To all of those who have harvested deer congratulations, and all of those still hunting best of luck.
Now for the best part of my post, my story!
All season I have been hunting very hard. Harder then normal. I made a pact with myself early on, I decided this year that I was going to let the smaller bucks walk in hopes of it paying off with a big guy.
I have hunted various properties with various set ups. I have hunted the hardwoods, the thick stuff, the food source and the bedding areas. I have learned a lot this season. Opening day I was able to harvest a nice doe to fill the freezer at school and from that day on I was looking for big bucks. I had spotted various bucks on two different properties. One property generally holds a larger amount of smaller deer the other I have never really hunted before. I have seen many deer on both properties and passed on them all, up until last Thursday morning (November 12).
I had been sitting in my stand since 6:15. I had watched the sunrise, the squirrels come out and the turkeys drop from their roost. But I had yet to see any deer. I was set up on the very corner of the property, in the hardwoods, about 100yards from a major bedding area. Between this bedding area and I was some of the thickest stuff I have ever experienced. The thicket runs right up to the property line but but thins out to hardwoods behind my stand. I had grunted and rattled with no avail. Around 7:30 I thought I herd some deer fighting back towards the bedding area, but nothing showed up. I also forgot to mention that this morning was the frostiest morning of the season yet and to be honest I had high expectations of seeing deer. It all felt right.
At 9 am, as the frost was melting and falling to the leaf covered ground I herd a sound that did not sound like water droplets. It was much more firm. I turned to look behind my stand and saw a nice buck, 80 yards out, walking out of the thicket and through the hardwoods. I immediately grabbed my grunt tube and made two loud aggressive grunts. He stopped in his tracks, turned towards me and started on his way. He stopped once more about 40 yards out and began to paw the ground and thrash his antlers on a tree. I then grunted twice more, not quite as aggressive this time, and this seemed to piss him off. He came directly to me and ended up within 15 yards in front of my stand.
I drew back my BowTech Flatliner and let fly. Initially I though the shot might be slightly far back so my father and I left the buck for an hour and a half before looking for it. Turns out the fact that he was quartering away put the shot in perfect placement, double lung shot with a 70 yard recovery.
Here are a couple quick pictures we snapped, he has a 22 1/2 inch inside spread and the G2 on his right antler (left one in the pictures) was 9 1/2 inches. The left antler seems to be broken from fighting or something..
Also, any ideas what he might score? I am going to get him mounted so once that is done I will have to get him scored.
I also have some video of various deer I have seen over the season so far, if I can get it off of the video camera I will be sure to post them but I am having some technical difficulties with the camera as it stands right now.
well done
Please post pics when you get him back.
Wow, Great buck.
