So as I’m preparing for the 2020 season my wife gets an invite to her cousins wedding, on Nov 14th,
. Seems like the last few years opening day of gun in Michigan has been ruined one way or another. 15 & 18 was children being born, but there always seems to be something. So I threw a little hissy fit to my wife but eventually gave in and let her get tickets to fly out to the wedding. It first I was just going to take time off and watch the kids, then she suggested I go up to my parents and my mom can help watch the kids and I could hunt some. Well even though I did not have high hopes for my parents property at least I could get some hunting in. Also my wife was flying out of Grand Rapids which is only 30 minutes from my parents anyways.So as the date approached I ended up shooting my biggest buck yet on Nov 6th. So that took much of my self induced pressure off. Then on nov 13th I hit another really big buck, pushing 150s and did not find it, hit it forward in the shoulder believe I missed vitals. Track went for 170 yards bedded up twice and then no blood. Brought in a blood tracking dog and it did no better. So at that point I really felt like my season was pretty much over, I had 2 opportunities in 1 week on two different 150 class bucks, harvested one of them, I was bummed about the blown opportunity on the second one, but I felt very content in my season at that point.
So we pack up the kids, and head up to my parents. I knew if I was going to shoot a buck there I had do what no one else was. My parents property is a small swamp to the west then a big swamp directly east of it, my parents own approx 20% of the big swamp. My dad has his blind on the best spot on the property, it’s the small pinch between the 2 swamps. But he does not really pay attention to the wind and just generally hunts when he feels like. So first night I gets to hunt is a slight North West wind. I climb a tree on the very South East side of the big swamp, see no deer, but did see some trees in the big swamp I knew I wanted to hunt. It was a small line of birch that jutted out into the swamp. Second hunt wind had changed and was coming out of the South, so I hunted the opposite side of the pinch where my dads blind is, no deer but thought I heard some chasing and grunting in the big swamp. Those 2 hunts were on the 13th & 14th. The night of the 14th my 2 year old son comes down with a fever, so opening day I don’t hunt as I spent it helping my mom take care of him and the other kids. After waking up I did not worry about it at all as it was pouring all day. My wife gets back that night, and everything was shaping up for the next day as the wind was shifting back to North West, temp was dropping and it was going to be clear but windy.
Second day of gun season I get out bright and early was hanging from my saddle about an hour and a half before day light. I was directly in the middle of the larger portion of swamp that my dad owns. About 9 AM I’m thinking to myself how I should have just checked out the local public land, there was too much pressure here, I can’t hunt the right spot, how I’m never hunting up there again, etc. finally right as I’m think all this stuff I see a doe on the neighbors the a nice buck. Text my dad and asked him about shooting onto the neighbors as my dad also let’s this neighbor hunt. My dad said I could, so I’m trying to get a shot threw the swamp brush. The deer is probably 100-80 yards away probably 15/20 yards on the neighbors. At one point I had a shot but I just could not take it as I was worried about the deer ruining onto a different neighbors. So I watched the buck and doe for probably 30/45 minutes, during this time he bread here multiple times. Then about 10:15 he disappeared, and I saw a doe and fawn walk towards my dad. At this point I thought he was done with her and moved on. I failed to mention that I called to the deer multiple times but he did not even so much as look my direction. 11:30 comes and I had not seen the deer in a while and I was pretty cold by this point, so I get down head in and get some lunch.
My dad headed back out pretty early and I was making my way back out around 2 with the plan to hunt on the ground in the swamp trying to cut the distance some and hope to call the buck into range. There were 2 dead trees in the swamp that were about 20 & 30 yards further then I was in the morning, and my plan was to make it one of them and see what I could see. So anyways I took my time walking through the swamp trying to keep cover between where I had seen the deer in the morning and myself. As I got to the first tree it was surrounded by water and I could see the second tree was where I wanted to be, I could see a good 3x3 patch of dry ground beneath it and it just set up perfect for a ground hunt. So I made it to that tree crawled up onto it, I was on my knees, looked up and there was the buck about 50/45 yards away and he had closed some of the distance. There was too much brush so I sent a couple grunts his way. Again he did not respond but I caught movement in front of him and I could see the doe. They had bedded down for the afternoon and now she was coming my way. She came in to about 10 yards scent checking trying to figure out what was making the noise. My wind was perfect they could not smell me but she kept looking in the direction of my dads blind. Eventually she kind spooked and ran back past the buck, who had now cut the distance even more. He was now standing about 35 yards away in the opening I was hoping to draw him into, but the cattails were too high I could only see the top of his buck and his neck. I knew this was going to be my only chance with the doe going back past him, but he was just standing there looking in my direction. So I put the cross hairs in the middle of his white patch and pulled the trigger. He instantly bounded 15 yards to the left landed on his back and was kicking up in the air, he then rolled over and plowed through the cattails onto the neighbors property. I thought I had made a good hit but after he got back up I was a little nervous. After my dad got ahold of the neighbor I followed the trail, no blood so I went to the last spot I had seen him and there he lay. This buck capped my best season ever, had 3 bucks 140 or better within 10 yards of me + this buck, also another 2.5 year old I missed earlier in the season. There were a lot of ups and downs but I was on the most bucks ever thanks to beast tactics. Just want to thank everyone on here for sharing their knowledge and making the hunting beast an awesome forum.
