It was 87 degrees that afternoon. I headed in blind, to a new spot that I scouted by aerials and topos for a long time. I had a trail camera at a creek crossing along the road, about a mile away from my target area, and had a couple decent bucks from the area show up (have pics of the one I shot). Hunting in hill country, I looked for the closest ridges and points that would hold bedding but be overlooked by other hunters. I had a south wind and figured the bucks I had seen on the trail cam would be bedding on the north side of the ridge off of one of two points. The hike in with the stand on my back up and over 2 ridges was pretty tiring given the heat. I hardly seen any sign on my way in until I got closer to the destination I determined from cyber scouting.
Small rubs started to pop up along oak benches. The further back I got the better the sign got. I finally found some fresh large rubs along a trail leading to one of the points I figured bucks were bedding. I found a nice looking spot on a saddle overlooking this exit trail and started to climb up a tree when it began to storm. There was a little lightning and a heavy down pour that lasted 30 minutes which was nice to cool me off and allow me to hang my stand quietly. Just as I got the stand set, a spike appeared out of no where 15 yards in front of me. With my bow still on the ground I stood on my top stick and hugged up against the tree til he worked off.
With the storm passing the temperature dropped about 20 degrees and the thermals were pulling my scent down the windward side of the ridge away from the bedding. The deer started moving early, just before 5. I had a young buck come out of the bedding area followed a minute later by a slightly larger buck. They worked their way down the saddle 65 yards away to the oaks on the windward side. Knowing that anything else coming out from there would be too far for a shot, I hit the doe bleat a couple times to maybe draw one closer. Not even 5 minutes later a see a sapling shaking violently about 60 yards away. I got my phone out and was able to catch a video of a nice buck making a rub in the direction the other 2 had come from. I hit the bleat again and he changed direction and headed towards me. At 30 yards, he turned and headed down the ridge towards the others. I had a small opening and stopped him with a quick mouth bleat and let the arrow fly. He tucked his tail and tore off away from me. As soon as he crested the ridge I could here him crash. I gave him a half hour before picking up the trail. I had a great blood trail that I had no problem following right to him.
The drag out was brutal. I ended up being able to get hold of a guy at work who dropped what he was doing to help me drag him out. I'm 6'2 and he's 6'4 and it was all we could do to drag this buck over a mile to the truck. He went 210 dressed which is big for a big woods, hill country buck here. This is my biggest buck to date, a little bigger than the one from last year (in my avatar), both taken thanks to the advice here and what I've learned from Dan's videos.
