[ Post made via Android ]
This hunt pretty much started three years ago for me. Long story short, a different buck three years ago got me interested in this chuck of Public land. The buck that got me interested is the same buck that I was still after opening night. At that point, the scouting, hunting, and planning began. Through shinning, looking for tracks, rubs, scrapes, etc I started to learn where the bedding was. Looking for bedding I’ve gotten to the point where I want to be 100% sure that the bed/beds I’m hunting can and do hold bucks and not doe. I wanted to know if these are beds all year long or just during a certain part of the season. During the past two years, after the first two weeks, I would go into where I thought the bedding was and jump the deer right up. I actually put eyes on my target buck last year doing this. Although I scarred that buck that day, I gained much more valuable Intel which lead to opening night 2013.
As of opening day my plan was to hit up all of the 3 known bedding areas in this swampy boggy terrain. Because the wind was out of the west, I started at the east end of the section for two reasons.
1. I’ve noticed that wind according; bucks sometimes take the side of this woods that allows them to scent check the greater portion of the woods. In this case. The buck took the east side of the woods because the west wind would allow him to smell predators on the west side of the woods. I’m not sure if bucks do this, but it’s something I have been paying attention to.
2. The second reason I started in the west, Is because I like to use the “work your way in approach” If I would have started hunting the beds in the east, every deer to the west would have winded me that moved through that woods.
With all that being said, if the wind would have been out of the east, I would have started hunting the beds on the west side of the woods.
Opening morning, I ended up hunting more of an observation stand than anything. I wanted to make sure that the target buck wasn’t headed to the least likely bedding area. I saw nothing.
At 3:30pm on Saturday night I jumped in my truck and headed out. I took a lap around the block I was hunting and saw vehicles everywhere. I ended up taking a long way to my spot to avoid other hunters seeing me. The tree I chose was the shape of a Y right in a cluster of oaks about 65ish yards from bedding. I couldn’t find acorns on the ground or in the trees, but tracks in the ground told me that the deer were browsing here. I sat with bow in hand and camera on the camera arm ready during that last two hours of light. My biggest mistake last year was lack of preparation in the tree and I didn’t want that to be the case this year. Roughly an hour before dark a nice 2.5 year old 9 point came out of the bedding.
At that point, I felt as though that night had been a success. Just as the tracks indicated, he browsed and (staged?) below me for a while. Once this buck started to head off I slowly turned my head to make sure nothing else was coming from the bedding and I saw two legs. Then I saw its nose hit the ground and a huge rack! At first glance I was positive that It was the buck I was after. I caught a side view of the right side of the rack and saw a line of points and a long main beam. That told me it wasn’t my target buck, but it was too huge to pass. He was coming straight at the base of my tree and I had to figure out which way he would go because I had to get my arrow over and around the other Y of the tree. Being on public, my shooting lanes were more like holes.
He finally turned and cut in front of me. At a steady walk, I had my camera arm swung behind me with no time to move it. I got the bow pulled back quickly as he stepped into a small opening. His head was already leaving the opening and I touched off. The shot looked great! He spun and ran straight underneath and behind me and all at once the crashing stopped. I assumed he was down. I ran and got my dad, a sled, and a knife. The blood trail sprayed on trees and we found him piled up behind my stand less than 20 years away. It was a perfect heart shot.
The drag out was not fun. If you look at some of the photos of me on the previous page, you can see my shirt drenched in sweat.
This is just one more hunt that I can honestly say that if it were not for the Dan, the sight, and you guys I would have never gotten.
Oh, and it tasted great!
Once we had him home, big hunt and a few other friends came over and congratulated me and admired him. Thanks BIGHUNT! You’re up to bat buddy!
I also want to give Uncle Lou a good plug! Bighunt helped me put Stealth strips on my stand and sticks and you wouldn’t think that I they would make that big of a difference, but OMG they do!! Love them! I will not own another stand without them. The covered metal is silent and any uncovered metal just seems to sound more like a thud. It takes away the clank sound.
