Checkin' in with South West
Posted By
Tim Filiowich
at
9/27/2009 12:00:00 AM
Checking in with the South-West Minnesota Team, Jeff Knott wrote the following after the opening week of the 2009 Archery Season.......
OK, September has come and almost gone. Pre-season excitement has transformed into the early season. Broadheads have replaced field tips and I feel anticipation like before a big test, first date, or before the birth of a child (yes, my wife is due any day). All the summer preparation of trail cameras, stands and countless arrows driven into polyurethane will hopefully materialize into a 30 second encounter that will bring lifelong memories. It is amazing how bow hunting can be so uneventful and with the next crack of a stick or crunch of a leaf can send your heart into overdrive and concentrate all one’s senses to that moment in time. Even if it is just a nubbin buck or a fawn, that rush fuels the desire to keep hunting. Well, coming into the second week of the season I am still waiting with anticipation for that hypertensive encounter. Really, I am waiting to see my first deer on stand during shooting hours.
Hunting in southwest Minnesota can be terribly difficult at times, especially before the corn and soybeans come out of the fields. I would estimate that 80% plus of the ground in Lyon, Lincoln, and Redwood Counties is cropland. Some soybeans have been harvested, but well behind the 5 year average and virtually no corn, except for farmers that put up corn silage or high moisture corn for cattle. What all this means is that deer have many hiding spots right now, a plentiful food source, and really no reason to come out to show their faces. It has been hot and windy down here lately too. All summer long we’ve had really moderate weather and really no wind. That has changed as summer goes to fall, we are getting some of the warmest weather of the season. And the wind can’t seem to make up its mind to which direction it wants to blow.
We’ve been out 4 times so far this first week – 3 mornings and one evening. The spot I am hunting doesn’t have great deer density, but according to my trail cameras holds the best buck on my hit list. Twice we have been busted walking into our stand at a few minutes past 5 a.m. Once the wind shifted contrary to what the MSN weatherman had dreamed and stayed out of the wrong direction for us. Such is hunting. But harvest is coming and coupled with pre-rut activity, I expect to be seeing a lot more deer in the next 2-3 weeks. When the crops come out the deer will have far fewer places to stay put. With colder weather they will have to find food in what Case IH and Deere have left behind. Most importantly to the ground we hunt, their movements will be more predictable because they won’t have a corn field maze to move through. I know my encounter gets closer with every minute I spend in the stand, I know it will come, I just hope it goes down like I’ve imagined in my mind – crack of a stick, smack of an arrow, and another lifelong hunting memory.
