I have been trying to keep a consistent Blog entry up here, but recently I have gotten swamped with other work and haven't been able to put out anything fresh.  One of the visitors to the website, Kale Graham, from Minnesota, offered this quick recap of a great hunt he and his friend had in North Dakota recently.  I jumped at the opportunity.  Here is Kale's Blog.  Makes me wish it was September.

   "Each year I start my season in the beginning of September, and each year when I tell someone I am going hunting they look at me like I’m some kind of a nut. This is great because I have the woods all to myself. 

   Many states open their seasons in September. At this time it is fairly easy to pattern bucks moving from bed to feed in the evening, and from feed to bed in the morning. If you are hunting out of state it is best to arrive a couple days before you plan to hunt. That way you can watch the deer and figure out where they are feeding and bedding. The best way to pattern bucks is by observed movement. A spotting scope comes in very handy, so you can count points and make sure it is a target animal. 

   When choosing your stand sites make sure you can get in and out without alerting deer. If need be, have someone drive in and scare the deer off the field so you can get down undetected. You may have to hunt in staging areas to get a crack at a good buck in daylight if you hunt a high pressured area. Don’t be afraid to be aggressive if you see a buck do the same thing more than once. For example if walks by a certain tree or on the same trail two days in a row. Go kill him!

   Some key food sources to look for in September are alfalfa, soybeans, sunflowers, acorns, clover, and wheat or rye when it is in the growing stage (approx. 3”)These are just some in the areas that I hunt.

   Here is an example of early season hunt I capitalized on last fall. We arrived at are hunting spot a couple of days early to start patterning the local bucks. After watching the deer a couple of days we hung are stands in some promising areas.

   On the first night of the hunt my hunting partner, Cory Van Beck, killed a nice 4 x 4 in full velvet! His buck was on his way out to an alfalfa field in the evening. I hunted the next morning seeing 7 different bucks, but none of them big enough. The third morning I hunted the same stand again and again saw 7 different bucks but this time one was a mature 9 pointer with a kicker off of his G-2. He passed just out of bow range. It was now time to get aggressive. 

   All the bucks were walking out of a small block of timber and using a licking branch before they headed for a bigger block of timber to bed for the day. I decided to move my stand so I would be in bow range of the licking branch. But it was risky; if the mature buck was not one of the first to come back to bed, I might get winded. It was a chance I was willing to take with only a few days left to hunt. The fourth morning found me in the new stand extra early. As the sun started to rise I could hear deer coming through the small block of timber. Peering through the leaves I could see a doe and her fawn and behind them was the big 9 pointer from the morning before. 

   He came out and worked the licking branch just as I hoped he would and then offered me a 25 yard quartering away shot. He only went 70 yards and I had tagged another early season buck.

   So this fall when September rolls around and you’re sitting in your easy chair with a cold drink. Remember this, some nut might be wrapping his tag around another early season buck."