I have not hunted out of a tree for many years; however, a friend invited me to hunt one of his trees on some private land. He had seen a few decent deer in this draw, and thought I might enjoy getting off the ground for a while. So, on Halloween I crawled up and watched several does, but no bucks. Yesterday, I hunted in the morning and this time I watched a couple of smaller bucks and one pretty nice one, but they stayed well away from my stand. A fun diversion was watching a bunch of turkeys that roosted just across the draw from the stand. Since I already had my fall bird, it was fun just to watch them and listen to their talk.
Yesterday afternoon, I again crawled into the tree, and watched two little bucks sparring for over an hour. And then, a better buck made his entrance. When I first saw him, he was about 200 yards away. He watched the smaller bucks spar for a while, and then proceeded to feed. By about 4:30, it looked like he was feeding away from me, so I tried a grunt. It immediately got his interest, and he started to feed back towards me, but as I grunted again he became more interested in 'that other buck' than in feeding.
He was very cautious, and it took him a half an hour to get within range, but he finally got to within about 20 yards. Luckily, I had shot a couple of judos from the stand, since as I said, I haven't done the treestand thing for many years. I drew and watched the arrow go right where I had looked on his shoulder. At the shot, he turned and walked away, tail down. I could see about half the arrow sticking from his shoulder, and the hit looked pretty good.
After the interminable half an hour, I took up the trail, and found decent blood quickly. He went into a swampy area, and I started to lose both bloodtrail and light, so I backed out.
What a long night! I was out again at first light, and luckily picked up a good trail almost immediately. From where I quit last night, he went about another 100 yards, and I found him in a nasty boxelder thicket. Got one lung and liver, and he was probably dead about dark last night. Northern Mist Baraga, 55#, cedar arrow, Magnus vented two blade. Here he is:
Maybe there is something to this treestand thing,after all!
Topic: Treestand hunt w/pics (Read 889 times)
