NWBuck
PMA Member
I'm behind on getting some harvest stories posted, so have a little time this morning to get caught up. I was thinking of just blowing it off and not posting them, but since I enjoy reading everyone else's stories, I suppose I should contribute when I can as well. This will be by far the most vanilla of the 3, but I'm taking them in chronological order.
On Friday November 4th I used one of the 3 personal days per year from my teaching job to spend the day in the woods. My son Hunter and nephew Matthew played hooky for a day from their senior years with me. We had a "scrape cam" on one of the small farms we lease, and it had been putting out pictures of a few nice bucks.
BIG 8
G2 BUCK
The big 8 was showing up on the scrape virtually every day, with the G2 buck not as often. Both were night owls though, but we were hopeful that it was getting close to the time when they might make a daylight mistake.
I gave Hunter first choice to hunt the best stand on that farm, but he chose to sit on another farm. As I dropped him off to get the ranger and head to his stand, I told him I was going to shoot any of the 3 good ones we had on cam if I had the chance. By 9:30 I'd had a pretty active morning, but had only seen does, fawns and small bucks. Just short of 10 am I heard the crunching of leaves coming up the hill toward me, and the big 8 popped into an opening only 20 yards away. I knew right away which deer he was, and tried to get positioned for a shot. We had a short stare down, but he chilled out and turned to walk down hill to my right...stopping with his head behind a tree but vitals exposed in a small opening between a fork in the tree. I touched the release, and saw the hit looked good left and right, but a bit low. We gave him some time, but came back a couple hours later to follow a solid blood trail to the buck piled up less than 100 yards from where I'd shot him.
Not a giant, but I was more than happy with him. Going to use an arrowhead plaque that Hunter made for me in shop class to do a euro mount with him. In 30 years of teaching, it's funny to think about how many deer, turkeys, pheasants, bear, etc. I've taken while hunting on a "personal day"
Good luck to everyone still out there!
NWBuck
On Friday November 4th I used one of the 3 personal days per year from my teaching job to spend the day in the woods. My son Hunter and nephew Matthew played hooky for a day from their senior years with me. We had a "scrape cam" on one of the small farms we lease, and it had been putting out pictures of a few nice bucks.
BIG 8
G2 BUCK
The big 8 was showing up on the scrape virtually every day, with the G2 buck not as often. Both were night owls though, but we were hopeful that it was getting close to the time when they might make a daylight mistake.
I gave Hunter first choice to hunt the best stand on that farm, but he chose to sit on another farm. As I dropped him off to get the ranger and head to his stand, I told him I was going to shoot any of the 3 good ones we had on cam if I had the chance. By 9:30 I'd had a pretty active morning, but had only seen does, fawns and small bucks. Just short of 10 am I heard the crunching of leaves coming up the hill toward me, and the big 8 popped into an opening only 20 yards away. I knew right away which deer he was, and tried to get positioned for a shot. We had a short stare down, but he chilled out and turned to walk down hill to my right...stopping with his head behind a tree but vitals exposed in a small opening between a fork in the tree. I touched the release, and saw the hit looked good left and right, but a bit low. We gave him some time, but came back a couple hours later to follow a solid blood trail to the buck piled up less than 100 yards from where I'd shot him.
Not a giant, but I was more than happy with him. Going to use an arrowhead plaque that Hunter made for me in shop class to do a euro mount with him. In 30 years of teaching, it's funny to think about how many deer, turkeys, pheasants, bear, etc. I've taken while hunting on a "personal day"
Good luck to everyone still out there!NWBuck
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