What a great night to be in the timber. Still a lot of corn in and hunting has been tough. My daughter Brier has been hunting with me alot this year. So far, we have killed 21 squirrels and shot a doe together from our ground blind. She has been hunting from an elevated stand with me some too, but we haven't been seeing alot of activity lately.
This weekend the weather turn cold and windy. While her and her mother were home cooking chili and baking cornbread I spend a windy day in the stand yesterday. Last night, the tree was moving around so mcuh I don't think I could have stood long enough to shoot. I only saw a six point in the morning and 2 does and a nice 8 pointer last night, with no shots. The eight pointer actually bedded in the brush about 100 yards away on the edge of a field. No way to stalk him with out winding me or seeing me.
This evening, with a big bowl of chili and cornbread in my stomach, I decided to do some rattling. Never have I had so much positive response to the horns. It seems everytime I hit the antlers together, I had deer coming in. Three bucks came in out of four rattling sequences. I rattle about every 20-30 minutes. A six point that had a nice rack for a six, he is going to make a nice deer in a couple years if he survives, then a spike came to the horns that ended up down wind and my last rattle at 4:20pm this forky walked straight to my stand like he was on a string. I had turn completely to the left to shoot him when he walked by at about 5 yards, but when he got right in front of the stand he turn and walk to the right side. He cleared a few branches and I got turn around and drop the string at about 10 yards when he stop slightly quartering away. The arrow enter tight behind the shoulder and hit the opposite leg on the way out. The broadhead was stick out the other side and he was down within 40 yards. I waited a bit to make sure he was down for good and then gathered my stuff, walked out and began the calls to ready my crack team of deer trackers. The standing rule in our house is as long as it isn't too late on a school night, my daughter Brier is brought in to track, no matter how short the blood trail may be. I also contacted our friends, Jim and Sam Beatty to round out our team. This is Jim's first year of deer hunting and he had expressed and interest in being in on any recovery, as a learning experience for he and Sam and I am certainly not one to pass up any volunteer deer draggers. The kids worked out the blood trail and found the deer in a short time. I gave a bit of a demonstration on field dressing and organ identification and even opened up the stomach to find what this young buck had been eating. A short drag to the truck and we got the deer skinned and hanging in the garage. Jim and Sam home with an inside loin for their table and we will share more of the deer when we get it all cut up. Here is a picture of Brier, Sam and myself. Jim was kind enough to run the camera.
Topic: What a great night! (Read 781 times)
