Iowa Deer Blog

It's the best part in my opinion..well I like to put'em down too. Going over all of the last minute details. If you can imagine the amount of time required to just get yourself ready for a hunt and the quadruple it. A few years ago Brian and I purchase a Cannon XL1S. Awesome camera. We realized real fast how difficult it can be to get setup. Now that we are going to live stream hunts it is just as cumbersome. Brian has worked his rear off to get the equipment needed tp do a test run. When we are up and streaming you will see what I am talking about but that's the way it goes when you decide to do something that noone else is doing....YET!

Brian and I sat down to look at the topo maps and determine how to set up with the best chances. We decided to run a ground blind and decoy setup on the center hub of a wagon wheel. With the south to southeast wind expected tomorrow this should be reeeeaall nice. Brian is going to run/monitor the equipment while I try to connect on the Ghost of the Woods out there. We are going to use a Buck decoy for this hunt. We debated on the choice but after some scenerio talk thrus we decided at this time of the year we would do it this way. I think on this farm that the Does were locked down by the more mature deer last weekend. I think the big dogs will be back out there looking for the last of the hot does. I think a doe decoy would possibly pull a buck sniffing another doe trail and it could either be a giant or an imature buck where the buck decoy I hope will challenge only the kings of the timber whether on a doe trail or not.....hope my hunch is right.

We are set up in a nice open bowl at the bottome of a giant hill of CRP on the north side of the hub of a big wagon wheel. Anyway I could go on and on you get the idea..it's sweet.

It is going on 6pm the night before the first live stream and Sykes is still make last minute adjustments to the equipment. Where we are hunting it is remote and off the beaten path. We are using equipment that needs to pick up cell towers and so forth so it may not work out like intended but like I said this is a trial run. We are working on a shoestring budget.

Anyway it will be hard to sleep tonight but need to get some shut eye sometime. Stay Tuned!

John Sable / Iowa Deer

I wanted to take a minute to talk a little about the streaming hunts in Real Time that Brian and I are going to me launching. This is exciting for us as this has not been done. These hunts will be streamed live as they happen...no delays...uncut and un edited. Since this idea was talked about a few weeks ago Brian has been going non-stop to put the technology together for our first this Sunday.

We are still deciding how to set up for the HuntCast. We are going to be working alot of the kinks out this first hunt. Brian and I are pumped and hope we can make this work so you can tune in at 6am to see it go down.

We are very optimistic about this farm. Grat genetics and vast amounts of untouched land. The property consist of several fingers of timber surrounded by rolling hills of CRP. Off the property there are food sources. In the one day that we hunted it I had 2 different bucks in the 150's near me, one of which was directly under my stand and the way these two deer acted they are definatley not the dominat deer on the property.

We are going to be videoing footage on the way down and everything in between. I hope you all find it entertaining. The objective for us is to let people inside a REAL hunt and if it all works you may see a Giant hit the ground!

Now keep in mind this could be absolutley hilarious as well,,we are going to have fun.

Thanks for tuning in!

John Sable/ Iowa Deer

Well if you are a regular reader of the blogs then you will be one of the first to know about an exciting new feature coming to IowaDeer.com. Coming soon we will be airing live video hunts on IowaDeer.com. These videos will truly be LIVE - unedited, uncut, unpolished live hunting. We have been working on the technology involved with this endeavor for quite some time and are excited to pioneer such a new and innovative concept. I'm sure it will lead the way for other sites and hunting production companies in the future. Our first live video will be broadcast this weekend on Sunday morning or afternoon. We are still working out a few last minute details. As soon as we finalize the broadcast we will be posting the show time on the Iowa Deer Forum and homepage. This should be a great chance for us all to learn from fellow hunters by watching weekly live hunts with guys in the field. We'll be able to see the real hunt, unedited and uncut, and we can all learn from the mistakes and successes of the live hunter. Please check back soon for more info...

Well I haven't blogged in a while. I am really terrible about keeping up with it and I'll try to get better. The site traffic numbers have been off the charts this year. It's definately been a surprise how many visitors and hits we are getting each month and it has taken up a lot of time managing the new growth of the site. But it has been a lot of fun too, and it's encouraging to see some great new people participating on the forum.

As far as hunting goes, I haven't been out as much as I normally do. Most of the private ground I have hunted for years has either been sold (some to outfitters) or leased for big $. I can't compete with the big $ players - 3 kids, one income, you know the deal. So I've hunted some public ground and actually had some good and bad luck so far this year. I have passed on many small bucks and have harvested 2 does so far. Two weekends ago I rattled in a nice 10 pointer that I'd guess would have gone in the high 140 - 150 range. I had my decoy out and just like they always do he circled down wind from it. I had planned for this and I too was down wind - just not quite enough. This guy had obviously been hunted many times on this public area and was wise. I finally got a decent shot when he stepped out from behind a large brush pile. He was slightly quartering to me and appeared to have winded me. I really wanted to wait for a broadside or quartering away shot, but felt that I could put a good hit on him. And I did, or so I thought. I put my 20 yard pin right behind his front shoulder and let er rip. The arrow sunk in right behind his right sholder and he bolted. I was pumped! I sat still for another 30 minutes and then got down and went into town and bought a deer cart. Just before I shot him I dropped a big ole doe and I was way back in on this public ground and couldn't drive back in to retrieve them. After getting the deer cart and calling John (aka Iowa Deer) we went back out and started trailing the big boy. I had a good blood trail initally but after trailing him about 100 yards up on a ridge it really lightened up and then disappeared altogether. We looked almost all day for him and never recovered him This is only the second time I have hit one and not found him. I was really bumbed. Actually I still am as I write this. I still can't believe given the shot placement that he didn't drop sooner and that I didn't find him.

So on to other adventures. About the only good gound I have left that is private is a long drive for me south just north of the MO border. John and I headed down there last weekend for an all day Sunday hunt. I sat up down in a bottom area right by a North/South creek where I have seen some good sign this year. John was up on a ridge about 200 yards away. Right away in the morning I saw 2 does cruise through the CRP up on the hill in front of me then a small 8 came cruising in. I could barely hear John start to rattle and the 8 turned tail and bailed the opposite way. He ran down near my decoy. looked at it and then bolted across the creek. Then about 30 minutes later I see antlers appear in the CRP across an east/west creek to the south of me. He is probably 60 yards away from me. I try to grunt him into my decoy using True Talker doe setting, but he won't cross the big cut that the creek flows through. The banks are very steep in either spot. I had actually setup my decoy for once as a doe thinking I might catch a lonely buck inbetween does. They had all been locked down the week before so that was my theory and I stuck to it. To make a long story short he strolls right on up the creek and doesn't turn his head to my calls and just continues up into the CRP. Now I knew John had taken in his self climber and was somewhere up there and I shut up and hoped for the best for him to drop this big boy. He was a minimum of a 150 inch deer from what I could tell. Maybe as high as 160 or so, but with ground shrinkage I would think somewhere in the 150 range. Nice 10. Anyway, I watch the buck cruize up the hill and then he bolts. I didn't know if John slung one at him or if he spooked or what. I found out later when we talked that he just spooked and tore out of there.

We hunted all the rest of the day until dark. I will share some more on our afternoon hunt some other time as I am getting really tired of writing. Talk to you all soon.