Hunting with the Little Delta Bow

December 31, 2004

The Story of the Little Delta Bow

To make this even more fun, we're going to let you guys help us pick a spot.  The area we are hunting is a brand new part of the Morgan/Monroe State Forest in South Central Indiana.  It is called Ravinia Woods and up until this year was a privately held property.  The state bought it and opened it for hunting.  I have done very little scouting on the property and don't know what the pressure was like this fall.  I doubt we'll have a lot of competition on the day of the hunt.  The area totals 1500 acres and is mixed hardwood ridges and pasture with a creek bottom or two for good measure.  There is a lot of agricultural activity in the area, mostly beans and corn.  The tract that was purchased was only a portion of a larger tract.  Several other parties bought the other half and it is very restricted in the number of hunters allowed on it.  This serves as a reservoir of deer adjacent to the public land.  It lies to the west of the tract we can hunt on.

Here is the map of the land.

Here is the Microsoft Terraserver topo and aerial of the area

Now, using your best hunting skills and these maps, give us your opinion on where to hunt.  We have some ideas but we'll save those for later in the week.  Weather is supposed to be mild, 40 degrees and maybe rain.  This area had 18" of snow last week and there should be some left.  Prevailing winds are from the west but I bet we'll have some south to that and it is very broken terrain so wind will be tough on us.  We plan on stalking and maybe pushing some areas.  We are hunting all day.  There may be a third person in the group and we will have the option of hanging stands.

To make this easy to understand where you want us to hunt, use the parking area, marked with a "P" on the map as a reference point.  Give us your best guess from that area.

Since we are hunting with an old Bear Bow, I figured I'd hunt with some old Bear Arrows and a Bear head.

Here's the Hunt