We're getting started early this year in Arkansas--September 15th. Last year, the first day of archery was October 1st.
This year has been very different for us. In past years, we have hunted our land (40 acres/pasture) and a connecting neighbor's land (40 acres/timber). The neighbor's land is where we have our food plot and where we have always concentrated our efforts. In the past few years, the hunting pressure has really increased in this area--I even had the one Tom I was watching get poached this Spring :( That incident, along with more people in my neighbor's family hunting his land (I totally respect that), we made a last minute decision to join a lease.
Instead of joining one of the leases close to our home, we found a lease in a Northern Arkansas county, about 1.5 hours away. This county has a reputation for bigger Arkansas deer...we'll find out, hopefully! Here is one of the mountain top views from the lease:
The lease is 5300 acres with around 40 members. For the past two weeks we have been going up there on the weekends and scouting around. After hiking our butts off like two mountain goats, I think we finally picked our stand spots. They're both very far into the lease, located on a funnel and near a natural spring. Our "theory" is to walk farther than anyone else is willing to in the hopes of finding a very low-pressure area (Hard to find in AR).
After finding our spots, we put some corn out and managed to get a few pictures.
If you're one of my Mid-Western friends, I'm sure you consider these guys small. I will pass on the one on the left side...but I'm afraid I will be going after the one on the right! And I'll be very happy about it, too! Lol. I do have two buck tags though, so my plan is to get my first one out of the way and then use the rest of the season to concentrate on getting the biggest one possible. I can't wait!!!
Thank you for reading! Subscribe & Comment!
No comments:
Post a Comment