I haven’t killed a bow buck in the marsh since 2012 and was getting a little irritated with this fact
. Opening day of bow I saw one decent buck and two weeks later my daughter was able to kill him at a distance of 8 yards. 
viewtopic.php?f=287&t=32200
My rut hunting vacation started on November 1st and I was ready to hunt! I hiked in to an island about 1.5 miles in, as I was setting up I had another hunter come in on me
. He was probably another Beast . I sat all day and didn’t see a deer. I bounced around over the next few days trying to figure out where the deer were moving and get on some cruising bucks. One particular spot I needed a South wind to hunt, I hunted it on November 4th and did not see a deer. This particular stand I’ve never NOT seen a buck while hunting it during the rut 
.I hunted this stand again on November 8th and had two small 2 year old bucks come through, one in the morning and another just before close. The stand is on the downwind edge of a massive bedding area, it should and has been awesome. I was getting frustrated.
I had another stand location to the South of here, but had been putting off hunting it because I needed to burn (walk through) a good chunk of prime bedding to get to it. November 10th was a cold frosty foggy morning. I decided to dive right into the bedding area and let the chips fall where they may.
While hanging the stand I had a deer come through, couldn’t see it in the cattails but it must have heard or spotted me. It busted out. That afternoon I had a nice 10 pointer come in, I had no shot initially, but he offered up a shot at what I thought was 30 yards (I had ranged various trails through the cattails) and promptly shot under him
. I screwed up what trail he was on and blew the shot. This spot has multiple trails coming through the cattails, and without trees and very few bushes for reference points I had blown my only opportunity for the year 
.
November 11th an E/SE wind was predicted and I decided to hunt the same stand. I walked in with the wind in my face to only burn one area (wind direction and access trail the same). Shortly after setting up I had a lone (unseen) deer come in from the West and bed down maybe 80 yards away. Shortly after this another deer (again unseen) came in from the East and bedded down 60 yards to the East. Things were looking up! At 9:47 I heard crunching in the cattails and stood up. The buck came in from the South and offered up a 25 yard shot. I heard the “thunk” and watch him take off through the cattails. I had a difficult time at first finding blood, I was looking on the trails, but when he initially bolted he was leaping over the cattails/grass (not on a trail) so the blood was on tops of them. Eventually he got on a trail and blood was relatively easy to find. In total he covered about 200 yards (I hit him back). Buck down!!
Kill tree
Purple dot stand sites.
Orange buck path
Blue small patch of trees
Now the fun begins
. I was way back in and knew it would be a chore getting him out. I dragged for 5 hours that day and covered a total (round trips) of 8.78 miles, with lightning and wind picking up and rain on the way (and I was tired ) I decided to leave him overnight and finish up in the morning.
Overall it was a very satisfying season, between my daughter and I we had two buck tags to fill and filled them both on a public marsh.
Inserting my daughter's buck in here is "dirty pool"
