The Pennslyvania father and son team of Darren and Ethan Shue and the Florida father/son team of Reed and I managed a simultaneous arrival at our Calhoun County deer lease just after 7:30 PM on Thursday, October 1. Our arrival afforded just enough time to exchange greetings and get the vehicles unloaded before darkness fell. Each group had seen numerous deer on the approach to camp and excitement was high as we anticipated a great 3 day hunt.
It was quickly obvious that the Shue boys were "good folks" and any nervousness about sharing a camp with relative strangers was quickly replaced as new friendships were forged. We spent the evening preparing our hunting gear and looking over some maps of the property. I had a day one-morning one plan to drop Reed, Darren, and Ethan off on my way to my stand on Friday. The prospect of your first view of a piece of hunting property coming from a treestand as the sun comes up is always an exciting one for me and I could tell that the Shues were like-minded.
On Friday morning we drove the truck out to our planned parking area and did not see a single deer along the way. We walked about a half mile to a point where I dropped Reed off in a stand that was on the edge of a picked corn field. I saw three armadillos as I walked back to meet up with Darren and Ethan. Little did I know that they would be the only armadillos that I would see all weekend!
I dropped Darren off first on an acorn flat. While we waited for Darren to get settled in his stand Ethan and I spotted a deer 40 yards away in the woods.
Then Ethan and I walked deeper into the woods to our stands. All of the stands were proven having produced sightings and harvests in the past. I was optimistic about the morning as I settled in a full 30 minutes before first light with the sounds of owls and other night creatures filling the woods around us.
The morning proved to produce few sightings for everone except Reed. I struck out, Ethan saw one deer in the early morning and Darren saw a coyote. Reed, on the other hand saw 10-15 hogs and 3 coyotes. When he got down to meet us he stepped in the field and busted 5 rack bucks and a doe out of the field! They had been out of sight of his stand and he had no idea that they were there.
Reed is sure that these bucks were in the group he saw:
Topic: St Jude's Armadillo Hunt-The Results are in! A deer hunt broke out along the way! (Read 1662 times)
