Zooming In 10 (Season 2)
Show 10 – Scott Swanson in North Dakota
As you heard repeatedly throughout the two late season bowhunts we showed this week, the weather conditions in North Dakota were absolutely brutal. Not only did TJ and Scott have to endure extremely cold temperatures while hunting, they also had to fight their way through three foot snowdrifts just to get to their stands. But as so often is the case under such conditions, the end result certainly justified the sacrifices the two men made. Deer movement was nothing short of unbelievable!
As the footage from Scott’s hunt clearly showed, the resident whitetails, including bucks of all sizes, were definitely grouped up. What’s more, almost all the deer were keying in on one particular food source–which was a stack of hay bales located right here. Thanks to the obvious runways he could see in the deep snow, and the fact that he’d hunted this area in the past, Scott really didn’t have to do much in the way of scouting to figure out the movement pattern.
Basically, the deer were bedding in some thick poplar brush located in this area, just a short distance from the hay bales. Upon leaving the bedding area, the deer would travel in pretty much a straight line along this route to get to the bales. Just after leaving the security of the poplar brush, the deer would jump this fence here, which put them inside a pasture. Due to the onset of severe weather, the cattle that normally spend the winter in the pasture had been relocated closer to the rancher’s buildings.
Scott first saw the 8-pointer when it was right about here. The big deer was the middle animal in a group of three bucks. As predicted, all three ended up jumping the fence here and eventually made their way to the stack of hay bales. As we saw, after quickly settling a minor dominancy issue, the 8-pointer began feeding on the hay bales right about here, approximately 30 yards from Scott’s ground blind.
After the hit, the buck ran back into the poplar brush pretty much along the same route he’d walked out on. Upon reviewing the footage of the hit, Scott decided to wait until the next day to go after the wounded deer. He eventually recovered his late season trophy right about here after a rather lengthy trailing job through deep snow.
As anyone who has ever bowhunted in extremely cold weather can attest, merely having a big buck within bow range is no guarantee that your going to be putting your tag on that deer. Put simply, the cold changes everything! Shooting a bow when wearing a bunch of layers of clothing is way different than shooting a bow when wearing one or two layers. And put bluntly, no bow performs absolutely the same in below zero temperatures as it does when temps are above freezing. But the way me and my hunting partners see it, these adversities only serve to make tagging a late season trophy that much sweeter.
Hey, make sure you tune in again next week. I don’t know where on earth we’ll be Zooming In, but I do know that you’ll find it informative. We’ll see you here!!
