crestedbutte
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- Jul 17, 2002
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We only were able to hunt Mon. morning & afternoon and Tues. morning of the muzzleloader season. Had to cut it short due to a funeral. We are heading back this weekend when the muzzleloader season combines w/ rifle.
In the day and a half of hunting, we made 4 unsuccessful stalks w/a decoy. They would let us get only as close as 250-300yds before they ran off. The wind was in our favor each time, but have to guess they had been educated by the archery hunters the week before. We even combined decoying and flagging. When we arrived on Fri. before the Mon. opener, I witnessed a buck tirelessly chasing 2 bucks off that continually made a charge down to his small harem. I thought decoying was going to be a breeze. Since water was everywhere out there we elected to not hunt our blinds, especially after sitting in them over the weekend before the season opened to see if they were getting any use.
When Mon. arrived all the groups we saw had already been formed and had their herd buck and he was usually keeping the does close to him. We did not see any small bucks hanging out anywhere in any direction we could see. I have to think at this point the herd bucks had no desire to challenge us. Mon. & Tues. were very bright sunny, windless days, and have to guess that may play a part in it. I have read that the best days to decoy are on overcast days, seems to take the edge off everything and the lopes can't make things out as clearly, but you have to hunt no matter the circumstances due to such a short season. Me and my buddy have concluded that we will try the same thing, and when they hang up and won't come any closer, we will have to belly crawl the rest of the distance in order to get within muzzleloader (open sight)range. Can anyone else out there relate or can anyone give advice on what we are doing wrong or what we can do in order to be successful. -CB-
In the day and a half of hunting, we made 4 unsuccessful stalks w/a decoy. They would let us get only as close as 250-300yds before they ran off. The wind was in our favor each time, but have to guess they had been educated by the archery hunters the week before. We even combined decoying and flagging. When we arrived on Fri. before the Mon. opener, I witnessed a buck tirelessly chasing 2 bucks off that continually made a charge down to his small harem. I thought decoying was going to be a breeze. Since water was everywhere out there we elected to not hunt our blinds, especially after sitting in them over the weekend before the season opened to see if they were getting any use.
When Mon. arrived all the groups we saw had already been formed and had their herd buck and he was usually keeping the does close to him. We did not see any small bucks hanging out anywhere in any direction we could see. I have to think at this point the herd bucks had no desire to challenge us. Mon. & Tues. were very bright sunny, windless days, and have to guess that may play a part in it. I have read that the best days to decoy are on overcast days, seems to take the edge off everything and the lopes can't make things out as clearly, but you have to hunt no matter the circumstances due to such a short season. Me and my buddy have concluded that we will try the same thing, and when they hang up and won't come any closer, we will have to belly crawl the rest of the distance in order to get within muzzleloader (open sight)range. Can anyone else out there relate or can anyone give advice on what we are doing wrong or what we can do in order to be successful. -CB-
