We have a group of 11 hunters this year, 5 of them under 18 and two of them for their first hunt. The rest of the group are old hands at hunting at Ole Lake Farm.
Saturday morning started with a little bit of a sunrise, but it went cloudy and the deer started moving. By the end of the day we had eight deer. One was a buck, two fawns and the rest does, and one of the does by a young man who got his first.
I get asked why we allow the harvesting of anterless deer and the reason is that we have so many deer around we really need to thin the herd a bit. I would rather have the deer in the freezer to use to make great meals than to see them hit by cars, or worse, starve in the event of a bad winter. I have seen starving deer and it is not a pretty sight and I feel a huge waste.
A best guess of total deer seen by our group on opening day was over 40 deer, with one seeing 28! That hunter gave me grief about my herd management since they were all anterless other than 1 buck seen a long way off and in a big hurry.
Sunday was rainy and had a little snow spurt and the deer just hunkered down. One of the young men was able to harvest one in the morning and then movement slowed down to nothing. Since we had so many on Saturday most of us were just looking for antlers. Total deer seen today was around 6 and most of them were during non-shooting times in the morning and evening.
Most of the group will be hunting again Monday and then the out of state group will be heading home to Wyoming with another successful opening weekend. Our numbers will drop to 6 hunters starting next weekend. Because we are in a bonus area we have 7 tags that could be filled, but if we were to fill just a couple more we will be done.
Enough for this week, I will leave you with a picture of the opening day crew and then a deer picture below, be well and have a great week.
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