In my WMU we are allowed ONE tag. You can apply for the antlerless (which I did), but i had one tag to fill this season. No additional tags were offered after the draw. With this tag i could also hunt during the "controlled hunt" which permits shot gun or muzzle loader during one of two weeks. One week is the start of Nov and the other is Dec. I had been getting some nice deer pictures on my trail cams. My season started off great! In one of my first few sits I saw A deer but he was too far and heading the other direction. On my next sit a decided to bring an electronic caller in addition to my wabi call. I was in my favorite deer blind located on what my buddy and i call the Island. Its a small portion of farm land in-between hardwoods and low swampy land. so small its no longer farmed so i made a rutabaga food plot in front of me. I have shot many deer from this stand, its gotta be at least 30ft high and it has to be because the tree its in is in a bit of a dip with hills going up on either side. So an hour into my sit i see a buck coming out of the swamp/bedding area and slowly away from me. I had my wabi call and made a grunt. he paused briefly but then continued walking away. Then i remembered the electronic caller. I fired a snort weeze and him and he stopped and looked my way again. I then played "buck fight" which is a series of grunts/weezes/antler rattles and this turned him around and headed my way. Now my stand is located on a tree edge and he took that edge to me but i couldnt figure out if he was going behind me in the woods or if he was following the treeline and going to end up infront of me.. I was hunting but i had the worst back pain of my life for the past month so turning from feild to woods to feild to woods again was excruciating. And to make things worse when i turned to face the woods I had 20 turkeys 15 yards infront of me with 2 bucks looking directly at me and that sucker was licking his snoz and was gonna bust any second! With my body contorted and shooting from within the Y of the tree i was in at the buck 20 yards away the 380 limb tip hit the size of the tree, tossing my arrow way off mark. Buck jumped but hung around for 30 seconds
This was downwind!! He slowly walked away with his companion into the woods and towards my bud located in a tree-line on the other side of the woods. When the hunt was over my hunting partner said he managed to see at least 3 bucks running around him rattling antlers and getting all worked up but it was too far and getting too late to shoot. That was my early season swing and miss and i would have figured it would have been too early to play the snort wheeze but it never hurts to try...The rest of October i did not see a single deer. They eluded me but my hunting partner was successful. The controlled hunt came around and I felt I wanted to "up my odds" and hunt with the rifled slug as much as possible. Crossbow is not an option during controlled hunt. I took more time off work than i usually do but i did not see a single deer. Saw a FRIGGEN HERD OF YOTES
moving thru a feild of beans i was hunting over one night.... = one less yote. but only one. dang. Shotgun weeks is done, deer are eluding me but they are still on my cams. Bucks, does and yearlings. Im starting to get a bit discouraged but continue on sitting when i can telling myself "its called hunting and not grocery shopping for a reason" and i am honestly having fun. I enjoy being in the woods. BUT WHY CANT I SEE ANY #$&* DEER! lol Mid Nov i make my way out to the woods one afternoon and i see one of my target bucks following a doe on the far side of a field. I tuck myself into the woods so they dont spot me and watch them go into the swamp area infront of my island stand so i figure if i go thru the woods to the the island stand i may have a shot at either the buck or doe. I climb and wait approx half an hour until I see movement in the swamp. its the buck and hes walking directly towards me. He climbs a slight incline and is now on the island upwind and grazing 45yards away from me.. but he is facing me...scopes on him and hes gonna do one of three things: 1 go back the way he came, 2 turn slight left and go to woods giving mew a 45y broadside, or 3 continue straight and come directly infront of my stand offering me a 20 yard broadside. Lucky for me he offers me the 20y shot. Buck runs 30 and pauses, looks towards me and then takes off again and i loose sight of him at approx 100 yards.
He fell when i last saw him @100. I tracked him and found this
The happy hunter (wearing a fancy covid mask) and the buck nick-named crabby. That is the exit wound
