Archery Hunting Ohio's Wayne National Forest
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I harvested a buck during the first week in November in my home state of Pennsylvania. It was my first buck killed with a recurve. I had never done a solo out of state hunting trip but wasn't ready for my season to be over. I quickly did some e-scouting and decided to head to an area within the Wayne National Forest in Ohio to try my chances at a second buck.
The area I found had a good mix of public ground bordering private. I was in Ohio the second week of November and my first area I scouted on the ground, I saw and ran into deer and good buck sign. I set up a tent at a near by campground and begin hunting out of camp.
My first night I didn't see any deer but had a good game plan for the morning where I found the buck sign the day before. A storm had gone through bringing a sharp drop in temperatures. That night it was in the mid 20s and windy. I was rather cold in my tent. I headed out after eating breakfast and setup in my Cruzr saddle in a pine tree.
I hunted about three hours and hadn't seen a deer. I decided to do a rattling sequence and within 3 minutes spotted a shooter buck (as seen in the image above) running into my stand. He got to the opening and stopped to look for the sparring bucks. He instantly went on high alert and froze for about 2 minutes looking around. It would've been a 30 yard shot but he never gave me an opportunity.
Just as quickly as he came, he spooked and ran off. That next night I got onto a small six point a couple miles from there. The rest of the trip I had deer and buck encounters on nearly every stand. I had a blast hunting from a campground and tent camping. I was very impressed with the deer numbers, habitat, and hunting experience in the Wayne National Forest.
If you would like to see the video I made of this adventure, it is below.
