Deer Hunting: Awesome Antlers Plus Treestand Tips

July 29th. It's the time for velvet antlers and hanging treestands. GrowingDeer.tv is brought to you by Bass Pro Shops. Also by Reconyx, Trophy Rock, Muddy Outdoors, Non-Typical Wildlife Solutions, Eagle Seed, Nikon, Winchester, Redneck Hunting Blinds, Dead Down Wind, Record Rack, Antler Dirt, LaCrosse Footwear, ScentMaster, BloodSport Arrows and Prime Bows by G5. Last week, the GrowingDeer Team left home and rolled over to the Kentucky Proving Grounds. We have an ongoing project with my good friend, Mr. Terry Hamby, where we're helping him develop his property. The hardwood drains are in track, but the uplands had either been recently harvested pine, are mid-grow pines, that weren't offering a lot of ideal wildlife habitat. We've shared with you all in past episodes, or even field days, of the steps we're taking to turn this piece of land into a wildlife mecca. After a few years of work, we're changing that balance from primarily working on the habitat to getting ready to hunt. Adam and the boys spent a lot of time this week hanging Muddy treestands. In fact, over the course of about two and a half days, Adam and the boys either trimmed or hung 26 new sets. Got another Muddy stand hung, the lanes are all trimmed out, we're ready for this fall. It's important this time of year to get out and trim those lanes, get your treestands ready for this fall so you can have your disturbance during July and not during October or November. When we hang a set, it's not simply scouting and finding a tree and putting a Muddy up there. It's actually thinking about our approach, how we can hunt it, and how we can leave without alerting deer. Although we were working long hours, I got to admit, we took an afternoon just to go out and enjoy watching some deer. Adam and I joined Mr. Hamby and accepted an invitation from one of his friends, to come look at his deer herd. As soon as we got to the edge of the farm, we saw about 80 deer out in the young beans that had been planted after the wheat crop was harvested. Besides just simply enjoying the deer, it was important to notice that the beans were relatively short and in the wheat stubble. They had no tilled beans in an existing wheat field after the wheat crop was harvested. There's nothing more tasty to deer than young soybeans that I'm aware of. And that was obvious as we rode around the farm and saw lots of deer in the young beans that were tilled in after the wheat, versus the more mature beans that had been planted at a normal time. In addition to gawking at over 80 plus deer, does, fawns, and some shooter bucks, it was nice to hear quail in the background and see lots of wildlife, including song birds enjoying a well-managed farm. It's a great lesson there for setting up treestands and what time of year 'cause remember deer are very selective feeders and as soon as one food source decreases in quality, or another one improves, the deer will switch that day and you may have a stand that was productive go dry in just a couple of days. We stayed on that farm riding with our friend 'till dark and had a great time viewing and talking about deer. But when we returned back to the Kentucky Proving Grounds, it turns out Brian had just as good a time. The blind was on east side of a food plot we created last year. We've showed you footage of us harvesting the trees, and preparing that plot and Mr. Hamby killing a massive gobbler we called Long Spurs out of that plot. Once again, using the principal we call MDE, minimal disturbance entry, the boys picked a blind that was on the east side with the western wind. Got in the blind and let the deer feed to them from the west. It was some tremendous footage of bucks mowing down some Eagle Seed Beans. One of the bucks appeared to be a three old and he fed up within about 25 yards of the blind. You can imagine the excitement around camp that night, after we saw a bunch of deer in the soybeans and the boys had a good buck within bow range. As we finished up our projects and left Andrew and Mr. Hamby there, ready to start their trail camera survey, we rolled back to Missouri and in the coming weeks we'll be starting our trail camera survey and sharing with you the results of our deer herd, after the outbreak of EHD last year. Whether you're visiting a friend's Proving Grounds, or working on your own, I hope you take a moment and get quiet, and enjoy Creation, and more importantly, slow down and listen to what the Creator is saying to you. Thanks for watching GrowingDeer.tv. Closest deer (inaudible). Look at those four over there Adam.