Mitch & Steph Haaby – Northwest MN:

The pre-rut wrapped up quickly and we dove right into the rut as well as Minnesota's firearm season. I spent October 28, 29, & 31 hunting with my brother in laws in southeast Minnesota in Whitewater WMA. Without getting into the everyday sightings, I can summarize it this way: There are a lot of deer and a lot of hunters. The bucks sign was absolutely unreal - probably the best I've ever seen, but because of the hunting pressure, it was almost entirely nighttime activity. Every year there are some true monsters taken out of that rugged country, but it somehow wrapped up in the combination of does in heat and little blobs of blaze orange EVERYWHERE pushing deer around. I learned my lessons about the area and think we can plan a more successful hunt down there in the future seasons.

Getting back up north on Halloween, it was quickly time to plan out some rut hunts. The weather was cooling off fast and the deer activity should have been great. However that really was not the case until the 11th of November. Every year, at least where we hunt, the 11th marks a magical day in the deer woods. On the 10th in the later morning, my dad passed up a four year old we named Pencil. He doesn't have much mass, but we've got a lot of history with him and at first glance you might think he was a younger deer. The more we got to talking, the more convinced dad became that it was Pencil he passed up at 25 yards. The next afternoon around 1:30pm, dad had a buck coming towards him and with a lingering regret from the day before, counted 10 points and took the shot.

He text me a picture asking which buck it was and I told him that it was the two year old ten - a buck with good potential, but an understandable situation for dad. Also, Grandpa and Grandma wanted some venison, so we brushed it off and kept on hunting. That same evening I got another text as Steph and I were sitting down at a restaurant: "Splitbrow is dead." Sure enough, my mom shot my number three buck on my hitlist - Splitbrow! Steph and I were so happy for her. Splitbrow is a five year old buck and was starting to go downhill already. He's definitely the biggest buck mom has shot and it will make a beautiful european mount. He'll gross around P & Y. 

Then on Sunday I got a text from a neighbor with a buck his wife shot: Scabby 9 - my number two buck on my hitlist! They're dropping like flies! Another older buck, Scabby 9 was at least 5 years, if not 6 years old. I was happy for her too. I'm not bummed out by other people getting these deer. They are mature and should get shot by someone. It just means I need to find more mature deer to shoot.

Lastly, yesterday morning I received an email asking me if I recognized a certain dead deer. I sure did! It was The Contender - Stephanie's number three buck on her hitlist. He was number three because he was young. We really hoped for him to have one more year, but I guess that's not an option anymore. I suppose this is all part of the roller coaster of hunting. I'm going to try to go over and see the rack sometime this week. 

So I've got Mr. 140 left on my hitlist, but the problem is he's the only buck we haven't gotten any pictures of in that area. I'm still scratching my head as to where some of these bucks went to. I picked up on another old buck that we've been watching for three seasons now. His name is Bullwinkle. So he'll be my new number two. This deer is at least six years old. He also has peaked and won't get any bigger. I'm on a mission to get out as much as I can before the rut dwindles. 

I hope everyone continues to have a safe and successful season. Don't give up out there. Time in the woods is always time well spent. 

God Bless.

Mitch & Steph Haaby

Mike Versland - Metro

Opening morning of the Wisconsin gun season is finally upon us.  I could not sleep for over an hour last night just thinking about the possibilities of what may happen this coming weekend.  I love the fact that I still live 10 minutes from my home state of Wisconsin where I continue to purchase both an archery tag and a gun tag as I have for the past 20+ years.  Now that I filled my Minnesota buck tag for 2011 my primary focus will be to fill my Wisconsin gun buck tag and then take a late season archery buck in Wisconsin.

As I have done for the past three years I will be teaming up with my cousin Travis and hunting a large piece of public land in the Southwest corner of the state.  I really love to hunt this property because of the quality of bucks and the diversity of terrain that exist there.  However things don't always go as planned.

If you want to know how bad things went in 2010 check out my blog from last year : http://www.midwestwhitetail.com/publish/posts/1029/november-22nd-blogs.html

I just logged on in order to remind myself of the struggle we had trying to get to our stand in 2010.  All I remember is that Travis and I promised each other that we would never work as hard as we did last year without a serious payout. 

Well this year is going to be different.  It is not as wet as it was last year, so the deer should move through the areas that we have chosen to hunt even though the swamp will not be frozen.  Travis will be sitting in the tree I used the past three years.  I shot two bucks from that stand in three years, so I have really high hopes that Travis will be pulling the trigger on a nice buck this weekend.

I decided to move to another spot on the same property in hopes of finding some bigger bucks.  The three deer that I have shot on this property are all just shy of 120 inches.  I know there are some bigger bucks out there, so I am trying to locate a spot where more of the bigger deer are hanging out.  Unfortunately my new spot is very thick, so I probably won’t see a lot of deer.  But as usual, I am hunting for quality not quantity.  Travis and I both hope to kill our biggest bucks by gun, a very reachable goal.  Hopefully we each get some oppurtunities.

Good luck and hunt safe!

Mike Versland