CurtisWalker
Well-Known Member
Coming out of last fall I had some extremely high hopes for this year as I had some dandies survive. Wife and I welcomed our first kid into the world in February so I knew I probably wouldn’t have as much freedom as I have in the past but that didn’t bother me one bit. Well a few weeks after that I accepted a job offer and went from having all the PTO I could ask for to starting over at 0 in June. With this being said I knew I’d still be able to hunt plenty and would still be able to flex my time to work for cold fronts in October.
Going into October I had one picture of the buck I really wanted to see this year on Sept 21st but cameras had been abnormally slow. Well on October 5th I had a neighbor reach out asking if I had lost a deer because he had found one in the creek. And instantly my heart sank as my first thought went straight to EHD. So I asked him if he could see any holes and we determined it was EHD. That’s when he brought up a few does they had found during harvest. That being said I decided I would walk up the creek to my stand on the next cold front. Welp it didn’t take long to find my first deer. On the walk in I had found two on the one side of the creek. So I decided I would walk out on the other side. Walking out I was met by the smell of death in two areas. But didn’t want to wander around in the dark for them.
I had one deer I’d shoot on camera as he’s a mature 8pt. So I hunted a couple more cold fronts and wasn’t seeing any deer. No fawns, no does, no little bucks, literally nothing. These same sits last year would produce 6-10 deer consistently. So I decided I’d hunt one more cold front before changing focus to public land. The hopes of a buck moving in and just being there kept me in it. Well that night I ended up seeing a fawn, a little buck, and not long after the one deer I had on cam that I would shoot popped out at 40 yards and walked into the cornfield. He walked into 20 yards but I wasn’t willing to put a shot through the standing corn in fear of a deflection.
Getting closer to November I decided it was time to start hunting public. So my buddy and I went out for the first sit of the year on public on a spot I had found while duck scouting a week beforehand. I knew there was some EHD deer in this area as well because there was a dead doe in the pond I wanted to duck hunt. Though anticipation was high as it always is when you hunt a new area. I decided to sit on a ridge over looking a river bottom full of willows while my buddy walked in more and sat up in the timber. I ended up seeing 15 deer and he saw 14. We knew we were in a spot with deer so that convinced me to keep coming back. I hunted a couple more times over the same willows and saw quite a few deer but the biggest buck I saw was a spike. On Thursday the 7th I had a bonus day off for Veteran’s Day so I decided I’d go to the same piece but walk in further. On my drive to the spot there was trucks everywhere and my nerves of not knowing if I’ll get a spot or not took over. To my surprise though no one was parked at the access. So I began my trek in and was met by a buck grunting and running around in the dark so I just sat down for a bit but it eventually left so I continued my march in.
I had a spot in mind about 2 miles from the car but figured I’d slowly make my way there as the sun came up so I wasn’t wandering around aimlessly in the dark blowing everything out. I did bust a turkey out of the smallest tree ever though and that nearly made me scream. About half way to where I wanted to be I ran into a giant buck. Typical 10 maybe 170s so I sat down against a tree hoping he’d come my way. Unfortunately he went the opposite way but I did get met by two other young bucks that I could have harvested had I wanted too. After they left I continued my push in and ran into a pile of deer near where I planned on sitting. One must have caught my scent during a swirl and busted and white tails were everywhere.
I eventually found a spot to sit and got situated when all of a sudden I hear voices. Well it was a blood tracker with his dog coming in to track a deer a guy had shot almost exactly where I was sitting the night before. I decided to help them keeping last blood marked but in the end we were unsuccessful. So I decided to walk back to the other side of the ridge in hopes of us not having disturbed it. Not long after I started seeing a couple deer working higher up the ridge than me. Now I have never hunted timber wider than maybe 40 yards before so this big timber hunting is completely new to me. I have no idea where to sit or anything. I think around 2:00 I heard something running and there’s an awesome buck headed my way. Game on. Well he turned and went up the ridge. Probably would have been a 30 yard shot the way he headed to where I was sitting before the trackers came in. Well he worked across the ridge and disappeared but the. Showed back up in front of me and ran into some thick stuff. I decided I would grunt a couple times to see if he’d come out. Well in no time flat here comes a buck running out of the thick stuff right to me. I grab my bow and draw back. And stop him as soon as he hits an opening. I settle the pin and let the arrow fly. I hit him a little high but he fell over 20 yards away. Well to my surprise it was not the buck I saw walk into the thick stuff. But a young 10 point instead. I felt a bit defeated.
The call to two of my friends asking for help to get him 2 miles back to the car was a bit more intimidating. I had imposed a self rule of 160” when I walked back that far and completely whiffed on that one. Feeling bad about the drag I decided to call every landowner in the area until I got ahold of someone that would allow me to cross their property to make the drag easier. I lucked out and the second person I called told me to go for it. Rather than 2 miles we had to go a few hundred yards. So I packed up my stuff and headed back to the car to meet [mention]Matthewfox_45 [/mention] and another buddy. Now you’ll see in the photos I’m drenched. That was before we even gutted the deer. That’s from the walk back to the car. I’m so thankful to the landowner allowing me access. He even called while I was gutting the deer to tell me to drive the truck back to the fence because I didn’t need to work that hard for a deer.
But here he is:
This picture made all the bad thoughts go away though. Rack size doesn’t matter in the end. I made a great shot. The deer expired quickly. I got to share memories with friends. And Gideon got to see dad’s first deer since he was born.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Going into October I had one picture of the buck I really wanted to see this year on Sept 21st but cameras had been abnormally slow. Well on October 5th I had a neighbor reach out asking if I had lost a deer because he had found one in the creek. And instantly my heart sank as my first thought went straight to EHD. So I asked him if he could see any holes and we determined it was EHD. That’s when he brought up a few does they had found during harvest. That being said I decided I would walk up the creek to my stand on the next cold front. Welp it didn’t take long to find my first deer. On the walk in I had found two on the one side of the creek. So I decided I would walk out on the other side. Walking out I was met by the smell of death in two areas. But didn’t want to wander around in the dark for them.
I had one deer I’d shoot on camera as he’s a mature 8pt. So I hunted a couple more cold fronts and wasn’t seeing any deer. No fawns, no does, no little bucks, literally nothing. These same sits last year would produce 6-10 deer consistently. So I decided I’d hunt one more cold front before changing focus to public land. The hopes of a buck moving in and just being there kept me in it. Well that night I ended up seeing a fawn, a little buck, and not long after the one deer I had on cam that I would shoot popped out at 40 yards and walked into the cornfield. He walked into 20 yards but I wasn’t willing to put a shot through the standing corn in fear of a deflection.
Getting closer to November I decided it was time to start hunting public. So my buddy and I went out for the first sit of the year on public on a spot I had found while duck scouting a week beforehand. I knew there was some EHD deer in this area as well because there was a dead doe in the pond I wanted to duck hunt. Though anticipation was high as it always is when you hunt a new area. I decided to sit on a ridge over looking a river bottom full of willows while my buddy walked in more and sat up in the timber. I ended up seeing 15 deer and he saw 14. We knew we were in a spot with deer so that convinced me to keep coming back. I hunted a couple more times over the same willows and saw quite a few deer but the biggest buck I saw was a spike. On Thursday the 7th I had a bonus day off for Veteran’s Day so I decided I’d go to the same piece but walk in further. On my drive to the spot there was trucks everywhere and my nerves of not knowing if I’ll get a spot or not took over. To my surprise though no one was parked at the access. So I began my trek in and was met by a buck grunting and running around in the dark so I just sat down for a bit but it eventually left so I continued my march in.
I had a spot in mind about 2 miles from the car but figured I’d slowly make my way there as the sun came up so I wasn’t wandering around aimlessly in the dark blowing everything out. I did bust a turkey out of the smallest tree ever though and that nearly made me scream. About half way to where I wanted to be I ran into a giant buck. Typical 10 maybe 170s so I sat down against a tree hoping he’d come my way. Unfortunately he went the opposite way but I did get met by two other young bucks that I could have harvested had I wanted too. After they left I continued my push in and ran into a pile of deer near where I planned on sitting. One must have caught my scent during a swirl and busted and white tails were everywhere.
I eventually found a spot to sit and got situated when all of a sudden I hear voices. Well it was a blood tracker with his dog coming in to track a deer a guy had shot almost exactly where I was sitting the night before. I decided to help them keeping last blood marked but in the end we were unsuccessful. So I decided to walk back to the other side of the ridge in hopes of us not having disturbed it. Not long after I started seeing a couple deer working higher up the ridge than me. Now I have never hunted timber wider than maybe 40 yards before so this big timber hunting is completely new to me. I have no idea where to sit or anything. I think around 2:00 I heard something running and there’s an awesome buck headed my way. Game on. Well he turned and went up the ridge. Probably would have been a 30 yard shot the way he headed to where I was sitting before the trackers came in. Well he worked across the ridge and disappeared but the. Showed back up in front of me and ran into some thick stuff. I decided I would grunt a couple times to see if he’d come out. Well in no time flat here comes a buck running out of the thick stuff right to me. I grab my bow and draw back. And stop him as soon as he hits an opening. I settle the pin and let the arrow fly. I hit him a little high but he fell over 20 yards away. Well to my surprise it was not the buck I saw walk into the thick stuff. But a young 10 point instead. I felt a bit defeated.
The call to two of my friends asking for help to get him 2 miles back to the car was a bit more intimidating. I had imposed a self rule of 160” when I walked back that far and completely whiffed on that one. Feeling bad about the drag I decided to call every landowner in the area until I got ahold of someone that would allow me to cross their property to make the drag easier. I lucked out and the second person I called told me to go for it. Rather than 2 miles we had to go a few hundred yards. So I packed up my stuff and headed back to the car to meet [mention]Matthewfox_45 [/mention] and another buddy. Now you’ll see in the photos I’m drenched. That was before we even gutted the deer. That’s from the walk back to the car. I’m so thankful to the landowner allowing me access. He even called while I was gutting the deer to tell me to drive the truck back to the fence because I didn’t need to work that hard for a deer.
But here he is:
This picture made all the bad thoughts go away though. Rack size doesn’t matter in the end. I made a great shot. The deer expired quickly. I got to share memories with friends. And Gideon got to see dad’s first deer since he was born.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
