But, that's why we call it hunting so I was up and at'em early enough to be in my primary stand thirty minutes before shooting hours. I did this despite having not seen a deer in the morning all season and nothing at all from this stand. I've always had good luck during the muzzleloader season, and this morning was going to be our coldest yet. It was 29F degrees when I climbed into my stand and I thought I'd need moonglasses. I was throwing a shadow. Here was the crazy bright moon.
I checked a trail camera on the way in and there were no photos from last night.
Couple that with the very bright moon, and my expectations were low.At 7:30am, still 8 minutes before sunrise, I heard something behind me. I turned around to see that the sound was a sapling shaking back and forth. There was the 6pt buck standing near it, but he wasn't the one shaking the sapling. It didn't take long to realize the shaking was another buck making a rub. I could tell it was a larger buck, but not much else because the saplings were in the way. Eventually he stepped through the saplings and I could see that he was the bigger of the two bucks. I had already turned on my Tactacam as soon I laid eyes on a deer, so all I had to do is pull back the hammer and make the shot. Here is the footage: https://youtu.be/2QBkkuNjlCU
The CVA dropped the buck in his tracks. The 6pt ran down closer to me and hung around until I ran him off more than five minutes later. While the buck was obviously making a rub, seeing bucks traveling together leads me to believe that we're still a bit early for rut action around here. But, the colder weather certainly had the deer up and moving this morning. As I was prepping to drag the buck, another deer blew at me from just out of my view. I also saw a half dozen along the road on the way home.
Here's the buck...
While there may not be any acorns in my woods, this buck was nice and fat. He had plenty of corn in his system.
The drag out was made a little easier by the heavy frost on the grass.
It's been a long slow season so far, but once again everything changes once our muzzleloader season starts. It just happens to coincide with when bucks start getting the itch and change their patterns enough to get seen.
