MadisonB&C
Active Member
The weekend started very slow for me. My plan was to sit a new property Saturday and Sunday just to see what kind of pressure the area got, and to keep the pressure off the honey hole while the weekend hunters push all around it and pressure deer into the sanctuary.
I sat until almost 1pm Saturday and Sunday morning, and for 3 hours Sunday night with only a glimpse of one doe to show for it. The only reason I saw any deer Sunday evening is because I took advantage of the wet leaves and still-hunted the property. Natural movement was very slow and there was nobody pushing deer anywhere near the farm.
Monday rolls around...I slept in, partly to recover from the long weekend and partly because I was very confident in my evening setup on the other farm. I walked in at 2pm and hunkered down in a brush pile near the fence line. I can hunt the field I was in, but the big timber on the other side of the fence is off limits. To make a long story short, the buck I was after nearly walked out at 6 yards with a group of does. One of them must have caught a whiff of something she didn't like and trotted back the way she came. Nothing spooked bad and they all calmed down very quickly, but they all filtered back into the woods away from the edge. The last I saw of the buck was 150 yards in the woods walking calmly up a small ravine...something I'd seen these deer do a dozen times, and what I'd been expecting the whole time. When the last doe was out of sight I quickly got myself comfortable again and trained the muzzleloader on a trail coming out of the woods 120 yards away. In 15 minutes they were pouring into the field and when the buck cleared the fence and stopped I let him have it.
The best part of the hunt was seeing the deer I was targeting, and except for having him nearly in my lap for a minute it was almost a carbon copy of the hunt I'd had in that spot in 2010. That year I thought there was a chance this buck was only 4 1/2, and when he stepped out at 120 yards with a broken brow and a chipped G-3 I decided to wait and see what he would turn into...unfortunatey he turned into a buck with 10-15 inches LESS horn on his head, but he wasn't getting passed up again.
Hope you enjoy the pictures!
Half of his left G-2 is gone, but I don't mind. :way: He also had two punctures below his left eye. Got them during a brawl, I would assume.
2011 pic
2010 pic
I sat until almost 1pm Saturday and Sunday morning, and for 3 hours Sunday night with only a glimpse of one doe to show for it. The only reason I saw any deer Sunday evening is because I took advantage of the wet leaves and still-hunted the property. Natural movement was very slow and there was nobody pushing deer anywhere near the farm.
Monday rolls around...I slept in, partly to recover from the long weekend and partly because I was very confident in my evening setup on the other farm. I walked in at 2pm and hunkered down in a brush pile near the fence line. I can hunt the field I was in, but the big timber on the other side of the fence is off limits. To make a long story short, the buck I was after nearly walked out at 6 yards with a group of does. One of them must have caught a whiff of something she didn't like and trotted back the way she came. Nothing spooked bad and they all calmed down very quickly, but they all filtered back into the woods away from the edge. The last I saw of the buck was 150 yards in the woods walking calmly up a small ravine...something I'd seen these deer do a dozen times, and what I'd been expecting the whole time. When the last doe was out of sight I quickly got myself comfortable again and trained the muzzleloader on a trail coming out of the woods 120 yards away. In 15 minutes they were pouring into the field and when the buck cleared the fence and stopped I let him have it.
The best part of the hunt was seeing the deer I was targeting, and except for having him nearly in my lap for a minute it was almost a carbon copy of the hunt I'd had in that spot in 2010. That year I thought there was a chance this buck was only 4 1/2, and when he stepped out at 120 yards with a broken brow and a chipped G-3 I decided to wait and see what he would turn into...unfortunatey he turned into a buck with 10-15 inches LESS horn on his head, but he wasn't getting passed up again.
Hope you enjoy the pictures!
Half of his left G-2 is gone, but I don't mind. :way: He also had two punctures below his left eye. Got them during a brawl, I would assume.
2011 pic
2010 pic
