A few weeks ago a series of scrapes and rubs appeared out of nowhere. With the pre-rut happening, I kept eye and sniffer on these scrapes to find that they were staying active and being refreshed every 3 to 4 days. This is the point at which I started to get some exciting and possibly unrealistic mental imagery.
On Nov 1st I had that good feeling. I took my climber out to the back timber and got set-up around 3:30. I positioned myself in a tree about 15 yards from the one of the larger scrapes with the wind mostly in my favor. From my stand I could see the thickets in the prairie beyond the timber in which I now imagined as the lair of a big elusive buck.
After settling in for an hour or so I let out a few soft grunts on the grunt tube. After 15 minutes of watching and waiting I let out a few more grunts… A few minutes later and after having panned the scenery far and wide I brought my eyes back to the area of the scrape…There he stood 25 yards in front of me. I hadn’t seen him walk in. It was like he popped up out of the ground. I could hardly believe my eyes. My heart started pumping so hard that I was afraid he would bust me by it. It was surreal. After getting my breathing under control and giving myself a little pep talk, I started hunting for my opening. He seemed calm but alert as he slowly closed the next 10 yards. He stopped and stood facing me for what seemed to be an eternity. He kept sniffing the air and darting his eyes towards every background noise, but he had no idea I was there. As this unfolded, I remembered feeling very blessed just to be so close to this awesome animal. I would have enjoyed just watching him.
He then stepped to his left and momentarily gave me the perfect broadside shot only to take another step behind a cluster of brush. “Man, I should have stopped him right there with a little grunt!” I thought. Even though he was standing perfectly broadside and there seemed more space than branch between me and his vitals, I knew better than to loose and arrow and risk a deflection. Seeing that if he took another three steps he would be mostly clear of the bushes I decided the lock the top triangle in my Lumizone onto the area where the bush began to thin in anticipation and hope that his next few steps will lead him there. And wouldn’t you know it; he just stood behind the bush. He stood there for so long that I had to lower my Equinox once to rest my fatiguing arm. I certainly had the luxury of just watching him for a while.
After what seemed to be many minutes he took one step, and then another as his shoulder began to emerge into an opening in the bush twigs. He took another step forward and left and presented me with a slightly quartering away shot through an opening in the fading density of twigs. I felt the wave of adrenalin wash over me as touched the trigger and watched the Firenock flash just for a moment then disappear as the buck exploded out of the immediate area. I watched him run away and to my right about forty yards when I remembered what forum member Ninepointer wrote about recently stopping a fleeing buck with a grunt call. I quickly grabbed my grunt tube, let out a shaky grunt just in time to stop him in plain sight at about 60 yards from my stand. (Thanks for the tip, Ninepointer!) As he stood looking back in my direction I grunted again hoping to keep his attention. He continued to stare back at me as he began to wobble. Moments later he went down in the patch of prairie grass with only his antlers still visible above the brown grass. A few minutes later I watched his eight points make their final dips and sink into the prairie.
