davidblum
Member
First of all congrats to all of you guys. You sure have put some bruisers on the ground this year!
I thought I would share the details of my hunt this past Friday, November 14th when I was able to fill my Iowa archery tag.
I was off early this past Friday with intentions on heading to southern Iowa and climbing into the treestand for a long afternoon sit. This is the same farm I was able to harvest by biggest buck last year during the rut, a 160+ " bruiser. My cameras had produced no 150" deer so far this year so my expectations weren't very high although the chance for the cruising monster is always a possibility when you are sitting in a southern Iowa tree during November.
I was able to get settled into the stand by 11:30 am without making too much noise. High temps for Friday were around 24* and winds were light out of the west. A pretty good setup for my stand location. The stand sits high a ridge with a chip shot possible to the trail on top of the ridge and shot options to the downhill side. Around 12:30 pm I had a doe and her fawn pop up from the downwind side. They calmly made their way right under my stand and I was undetected. A few hours passed with no activity.
Around 2:15 pm I caught movement on the upwind side of my stand on the ridge top trail. It was a buck. A nice buck. I thought I knew exactly which deer it was right away. I had a number of pictures of a nice looking 3 y/o deer that looked very similar to this buck. He was heading my way down the trail about 50 yards and closing. I had my bow at the ready just in case and then he stopped. Stopped at 25 yards, on the trail, behind a cedar and then he laid down! At the time I didn't have intentions of shooting him because I thought he was this up and coming 3 y/o. Pictured below:
The buck sat on the trail and snoozed off and on for the better part of an hour. He would itch his back, watch the squirrels, lay his head down and cat nap for 10 minutes at a time. Pretty fun to watch really. Around 3:15 pm he finally stood up. When he did I could see another smaller buck bedded with a doe on the far side of the trail. The other buck snort-weezed as if to stake his claim. This started to get my buck all fired up and he bristled himself up and worked a couple of scrapes and rubs. I did take some quick cell phone video of some of that action. Sometime during that display I figured out that he wasn't the 3 y/o I had pictures of and was a little more mature of a deer. Here are the videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UlrzdcNLas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4RDyX6_WEk
You can see during the last video I quickly tried to put away my phone and I was in the process of getting by bow ready. He continued down that trail for about 10 more yards into my shooting lane at 18 yards and the rest is history. The arrow center punched him right behind the shoulder and plugged into the opposite side shoulder. He turned and wheeled, running right under my stand and only made it another 30 yards before piling up.
He is not the Iowa monster that we all dream of but I am happy to punch my tag with another mature Iowa buck. After I pulled my SD cards I realized that I only have one picture of this deer from about a week prior. I was a little bummed to see he had a broken G2 that I had not seen before the shot.
Good luck to everyone else with tags remaining! I'm pulling for ya. Thanks for reading!
I thought I would share the details of my hunt this past Friday, November 14th when I was able to fill my Iowa archery tag.
I was off early this past Friday with intentions on heading to southern Iowa and climbing into the treestand for a long afternoon sit. This is the same farm I was able to harvest by biggest buck last year during the rut, a 160+ " bruiser. My cameras had produced no 150" deer so far this year so my expectations weren't very high although the chance for the cruising monster is always a possibility when you are sitting in a southern Iowa tree during November.
I was able to get settled into the stand by 11:30 am without making too much noise. High temps for Friday were around 24* and winds were light out of the west. A pretty good setup for my stand location. The stand sits high a ridge with a chip shot possible to the trail on top of the ridge and shot options to the downhill side. Around 12:30 pm I had a doe and her fawn pop up from the downwind side. They calmly made their way right under my stand and I was undetected. A few hours passed with no activity.
Around 2:15 pm I caught movement on the upwind side of my stand on the ridge top trail. It was a buck. A nice buck. I thought I knew exactly which deer it was right away. I had a number of pictures of a nice looking 3 y/o deer that looked very similar to this buck. He was heading my way down the trail about 50 yards and closing. I had my bow at the ready just in case and then he stopped. Stopped at 25 yards, on the trail, behind a cedar and then he laid down! At the time I didn't have intentions of shooting him because I thought he was this up and coming 3 y/o. Pictured below:
The buck sat on the trail and snoozed off and on for the better part of an hour. He would itch his back, watch the squirrels, lay his head down and cat nap for 10 minutes at a time. Pretty fun to watch really. Around 3:15 pm he finally stood up. When he did I could see another smaller buck bedded with a doe on the far side of the trail. The other buck snort-weezed as if to stake his claim. This started to get my buck all fired up and he bristled himself up and worked a couple of scrapes and rubs. I did take some quick cell phone video of some of that action. Sometime during that display I figured out that he wasn't the 3 y/o I had pictures of and was a little more mature of a deer. Here are the videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UlrzdcNLas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4RDyX6_WEk
You can see during the last video I quickly tried to put away my phone and I was in the process of getting by bow ready. He continued down that trail for about 10 more yards into my shooting lane at 18 yards and the rest is history. The arrow center punched him right behind the shoulder and plugged into the opposite side shoulder. He turned and wheeled, running right under my stand and only made it another 30 yards before piling up.
He is not the Iowa monster that we all dream of but I am happy to punch my tag with another mature Iowa buck. After I pulled my SD cards I realized that I only have one picture of this deer from about a week prior. I was a little bummed to see he had a broken G2 that I had not seen before the shot.
Good luck to everyone else with tags remaining! I'm pulling for ya. Thanks for reading!
