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2021 Hunting stories

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chadw

Well-Known Member
Thought it might be fun to start a thread for people to post any stories as the year progresses. I’ll kick it off…

Sat on entrance/transition to a food plot last night.

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Saw 10 bucks, three does and a fawn. A perfect east wind at 5mph for the stand. Temps dropping into the 40s. I was about 15 feet up in a cedar tree on a hanging stand. All the bucks came from the north walking right past my stand. I haven’t been that tense for a long time!

This last buck walked out two minutes before closing light. Broadside 20 yard shot. Went about 80 yards and heard him crash. Blood trailed it 40 minutes later and saw it under a tree staring at us. That was pretty freaky!

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Backed out and came back 1.5 hours later and found it 10yds further. The best part was my buddy, Mike Eells, from Dubuque joined me for the day. He got a doe this morning. Very satisfying day. Thankful!

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Shout out to Skip who let us tour his property this past summer and spurred all kinds of ideas.

Also to Adam Keith of Land and Legacy. They drew up a habitat plan that we’ve been implementing that included this new stand placement. Great guys over there.


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I’m in blind now. Only bow blind i have. Rest is stands. I’m 100% observational mode & doe mode now. One buck like to eye ball. But- my season: relax…. Sit back. See what happens. So far. Here’s tonight. 1F913853-A7A9-450C-82B9-867526A2F4F8.jpegF1E0E459-4AA8-45D3-A0AD-BF6648AC68AF.jpegFAC48CE6-CC07-4AC7-A7B5-DB0B47843D66.jpegF2310EED-1D7F-4F20-893C-943E81731C75.jpeg
 
Great buck and sounds like a perfect setup!! Congrats on him and on making a plan and sounds like farm come together!!!
 
I'd run this forum outta bandwidth if I got on "stories "
I've gone all out and done SO MANYoff the wall things over the year
Mosts didn't work but sometimes you gotta think outside the box.

"This one time in band_camp"
 
Thought I’d share the story of my 2021 bow kill from November 4. Decided to put the ghillie suit on and hunt from the ground because we didn’t setup any tree stands that are good for a south wind. I’d done this early in the year and on public as well, works so well if you have tall vegetation around, you can silently get right into bedrooms if you works slow.

Anyway the farm is a small 40 acre piece that is two draws coming off some bigger chunks of residential and pasture ground in Warren county. I snuck down the edge of the corn towards the back of the property and slipped into the woods about 50 yards to the base of the draw. The draw is real thick with a real deep ditch in the bottom that doesn’t hold water. My setup was along that deep ditch where I had a bunch of blowdown and it was super deep making the ditch impassable directly behind me to the north, which is where my wind was blowing. I setup with my back against a tree on a small stool facing north but expecting deer to work from the south or east from those bigger properties. The brush around me was high enough to cover everything but my upper shoulders and head but I had that tree for back cover.

Around 5 I thought I heard something in the thick across the ditch to the NW, I could see a big rack and a tail flicker of a mature deer apparently bedded and he was working away real slow, I assumed he had a doe with him because he had no interest in any calls. Bummed because figured on a small piece I’m not going to see multiple shooters. 30 min goes by and I hear some crunch behind me to the south. I turn my head slow and this 10 point is marching perfectly through my shooting area at 20 yards and closing, his mouth is open and he passes at maybe 12 yards and I slowly grab my bow and let him work past for a quartering away shot, we’ll he moved too quick and worked up the hill into trees and wouldn’t stop and ended up up top in the corn.

I could hear him working a scrap, so I grunted first and he stopped, then I acted as if I was making a scrape in the leaves, I could tell he was listening as I heard no movement, my last ditch effort was a snort wheeze and that did it, he came marching chest out back down the hill but this time more south of where he worked up the hill and got directly downwind of me staring into that deep impassable ditch area. Then he caught my wind but I can only think it was my nose jammer working because he didn’t blow just head bobbed and stared at me at 20 yards. It was too thick and I couldn’t get a shot but I had my bow in front of me ready to pull back if the opportunity presented itself, so my shoulders were burning and shaking as he stared and took one step at a time for a few minutes. He started working slowly looking at me every once in awhile back up the hill angling back to the south. Eventually he stopped up the hill quartering too slightly at about 30 yards and I had a shot between two trees as darkness was setting in, I heard a whack and figured I hit him good or hit the trees. He charged back up the hill and I heard a crash after about 50 60 yards and then nothing, he literally died on the run in like 10 seconds. 8 inches of the back of my arrow snapped off with barely any blood, I found the rest of the arrow caked in bubbly bright blood 10 yards up his trail. Followed it right too him 10 yards onto the neighbors. Such a fun hunt, I highly recommend that style of hunting to anyone wanting to be more mobile or try something new because the adrenaline rush I think is even better on the ground with them.

Good luck to the rest of you all!


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Filled my anterless tag on Oct 3 and then stayed out of the timber for 3 weeks. Had 3 good bucks, 165+, on camera regularly Aug and September.

High hopes dwindled rather quickly. 20 hrs on stand produced only 1sighting of a 3 yr old from Oct 23 through Nov 5th. Only laid eyes on 5 bucks TOTAL in that time. I've lived on and hunted the same 40 acres for 22 years. This year is WEIRD to say the least.

3:30 AM on Nov 6, I wake up and go out on the back deck to see if I can see or hear anything crashing around in the timber. Often I can see just in the timber edges from the bright yard light. Nothing...dead quiet.

As I was relieving myself off the deck before going back to bed, a 175 inch tank walks from beside the garage and almost right underneath me. Nearly peed on his head! He never spooked, just ambled off down the hill. What a joke!

I probably pulled the trigger too early but it was that moment I threw in the towel on 2021. I went out at sunrise, plugged a doe, put her in the freezer, and washed my hands of the weirdest year ever. Go Brandon!

I will not be disappointed though. My trophy will be on my grill and dinner plate many times over in 2022!


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