I went out this afternoon with not alot of confidence that I would see a whole lot of deer, if any, as the wind was howling and the snow was flying. I thought what better of a day to be out there slowly stalking through the trees, just to see what I could see. The wind was gusting up to 33 mph, and there was no way I was going to be up in my treestand.
At the sign in area ( public hunting grounds ) I expected to see 5 to 10 vehicles as this is the normal amount of hunters parked there almost every night. Much to my surprise, there was only one other guy at the parking area when I got there. When I met him, he actually laughed when he saw I was carrying a recurve. He was too! He was laughing that he was not the only person crazy enough to be out hunting in weather like this, but another recurve shooter was out there too. We exchanged good lucks and to each their merry way.
About 35 minutes later I'm slowly creeping through the timber and notice some movement to the northeast of me. Turkeys, and a bunch of them. About the time I am putting my binoculars up to look at them, out of the southeast strolls a decent 4x3 on the troll for does only 15 yards from me. I had no time to get an arrow ready, and he continued on to the northwest, but I did manage to find my grunt call and grunt at him about five times with no response from him at all.
Five minutes go by, and I'm thinking I need to be about 15 yard deeper in the brush to break up my outline when he appears again. Mr. 4x3 is coming straight at me and I knew it was the same deer as he had a bloody right ear from fighting which I noticed the first time I saw him
Down on my right knee I waited for him to finally turn broadside. After giving me "the look " once, twice, three times, he finally turned and gave me a 15 yard quartering away shot that I made good on. I was shooting a Chek-Mate Hunter II 55lbs @ 28" and a Wensel Woodsman on a Blackhawk Vapor 3000. He went about 80 yards before going down.
This is not my biggest deer I've ever shot, but certainly the most memorable.
Topic: First Trad Buck (Read 4292 times)
