10/22 Afternoon hunt.
This was my first opportunity to hunt this year as my hunting area was closed until this time due to the massive flooding we have had along the Missouri River. Boy, what a first night! The area always has CRP grass that conceals the deer real well, but that is all gone due to the flood. I thought I'd just be observing where the deer movement was rather than really hunting, so I sat at the end of a small strip of timber to watch the big block of timber in front of me.
Right at 6:00 pm central time I saw 6 deer come out about 300 yards. Then 4 more, then some more, and then some more. I finally decided to stop counting when I got to 25. A couple pair of bucks were sparring putting on a show. Then, suddenly they got spooked and a majority of them ran back into the trees, but a few still hung out at the edge. After lowering my binoculars I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Just to my left were two small bucks crossing the open field heading right at me. Then they started to angle, looks like I'm going to get a shot. First buck is a smallish 4x4, he looks right at me and gives me the head-bob look about 4 or 5 times. He looks away and I slowly start to draw, that's when buck #2 decides something isn't right and got happy feet and then both deer decide to skitter away and head to the edge of the trees about 75 yards away. At this point things get really interesting.
I was watching the two bucks for a while then looked back to the east of me where the first group of deer had been, and there they were again, slowly meandering my direction. Couple of really nice bucks with several small bucks were in the group. I then looked over at the 2 bucks that were closer to me, they had decided to invite a few of their friends over, quite a few friends.
The field was getting swarmed with deer. The first group was now 200 to 250 yards away. The second group started to get bigger, 10, 15, couple more here, couple more there. There were two REAL NICE deer in the second group. I know one was at least a 5x5 and the other was a tall racked 4x4. I didn't dare try to raise my binoculars because I still had deer looking my way from spooking the two bucks from before. So there I was with a field full of deer, I would guess well over 50 of them, and I just sat there and enjoyed the show. Big bucks (4), little bucks, does and fawns all over the place, fawns running all around this way and that, bucks sparring, not fighting, just messing around. It was quite an experience!
So, what's going to happen? It's starting to get late, nothing is closer than 50 yards of me. Some of the deer have started to head to the south/southwest of me which is the direction I have to go to get to my vehicle a 1/2 mile away. Some of the deer moved to the edge of the treeline to the north of me and were heading slowly to the west to hit the cut cornfield. I knew that there was somebody else hunting in the trees to the north of me, the place is still muddy as heck and I saw his tracks heading in. I wondered if he would come along and run every deer out of there or would they move out on their own? My question was answered after about 5 minutes when the deer started trotting away, the other hunter appeared in the field a minute later, he never knew they were there. He saw me when he got about 10 yards from me "Oh hi, did you see any deer?" he asked. "Oh a few here and there. It was just nice to be able to be out here again." I replied. He said he saw a few deer as well and with that wished me a good night. Oh what a night it was!
Topic: Oh What A Night (Read 420 times)
