Its Almost That Time..Sika Time That Is

 

Bow season for sikas in Maryland will soon be here…not soon enough for many of us. Hopefully, you have been out doing your homework the past month of so. However, a little event named Hurricane Irene may have disrupted things and caused some changes for you. The flooding caused by one of the biggest storms Maryland has experienced in a long time may have temporarily pushed the sikas off of your marsh and wetlands into more upland areas. Where they will eventually end up is a crap shoot. One thing you can count on is that if you have good sika habitat they will fill it. It’s also possible that the high water caused some mortality but these animals are pretty doggone hardy and have instincts that can and do get them through a lot of seemingly tough conditions.

 

One thing I do know is that, after a long dry summer, the heavy rains have flooded over the mosquito eggs on all the mud flats and hordes of mosquitos are abundant in the tidal and fresh water marshes. Some Eastern shore natives have stated that this is the worst they have ever seen it. Sp pay special attention to the Therma Cell tip below.

You may have been ready as far as knowing where you were going to plop down the first day but this storm may cause you to have to prepare all over again. Whether you prepared early or are just starting the following are some tips that may be helpful in getting ready to pursue this most worthy of game animals. 

· Sikas leave lots of visible evidence that they are using the area. Stags mark areas with wallows; the equivalent of a whitetail’s scrape. They are normally found on islands, tumps, fingers of land that are slightly elevated above the marshy part of their habitat. These muddy holes average one to two feet in diameter and stink as the stags often urinate in them then wallow or roll around in them just like bull elk do. During the heavy rut you can often smell the stags before you see them. They also thrash and rub bushes and pine saplings and break off phrag stalks. Trails are fairly easy to find and follow in a marsh. As with other species check for trails and droppings. Of course, you can’t beat physical sightings. Trail cameras can tell you a lot about the sikas using your area.

· ID’ ing areas where bugling is occurring gives you great advantage in knowing where the stags like to hang out if trophy racks are your thing. The best times to listen are sunrise and sunset especially on cold days of course you can hear them at any time not just during the rut. High temperatures sometimes tend to shut them up.

· Make vocalizations as sikas are very vocal animals and you can call in males and females alike. In calling stags you appeal to 1) dominance and 2) sex drive. Challenge a bugling stag with a bugle and/or growl and you’ll find out quickly if he thinks he’s the baddest stag in the area. With hunting sikas through the years, I’ve found that you usually can’t call a stag 300 or 400 yards across a marsh. So, you need to move to the stag’s core area which, often times, is a thick phrag or briar bed. It’s important to be quiet and not blow the stag out of the area. Once you get set up close to his bedroom, a challenging bugle can get him to close the distance quickly looking to make contact with the intruding stag. Use some whines, soft whistles or chirps (hind/cow talk) and you may sweet-talk him in. Hinds and calves also respond to all of the sounds. You can team up with a friend; one calling with the other out front. Always be cognizant of wind direction when setting up. Distances can vary depending on the weapon used. The Sika Seducer is the premier call marketed and sold widely. Elk calls can be modified as well.

• Sikas like to move early in the morning and at last light…that’s not to say that they don’t move at other times. Make sure you arrive early and stay until the end of legal shooting time. During the rut, however, stags are active and moving all day. The best stags I’ve taken have been cruising at mid day.

• When hunting the sika marshes it’s good to use a GPS or compass as the marshes all look similar at night and even sometimes during the day. I sometimes will tie a cylume or glow stick up in a tree (home base so to speak) if I have to head out into the marsh to find a sika that’s been hit.

• Use Google Earth or a similar program to help in your quest for taking a sika. The satellite images available now are invaluable in helping you understand a lot about the vegetation features in the territory you are hunting in. Small islands of vegetation, phragmites beds, openings in heavy cover and mud flats will be very apparent.

• You’ve seen this stuff called phragmites, phrag or common reed. The leaves are about 2” wide and 20” long. In August it develops multi-branched, feathery-looking plumes at the top of a stem which grows to a height of 10’ to 12’. It normally grows in various-sized clumps or beds, often out-competing other marsh plants. It spreads by seed dispersal as well as by a rhizome or an under –the-surface root system. These dense beds provide travel corridors and resting cover that sikas absolutely love. Fight your way into one of them and you’ll see what I mean. Especially during the rut, stags love to cruise these beds in search for hinds in estrus. Find a tree/s inside a bed and you’ll surely see deer although there are not many openings. Station yourself between two beds and you’ve found a great spot as they move from one bed to the other.

• In typical wetland vegetation still hunting works well. Sneaking along quietly in heavy cover can put you face to face with sikas quite frequently. A subtle splash here and there along with some low-volume vocalizations sounds quite natural and can actually draw a deer to you. Make sure to move into the wind to avoid blowing your cover. They spend most of their lives not able to see more than 20 yards in front of them. You can definitely use this fact to your advantage.

• The marshes that sika like so much are interlaced with rivers, creeks and guts. Shallow draft boats with Go-Devil motors, kayaks and canoes are ideal for getting into good sika habitat. Why not utilize a boat as they can get you into places that many hunters can’t get to. You can cover a lot of territory and see a lot of interesting things out there besides. This mode of travel might even help you find some great duck hunting spots as well.

• It pays to listen to the weather report as unusually high water levels will temporarily move sikas onto higher ground. Change your tactics and hunt the islands and higher ground in these conditions. Frozen marshes with a lot of ice will do the same.

• Don’t neglect hunting natural food that produce hard mast like acorns and soft mast like persimmons. Feeding or baiting works extremely well for sikas. Corn is the most popular bait followed by others like: sweet feeds, corn/soybean mixes, small grains and pellets. Spin feeders, drop feeders and just plain ole putting it on the ground will do the trick. Sikas love food plots and agricultural grain crops as well.

• Sika decoys work in the right situations, especially where the decoy can be seen for a long distance like on the edge of a needle grass / short grass marsh or food plot. Sikas, especially stags will come right to them especially during the rut. Give them a try.

• Irene has put water into places that rarely has water. With that comes mosquitos; usually lots of them. With that, do yourself a favor and invest in a Therma Cell. These devices will keep the mosquitoes off you which keeps you from making a lot of unnecessary motion. The light smell doesn’t seem to bother them. The next best thing is a bug suit I often use both.

• Don’t be afraid to use a ground blind for sikas. Normal precautions must be taken however. Make sure they’re scent free and you place it downwind. Unlike with turkey hunting, it helps to have shoot- through netting covering the openings. It also helps to brush it up to blend in with existing vegetation and/or tuck it in some existing shrubs, needle rush or common reed.

• Practice shooting a lot as these are small animals with small kill zones. The smallest whitetail target will make a large sika stag target.

• The jury is out concerning scents and lures as I don’t think enough hunters have experimented enough with them to give a definitive thumbs up or down. If they have…no one is talking. One good sika hunter I know told me he once had sikas licking the leaves that he had sprayed an apple flavored foam on. Marketed and sold currently is The Sika Bomb and Downwind Scents Foam.

• Knee or hip boots are advised depending on the water levels in your hunting area.

· Concerning the proper camo; if you’re hunting from the ground then its good to match the habitat. Otherwise being still, scent free and playing the wind is much more important

· The peak of the rut occurs around the third week in October. I like to hunt late September and early October best as stag movement and bugling really increases then.

Good luck this season…get out there and have fun.