For the 3rd straight year the rut was pretty marginal for us during the first week of November despite seemingly good conditions. Fortunately, I was able to rattle in and arrow this solid 9 pointer with a cool crab claw point in Missouri on November 8th at 9:30. I began the day sitting over a decoy in a draw leading to a big block of timber before making a move at 8:30 to the downwind side of a big thicket with plans to stay until 2:00. I passed up a young 10 pointer over a decoy in the first spot before settling in at the new spot at 9:00 where I had a little guy walk by within minutes of sitting down. Five minutes later a 2 year old eight was being pushed around to the South of me by a mature buck with 1 one beam totally broken off. The big guy was posturing, snort wheezing, and making runs at the younger buck to get him out of the area. They ended up locking horns for just a moment before the 2 year old wised up and ran into the cover. At 9:30 I rattled and saw what I thought was the tall and narrow 2 year old eight coming back so I grabbed my video camera and filmed him walking in and past my stand before realizing he was different buck and a good one. Luckily, he stopped quartering away allowing me to tuck the camera in my pocket, grab my bow, and make a good quartering away shot as he stood looking away. A short 50 yds later he was down for good.
On a down note my brother and I found these two brutes locked up and dead on November 6th. I’d seen one of them alive on Oct 26th as he stepped out of a draw into a cut bean field and encountered him again on the 27th so they locked up sometime after that. Gruesome death for sure.
Link to the video of the buck coming to the horns just prior to the shot
http://youtu.be/RTkzP4YQnxM
