening last year during six day in zone 21. It is nice to be back to hunting a location where the only thing you hear and see is nature.
The coyote numbers are down in my neck of the pines. I am seeing less and less tracks in the sand roads. I used to hear them almost every evening about the time I was getting out of my stand, now I never hear them. I think the population has peaked and is now on a downfall. I found a small female dead a few weeks ago in the woods. She had a bad case of mange and the elements most likely did her in. I think mange has done a good job in some areas with getting the coyote numbers in check. Coyote populations sound to still be high in other areas of the pines. A large coyote population in never good for the deer population. They will get a large number of the fawn born every Spring.