I have seen a lot of deer this season while bowhunting but just couldn't get the critters to give me a shot I wanted to take. That all changed last week when I took off Thursday and Friday to bowhunt before Missouri's firearms season opened on Saturday. I have a farm in the south-central part of the state that has been in my family since the early 1800's. Dad still lives there and we chase the whitetails together every chance we get. I arrived at his house Wednesday evening anxious to get out in the woods.
Thursday morning I got to play Deer Monitor again; I saw several does but they all had beauty shop appointments or something because they did not linger in one spot too long. I was up on the ridge above our lower field at a place we call the Deer Turnaround. I was surprised at the lack of buck activity taking place given the time of year it was. I personally would rather shoot a doe for eating but I sure do like to watch the boys stir things up! I spent the middle of the day scouting around and decided to hunt on the edge of our middle field that afternoon.
There is a huge thicket between our middle field and our graveyard that the deer use as a travel corridor. Dad always mows a road through the middle of it to allow them easier access and I set up on the edge of the road from time to time. That afternoon I put my climber in a hickory tree that sets on a little knob overlooking where the road goes into the field. The deer use that place as a staging area and a young buck had the brush horned up pretty good around the mouth of the road. Dad had seen him a couple weeks before when I was there and I figured he was still hanging around close.
About 4:30 I saw a doe walking in the field and I bleated and grunted to her. She stopped to listen, then took a couple of steps and stopped again. There was some brush between us which blocked my view so I just waited for her to appear on either side of the obstruction. I called again and waited. After a few minutes, I heard a deer in the brush much closer to me and I couldn't figure out how that doe had gotten there without me seeing her. When I looked towards the sound, I figured it out; it wasn't her it was the young buck coming to see who was in his territory. He came down the road and stopped right in front of me to smell where I had placed some doe pee. When he turned quartering away, I sent an arrow his direction. The hit was good and in no time at all I was loading the 6-pointer in the back of my truck.
Friday morning I hunted on the ridge behind our barn. I saw a bunch of deer but the only thing that came into bow range were bucks. I saw 3 shooters in 30 minutes! However, in Missouri you can only kill one buck with a bow before firearms season so I was out of luck. Firearms season happened to open the next day and I planned on being in the same spot armed with my flintlock rifle. My decision paid off well as I added a nice 8-pointer to the meat pole around 8 am with a 25 yard shot from Ole Smokey.
I finished getting all my meat put away a couple of days ago and I'll probably sleep in this weekend since the pressure to provide is gone. On the other hand...there's a cold front coming through today and tomorrow looks like a good day to be in the woods. I just might have to slip behind the house and see if I can stick a doe to take up empty freezer space. Life is good!
Darren
EQUIPMENT NOTES: The bow is used is a 54# 62" Quest longbow made by Mike Dunnaway of Wild Horse Creek Bows. I made the arrows out of golden mahogany shafts I got from Kevin Forrester and tipped them with 190 grain Meatheads.
Topic: We will eat well this winter! (Read 419 times)
