muddy
Well-Known Member
This season I had a very specific deer I was looking for, unfortunately he never showed up on cams. This was odd since he had been a yearly homebody for 3 years now, but such is life. Anyway, a few other bucks were around and I was anxious to see how they'd turn out. As October showed the bucks on cams were just not what I was looking for, and as season went on I ended up passing the 2 best bucks on the farm a few times each.
Fast forward to rut, to put it simply I feel it was one of the best ones I've ever hunted. I saw a lot of chasing and several nice deer on their feet during daylight hours, just not the one I really wanted. I opted to change farms and hunt a very small chunk that I hadn't been on in several years. Going in blind I set up my XOP stand in the dark and sat tight. I was absolutely surprised at how many deer I saw in this little area, at least 15 doe/fawn groups and a few dinkers harassing them. Knowing if I sat tight and worked the wind with my mobile set up I'd get a shot eventually. That first morning I got down, as it was misty, and did a really quick recon of the area. Within the 200x200 yard saddle I found 3 stand locations for just about any wind, and a few others that I could "make due" if need be. At that point I made the decision to pound the place until I had a shot, or the deer started catching on.
After 6 days I was still sneaking around the lot with zero detection, I think it helped that we had rain 3x over the course of this past week, and the bucks were still really moving. There were 2 nice 9 pointers, a nice 8 pointer, a weird half rack squib buck, and various little guys doing their thing. Thus far I'd passed them all at least once and was still hoping for something bigger to show up.
Yesterday, after the rainy Thursday, I knew was going to be good. Even with the wind I opted to hunt and by 0800 I'd seen several bucks and a bunch of does... all high tailing it to the sheltered ditch where I couldn't hunt. At 11 o'clock I was gettin bored from lack of activity, and had cold fingers, so I got down and ran a few errands. I got back after the rain stopped, the wind lay down, and things looked promising. My stand is situated so that there is a large ravine I cross to get to it, and it is on the edge, the access is bullet proof with a strong SE wind, which I had. I got to the base of my tree, suited up, and climbed in. There were already deer in the small field but I managed to get set up undetected. For the next couple hours I watched a pile of does come out of the bedding an into the fields to feed... it was just a matter of time before antler would show, and show it did.
All of a sudden there were bucks everywhere. Dinks up thru some nice 3 year olds, but I was really hoping for more, after all, I had already passed all of these guys over the season. The nice 9 point suddenly got nervous and his head came up, I looked where he was looking and this Toad of a buck just sauntered out of the thick stuff. Instantly I knew, that if he presented a shot, I was going to kill him. As Toad walked up the tree line I got my grunt call out and gave 1 soft grunt. He heard it and turned into the thick stuff. I immediately turned and threw my grunt call back behind me, it had spooked it's last buck. As the night progressed the does filtered into the main feeding field and Toad suddenly appeared 300 yards away. He bumped a doe until the 9 point tried to join in, he had none of that. He puffed up and simply walked towards him and followed him out of the field, over a fence, around another field, all for 250 yards and right under my tree. It was almost a straight down shot, but enough quarter away that I absolutely destroyed Toads heart. He died on his feet running, and was down before I could hang up my bow. Great end to a great season, with probably my 2nd best bow buck ever. Toad is a buck I've never seen before, but have yet to check the cam I threw up in this area 2 weeks ago, hopefully I have a few pics of him! He had a very nasty scar under his right eye, both ears were shredded, and he had some impressively gross wounds on his neck and shoulders. Regardless of what he may score I'm very proud of him since it's been awhile since I've shot a buck on my own ground on my own terms.
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