Last weekend we found this tent in the backwoods after the son of our neighbor alerted us to its existence. We believe this structure was put up by the several hunters who have been hunting over the month of November (see previous post showing vehicles parked along our road).
Now that the prime deer hunting season is over, we ventured out today and got closer to this structure (as mentioned in the previous post, there is still legitimate hunting going on, however the allowed targets and weaponry are significantly toned down). Our next post will report on this recon later. We still wear some orange in case anyone is hunting during this semi off-season.
In “our” woods, there are nine tree stands that we know of. In a previous post, we showed the pair across our road that appear to be active this year. Among the tree stands on our side of the road, all of them appear to be abandoned or, at least, inactive. Here are examples of two:
We think the tent owners do not have a tree stand themselves and are using their tent as a base to go to different sites around the woods where they believe deer trails exist. Once they identify a prospective active trail, they will hunker down and wait for the deer to pass by.
During hunting season (which is really all year round depending on what one claims to be shooting), we judge how many hunters are out behind our house by looking up the road and examining the parked vehicles. The last day of deer hunting with modern weaponry (you might be surprised by the number of hunters who think an automated rifle with ammo clips containing hundreds of rounds are critical to successful hunting) this year was today. People with bows and arrows or muskets (called muzzle loaders by some) can shoot deer beyond today (and their season started earlier). If you want to shoot something other than deer, there are different dates for those seasons. Essentially, hunting is all year long.
Knowing which hunting season is in effect and who might be doing it is important for planning our walks in the woods.