Hello Fellow Trad Hunters
Another excellent hunt at the KennyM Lease. It’s always a pleasure to get a week off from work and just hunt! For starters I saw more deer this year than any previous year and this includes while hunting, getting to and from the hunt and while driving to Brookfield. The deer were everywhere this year. The main gun season had ended almost three weeks prior to my arrival. The deer had resumed normal patterns, and I was seeing them up to 2 hours after sunrise and 2 hours before sunset.
As far as bucks go I saw a good number of spikes & forkys, a few 6 and 8 pointers and one nice 10 point.
Without going into too much detail…. I had sat up a stand in a tight area with plenty of shooting in front of my stand. There were no lanes to my left or right and very little shooting behind me. After a good while sitting and thinking I was going to get skunked I heard walking to my left in the thicket. I eventually saw movement, and I thought I saw something white but it was extremely thick and just a fleeting glimpse of movement. Two does eventually walked out in the opening in front of me and milled around. I stayed on alert for a good while, but I finally assumed it was just the two does. I put my bow back on a hook. I put my hands back in my pockets and grab the hand warmers. (temps were in the low 20s) The does turned and started walking in a direction that would put them downwind of me, so I was waiting for the eventual foot stomping and the alert blows. With my hands in my pockets I watch the does move to my left when I saw a very nice 10 point trailing the does and he let out a low grunt. At this point he was already less than 10 yards but still in thick cover but he was moving to a shooting lane. I lifted the bow off the hook and about the same time the does were just starting to get wind of me. All the deer went into alert mode and the buck stopped with his vitals covered. I started to raise the bow to get into position, but it touched an over-hanging twig which made the buck look in my direction. He stared in my direction and then flipped around and bound a few steps and stopped again. He stood there for another 30 seconds in thick cover before running off. I’m still thinking about this one….
Until next year…best holiday wishes to all the trad hunters.
And many many thanks to Kenny for coordinating this lease and hunts!