Babies Birthdays and Bucks
Archery Buck
I'll start out by saying that I wasn't expecting much out of my deer season this year after learning my wife was due in October with twin girls! And as is common with twins, they often come early.
Our NH archery season opened on September 15th. I made it out hunting the opener after work and one Saturday before the twins decided it was time to come on September 24th. Healthy Mom, healthy 36 week girls! We thank the Lord for that!
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Fast forward to Columbus day weekend. Two of my wife's nieces flew out to help out with the twins so I ran the idea past my wife to go hunting Saturday and Monday evening and she ok'd it. Saturday was a bust. Monday the 12th was our 8 year old daughter's birthday. I had some things to get done and I brought her out for ice cream, and before I knew it, it was 4 o'clock and the sun sets at 6:09. I had an idea of where to go with the east wind that was forecast for the night.
I had run across some bedding on a wooded hillside choked with mountain laurel with interconnected logging roads running all through it while snow tracking 2 seasons ago...more on this later. I've walked through the area a couple times while hunting since and found some good tracks. I finally got around to scouting it early September with my 11 year old son and got a kill tree picked out about 130 yards from one bedding area and about 200 yards from another.
I raced out the door at 4:20 and drove the 3 miles to the public land. After speed walking most of the mile and a quarter back to my tree I set up my sticks and stand and sent my wife a text at 5:25 to tell her I was at my destination in the tree. After checking the wind my milkweed was dropping about 5 feet to the left of my best shot window... Right where I was expecting a buck to be coming from, and opposite the predicted wind. I was set up in an oak in a triangle shaped "island" of laurel with log trails on three sides so it wasn't my only shot option. Also the trail to my east and south had trails tying them together further up the hill and figured I still had a chance I decided I'd sit it out. I said a quick prayer God would send me a deer and I'd make a clean kill.
After sitting for about 25 minutes I heard something coming from the southern trail which split in front of me. I saw antlers and immediately knew I was going into kill mode as anything other than a fawn was in my radar with a few tags and especially since I figured this could be my last sit for a while.
He took the east trail right toward my best shooting lane but towards my scent also and walking at a slow pace. I put my 20 yd pin on him as he rounded the corner to head up the hill on the east trail with a perfect quartering away shot and let it fly as he walked. Wow 27 minutes after I got settled in the tree! I almost didn't go out because of time constraints!
After texting my wife I hit a buck I called beast member dagger who was hunting a half hour away and he said he'd be coming.
I climbed down and checked my arrow and found the broadhead end with 3/4 of the arrow with good clean blood and a decent blood trail. I packed up and hiked back the same way I took in to avoid where the buck ran. Dagger brought his son along and picked up my son also and met me where we were closest to where my stand was to the unmaintained road. After a fairly easy track job down the same logging trail he came in on, he cut off into the laurel after about 200 yards and headed downhill towards a pond. We found him about 30 yards off the trail. It was a double lung hit. I didn't realize till about a month later that the spot where I marked he was dead was in one of the beds I had marked on the onx app.
We got it gutted out, took a few snapshots, and started the 550 yd drag to the truck.
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I got to give credit where it's due...To God first, to the wife and nieces for letting me slip out and to dagger and the boys for help dragging! Also thankful for the good hit because it started raining around midnight and dumped rain the whole next day. He weighed in at 163.7 and had 7 points.
Rifle buck
Now back to the snow tracking on the 16th of November in the 2018 rifle season. When we got our first snow storm, I figured I'd try snow tracking for the first time so I grabbed my winchester model 94 30-30 and headed for the woods. I put about 4 miles on looking for a track. On my way out of the woods I picked up a good track. I believe it was the same buck this season, going off the hillside he was bedded on, and the one straight on view I got of his head and rack. I ended up seeing him 7 times pushing him another 4.5 miles. I almost shot him 4 times but didn't have a view of his head to be sure it was the right deer. I ended up shooting a different buck a few days later on the 20th, which was a bad shot and had to go back in and finish him off the next morning on our oldest daughter's birthday.
The 2019 season I was tied up with other areas. I didn't put any effort into this area other than trying to track with our only storm we had in early December which amounted to 3 feet and proved very fruitless.
So on to this season. The night before our muzzleloader opener October 29th brought an early thin blanket of snow. I like to adapt my hunting style to the conditions at hand so tracking it was. I planned on getting to the same area just at daybreak and try to pick up a track. I hadn't even got to where I was going to park and caught a good track crossing the unmaintained road so I parked there and took it. He ended up picking up a doe and must have dogged her all night in an old cut because the area was loaded with tracks running everywhere through all the thick laurel and saplings. Soaked from the snow and not able to sort out the most recent tracks I gave up on it and crossed the road to find something different and to check the area I kicked up the buck in 2018. This was also where I shot the bow buck. I picked up another real nice track near the bed I'd found him in, in 2018 and follow it unknowingly past a friend's cell cam which caught the buck an hour ahead of me.
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He bedded on the side of the ridge where I bumped him, and slowly follow his running tracks about ¾ of a mile up onto a mountain side, trying to give him time to settle down. I found what looked like the same track doubled back walking down the hill. Assuming it was the same buck and since my knees were growing weary from the miles, instead of figuring out the track further up the mountain I took the downhill track and caught up to him at the bottom coming out of a small pot hole swamp. He bumped but stopped sharp quartered away with a tree cutting across his midsection at about 40 yd and head and neck was concealed by a snow covered hemlock branch. I put the scope of the cva wolf where I thought the vitals would be and quickly yanked the trigger. After the smoke cleared I found a tuft of hair, no blood, and 4 or so running tracks that stopped mixed in with a few sets of walking tracks. Assuming I just got hair I followed a few sets for a ways and nothing seemed like a wounded deer. Physically beat and beat by the buck I headed to the rig and finished out about 7 or 8 miles of walking. The next day dagger and I went back to the area to search just in case it just hadn't bled and was laying somewhere, but came up with nothing.
Fast forward into our rifle season after finding a climber and camera close to the bedding on the hillside I thought he probably wasn't using that area much. November 14th I decided to take our 11 year old up to a saddle the buck was headed towards when tracking with the muzzleloader, hoping to catch some cruising bucks crossing the mountain ridge. He brought along the trusty 30-30 and I was using my ruger m77 30-06. We got up just above the military crest just as it was getting light and side hilled towards the saddle. We bumped something that didn't blow and sounded big, running off uphill. Setting my son up near the saddle I sat 50 yd or so away for an uneventful few hours and packed it up after he got too cold.
So come Saturday the 21st, our oldest daughter's bday again, I figured with the same wind I'd get up in there earlier and bring my summit climber along. I got right up to where he'd busted the weekend before a half hour before legal and sat on a log cooling off from the mile and a half hike up the mountain. In the dark I could hear something moving off toward the saddle maybe 150 yards. I got changed into some warmer clothes. Then, I took into consideration the saddle, the possible bedding area I bumped him from and the top of the mountain and tried to find a nice tall oak suitable for a climber with a shot toward all 3. My plan was to hopefully get up 30 feet and let the prevailing wind take my scent up over any eventual rising thermal. Slowly still hunting that direction I picked my tree out and took a few hasty steps towards it. I looked up to see at least one deer bound off. I immediately dropped down and slid the summit off my shoulder so it was standing up and knelt down low in front of it. Looking through the scope on the m77 I searched and saw the white of an antler through the pine saplings and blow downs maybe 60 yards out. As I heard the deer stomping trying to get me to move, the next sight picture I got was of a doe, so I knew I had to be careful what deer I was going to shoot. After a few minutes of them both slowly stomping towards me and the 06 getting heavier and heavier, the doe finally came out at 40 yards into the clear with the buck just ten feet behind. Not being fussy as my time is limited whatever stepped out with at least 3" of legal antler was going to get lead.
As he stepped out, my focus was strictly on putting a bullet in the shoulder and not on the rack so as soon as he cleared a sapling coming downhill and quartered to me I let him have it just in front of the shoulder.
Both of them bounded out of view and I jacked another cartridge in. I heard crashing around and blowing. After waiting a couple minutes I made my way up to where the buck had been and found the bullet hole in the ground that seemed a bit low from where I'd pictured he'd been. So standing there thinking it may have deflected off something closer to me, I looked around me for blood or hair in case I was off on where the buck was standing. Nothing.
I looked out about 20 yards and start looking around to see anything and after a bit I saw his antler sticking way up off the ground not 20 yards away! He's right there! I walked up to him, and he was as dead as a stump. The bullet exit was a little higher out the other side and took out both lungs. I made a few calls to my wife and others and snapped a few pictures.
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My brother in law was willing to pick up our 11 y.o. and come help drag as the boy demands if I shoot anything, I have to get him to come track or drag. I snapped a few more pictures and left the tagged buck there with my pack and vest on it. And hiked the mile and a half out to meet them at the truck. After hiking back up, we gutted the buck, snapped a few more pictures and started the long drag out. Thankfully it was ¾ downhill but still not a walk in the park.
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He weighed in at 167. I eventually got around to putting a tape to his antlers and measured 145 ⅜ gross. He's an 8 with one scorable sticker on his left base. Certainly my biggest buck by far! After hanging him in the tree at home I was looking around for missing hair or something to see if it was the muzzleloader buck and sure enough there on his neck is a fresh bullet burn!
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Pretty neat to finally get him! This was my 4th season since hearing about beast tactics. The bow buck was my first success in "bed hunting". The beast has taught me a lot about being mobile and different tactics in general.
All in all I'm very thankful for the success this season, for healthy,happy baby girls, awesome wife, helpful family, and knowledge from this forum to put myself in spots to kill these bucks.
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