Last week was by far the earliest I've ever personally seen a newborn whitetail fawn. I was sitting in a ladder stand overlooking a corn feeder in south Florida, hoping a wild hog would step in for a visit before dark when a doe and a tiny fawn (I'm talking six or eight pounds here) crossed some 70 yards away.
It was one of three does and fawns my dad and I saw over the course of our three-day hog hunt. With a gestation period of about 200 days, those does had to have been bred around the first of September, according to my calculations (but keep in mind this is a journalist talking here; start replacing commas with numbers and I start getting lost). Maybe earlier. Whatever the case, it's clear there was some rutting activity taking place in south Florida that was much earlier than I ever would have guessed.
Unfortunately (but no surprise), I never was able to get a good look at one of those does and fawns when I had a camera in my hand, so you'll just have to take my word for it. I did get a couple decent deer pictures, including the one above of a doe and yearling. With a favorable wind and plenty of palmettos for cover, I was able to creep to within about 15 yards before taking this shot.
As for the pigs, they made things a lot of fun. I have some ribs from the smallest of my three porkers from the hunt, a 50-pounder, soaking right now ready to cook this week--Memphis style. If you like to bowhunt whitetails and have never tackled hogs over a feeder, it's something I highly recommend. On private land in Florida, there are no licenses required and no limits on how many hogs you can shoot, and even though they're not the best-looking critters out there, they are among the best tasting if you do your part while skinning and butchering. They're a great way to pass the time between deer and turkey season as well.
Will in Tennessee
Published by The Whitetail Team on Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at 3:33 PM.
