Thursday, November 5, 2015

Nov. 5th




So back on the Nov. 1st I noticed that an area I have had a stand in the past appeared to be pretty active. This is an area where a large buck lives and there were a lot of scrapes in the area and a lot of tracks. I decided that day to move a stand back into the tree where one had been previously.This particular spot is a tough place to hunt, its in a bottom along the base of a steep section of ridge, sandwiched between a swamp at the bottom of the ridge and a large clearcut surrounded by thick mountain-laurel on the other side. Between these two places is a section of white pine and scrub brush about 100yds wide (this is where the scrapes were showing up). The wind in this bottom is usually a nightmare and is the primary reason I didn't leave a stand in that tree.
  With that being said the morning of Nov 5th was supposed to be a balmy 45 at day break with an almost non-existent wind out of the ssw, high temps were supposed to reach 70. In a perfect world I would hunt this stand on a southeast wind. I decided this morning that with the wind being so calm that I could try this stand even though the wind direction was not perfect.
   At about 7am I heard footsteps approaching from out of the swamp to my right. A short time later I spotted a doe heading right for me. She came up the hill and walked directly under me to a scrape on my left. She stopped and hit the licking branch and urinated in the scrape. She then proceeded to bed down directly under me. This would normally be ok, except on this morning it was so calm that even the slightest move seemed loud. After a little while I was able to sit down and hang my bow up without spooking the deer, After about 20 minutes the doe got up and fed off behind me. A short time later I could hear more footsteps coming up from the swamp,and this time they were coming quick. I grabbed my bow and stood up, but before I could turn my body I looked down to see and 8 point closing the distance quickly on the path the doe took. At 15 yds the deer entered a lane and I drew my bow. The problem was my feet were not turn toward the deer, I attempted to turn just my upper torso which resulted in an awful feeling in my shoulder and a clunk that felt like a dislocation. My draw came down, as the deer now was about to walk under me. I quietly tried to turn my feet into position, I managed to turn them a bit but not to where I needed them. The buck was about to walk under my tree to my back side. I tried to pull the bow back, but my shoulder did not let that happen. Just then the buck cut the track where I entered and stopped in the brush. He then slowly turned and began to head back the way he came. As he started to head back I heard more footsteps coming, and quickly noticed a nice 6 point coming up on the same path. Now the 8point and 6point were face to face, I thought I was going to witness a fight, but rather than push into the 6point, the 8 turned to his left and walked into the wide open. This time I had no problem with the draw and made a prefect shot at 28yds. It was a complete pass through and the deer only ran a short distance when I heard the loud crash of the deer going down.
    Now the 6 point was still standing 30yds away, I quickly nocked another arrow. The 6 continued up the trail the doe was on but ended up cutting my track in the brush at 20 yds, he slowly turned back the way he came and never offered a shot. I am not sure I wanted to end my season with a buck smaller than the one I had just shot, but to maybe take 2 deer in the same morning I would have done it. The 8 point dressed at 154 lbs and I have what I believe is a video of the same back from the 24th. Below is the video I shot of the doe from the stand on my phone and the trail cam video of the buck back on October 24th at 7am.




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