I'm from Pa and this was my second season ever bowhunting in Ohio, last year we paid for a "semi-guided" trip in ohio and it was not worth it, seeing 3 basket rack bucks in 3 does between the 2 of us in 4 days of sitting sunrise to sunset during the rut. Anyways I'm not here to complain, so this year we decided to do it ourselves, best decision we coulda made.

I'd like to thank people that helped me out with questions i've posted on here all summer and during the early season about different public property and other miscellaneous questions, it definitely helped. We scouted the area once, studied it with topos then my dad went there in october for one day and scouted two areas on public land one for him and one for me.

The first weekend saw a bunch of basket racks, grunted a couple small bucks in and on saturday at 8 am missed the biggest buck i've ever drawn on (probably only 120 but hey I hunt Pa public game lands, if you've hunted the big woods here you'd understand thats a giant haha) he was only at 30 yards and that should be a chip shot for me, however he jumped the string and hit the ground as soon as I released, what can i do? Anyways saw over 25 deer in 2 days of hunting sunrise to sunset, and at least 5 bucks, more bucks than I've seen all season in Pa.

The second weekend, friday was a bust only saw some does, then saturday my dad texted me saying he got busted by a monster 8 with a dark brown rack at 15 yards, he only takes 10 feet of sticks with him for his hang on, I always told him he's gotta go higher, as upset as he was I think he's gonna buy more sticks hahaha then 2 hours later I hear something behind me and that 10 pt i missed last week shows up again at 40 yards but he was behind me and never stepped into a clear shooting lane.

All in all saw deer every day we went out and had turkeys within bow range three times, no turkey tag unfortunately haha but anyways THANK YOU ohio, once i start full time after I graduate in December I know i'll be setting a week aside every year to go to Ohio and hunt. Now we're keeping an eye on basecampleasing.com for a reasonable lot of land to be up for lease.

Good luck to everyone the rest of the season!