LYON
PMA Member
"If I can wake myself up in the morning I'm gonna go sit for a bit". "I'm not sure if I'll be able to get out of bed early enough!". Those were the two texts I sent my brother last night at about 8 pm. I really didn't anticipate having much drive to get out of bed at a quarter to six this morning to go sit and freeze. Surprisingly enough when my alarm went off I was almost immediately wide awake, which is way out of the ordinary for me. I got up, put my cold weather clothes on and drove the 25 minute drive to the place I would be hunting.
Two years ago I managed to take a decent muzzy buck off of this same farm on an evening hunt. There is a very thick patch of saplings that deer always bed in and my intention for this morning was to get in early and catch the deer on their way to bed. It worked like a charm! A had deer within view almost the entire time I was sitting. I figure I probably saw close to 30 deer and almost all of them were heading for those saplings. For the most part the deer feed in some corn fields to the north and my access is from the south. This mornings nw wind was perfect for my entry and setup.
Just before 7 I had does start coming over the hills to my north and start working their way to bed. I was kept entertained by them for close to an hour and a half when I finally spotted this guy working across the field probably 250 yards away. I managed to forget my binoculars this morning so all I had was my scope cranked up to 5 power to get a better look. He was in a cut cornfield and eventually looked my way and all I saw was spread! Holy crap he's wide! I couldn't see much for tine length but that's a tough one anyway in a cornfield so with that I decided I would take the shot if he came where I thought he would. He ended up working to about 130 yards and I let the old knight unleash her fury and drilled him with the hornady xtp. He took off into the sapling and out of site. I reloaded and proceeded to look for blood at the impact point. A little bit of hair, no blood. I began searching all the trails with no luck. No blood! I continued walking and finally came around the corner on a creek I knew he had to cross and there he was dead at the bottom. He probably went 100 yards before he bled at all.
Not a high scorer due to lacking tine length but he's a cool wide guy! I got him at 131 2/8 gross. Just shy of 21" inside spread
Moral of this story? Can't shoot them from bed. Good luck to those of you still after it and Merry Christmas!
Two years ago I managed to take a decent muzzy buck off of this same farm on an evening hunt. There is a very thick patch of saplings that deer always bed in and my intention for this morning was to get in early and catch the deer on their way to bed. It worked like a charm! A had deer within view almost the entire time I was sitting. I figure I probably saw close to 30 deer and almost all of them were heading for those saplings. For the most part the deer feed in some corn fields to the north and my access is from the south. This mornings nw wind was perfect for my entry and setup.
Just before 7 I had does start coming over the hills to my north and start working their way to bed. I was kept entertained by them for close to an hour and a half when I finally spotted this guy working across the field probably 250 yards away. I managed to forget my binoculars this morning so all I had was my scope cranked up to 5 power to get a better look. He was in a cut cornfield and eventually looked my way and all I saw was spread! Holy crap he's wide! I couldn't see much for tine length but that's a tough one anyway in a cornfield so with that I decided I would take the shot if he came where I thought he would. He ended up working to about 130 yards and I let the old knight unleash her fury and drilled him with the hornady xtp. He took off into the sapling and out of site. I reloaded and proceeded to look for blood at the impact point. A little bit of hair, no blood. I began searching all the trails with no luck. No blood! I continued walking and finally came around the corner on a creek I knew he had to cross and there he was dead at the bottom. He probably went 100 yards before he bled at all.
Not a high scorer due to lacking tine length but he's a cool wide guy! I got him at 131 2/8 gross. Just shy of 21" inside spread
Moral of this story? Can't shoot them from bed. Good luck to those of you still after it and Merry Christmas!
