Interesting public hunt last night

[James]

I had a fun public land sit last evening. With a straight W wind I thought that I would try a bedding area that I had scouted in the spring of 2012. I had actually jumped a nice buck out of his bed in this location in December scouting. Heading to the lone tree that I was to hunt, I ended up on a small oak island first. It was very wet getting in but on this island was the highest concentration of buck sign that I have ever seen. Being I could see the tree that I was going to go further in to hunt I decided to setup on the sign (something I rarely do) This was fresh sign though, and I am a firm believer of setting up on fresh sign when you see this much of it. Some rubs looked like young bucks but a few were mature for sure.

The wind was fairly strong until about 6:20-6:30. That is when a yearling 8 point got out of his bed and came up onto the island by me. He was eating a few red maple leaves that were close to the ground and making his way into the acorns. As he came in by me I heard two other bucks sparring just a little ways away. The grass and cattails are very high in this area so it is difficult to see deer until they are on top of you. I heard a few more clicks and clacks and then another yearling 8 point came flying in. He stopped under my stand looking at his backtrack. I am guessing a bigger buck pushed him away. I could hear the other buck walking north. Then everything broke loose and I had a cub black bear come flying in by me! This is central Minnesota right by the twin cities. We have black bears but seeing one while on stand is a rare rare sight. A few minutes after the cub came by the sow came in right after. I got this footage of her:

[bbvideo=425,350]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3NJWb2URfk[/bbvideo]

[BigHunt]

Sweet

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[Edcyclopedia]

Cool!

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[Jackson Marsh]

Cool encounter!

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[yungbuck]

Very cool

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[hunter_mike]

Wow that is an awesome hunt. Are you going back to rehunt it soon to get on that main bed or do you consider it burned for now?

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[PLB]

Nice!!!

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[Bowhunter4life]

Very cool

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[obrion]

Exciting hunt!

[frogtosser]

That's super cool

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[James]

Wow that is an awesome hunt. Are you going back to rehunt it soon to get on that main bed or do you consider it burned for now?

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Not sure when or if I'll hunt it again. I have a lot of spots in the area to keep trying. There is another core bedding area further west of this spot and given that I saw two yearlings in close proximity I have my doubts that a mature buck is in there with them. If I had to guess, the buck that I did not see that was sparring with the other was likely a two year old. I don't think that a yearling buck would get the chance to spar that aggressively with a mature buck.

If I had visual confirmation of a shooter I would be in there again.

[HoosierG5]

Very cool

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[backstraps]

!

[oldrank]

Wow.. pretty crazy... ive never seen a wild bear.

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[ihookem]

Was that on a smart phone? It was pretty clear.