Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Nice buck but no cell service in NY


This is not a bow buck but I'll tell the story anyway.   I scored a nice farm to hunt with a friend in Central NY finally after years of trying.  Gotta love it when the offer to come and hunt the farm comes from right of the blue. The property was a mid-sized beef farm Southeast of Syracuse that sat atop a large hill.  On the side slopes were the corn fields with a pasture below.  Beyond the pasture was a hardwood/apple deer haven that was ridiculous with deer sign.  Exactly what you expect to see in rural NY with runs about 12" wide and rubs and scrapes all over the place.
Anyway I hunted 11/15 with the bow with my buddy who has been hunting and scouting this property for five years and needed a partner.  So I obliged.  I ended up seeing 14 deer that day while moving my climber around a couple of times. Two nice bucks but all I had shots at were does which I already had gotten one back in MA.  But one of the bucks looked to be a decent 8 point that I watched chase 7 does around for about an hour from 3:30 to 4:30pm.  But never got close enough for a shot.  The most interesting thing was to watch what was happening during this full moon period.  Almost all of the deer I saw were moving between 11am and 4:30pm.   Crazy but a great day!
The following day was the opener of rifle which I was only semi-excited about.  But when in Rome....   So I hunted on the ground for the morning and saw 7 more deer by 11am and could have taken each one including a spike.  But with a couple of days to burn, it was still early.  So at lunch, my partner asks if I want to go up to the farm house for a big lunch with the family which was nice of them to offer.  But it was a full moon after all and I was up here to hunt, not eat.  So I graciously declined and decided to sit in the area where I watch the 8 pointer from the night before.
I had found a nice blow-down area on a side hill where I could see the bottom of the draw as well as the back ridge of the pasture.  At 1PM, I was looking up the hill into the sun and could see just antlers walking on top of that ridge only about 75 yards away but coming across to me.  I set my 30-06 on part of the blow-down for a perfect rest and waited for the buck to step out and show his body.  He stopped at the top of the hill while trying to decide which trail he was going to take down into the draw.  Unfortunately for him, he never got to make that decision, I made it for him in a big way.  But unfortunately for me, he got enough momentum after the shoulder hit to start moving down into a deep ravine.   And instead of him running down the hill, he just rolled and tumbled down about 150' into a 10' gorge.  It was ugly.  Thank God for the winch on the ATV to get him out which still took almost 2 hrs.
Also unfortunate was the fact that my cell phone/camera was dead.  And being NY with the CWD issue, I just skun and de-boned him to bring him back to MA.  So without taking any decent field pics, all I have is the head picture.  But fortunately we have a trail cam pic of him from on 9/30 which gives a little more perspective of his body size.  Should be good for a European mount.  Thanks for the instructions Brian!

No comments:

Post a Comment