Well this past Friday 10/21/11 I left work with excitement.
I was able to get into the woods earlier than usual this evening, and I knew which stand I was going to spend the night in. The reason I had higher levels of excitement than usual, is that Friday was going to be the first night that I would break out the rattling antlers, and produce some light sparing sequences in the hopes to draw in a curious buck.
Every year I have a great encounter using this tactic, "early rattling", in which I try to sound like a couple young bucks playing around, in the hopes that a mature buck will come to investigate who his upcoming competition will be in a couple weeks.
Flew home, Changed, Let the dog out, grabbed my bow, and grabbed my rattling antlers. Piled into the car, and started the 5 minute drive to the farm. Something inside me told me to stop shy of leaving the driveway, and go back in the house to try and find my grunt tube.
I haven't seen my grunt tube since last year, nor did I know where it was. Everyone knows the last minute rush to get into the woods for an afterwork evening hunt... But I was persistent with myself to go grab my long lost grunt tube. 5 full minutes later, I was locking up the house once again, and starting the 5 minute drive all over again... this time, with grunt tube in tow.
It was a nice night on stand. Sitting in a beautiful green field surrounded almost 360º by standing corn. I told myself to wait until 6:00 to run through my first rattling sequence. The time crawled by, minute by minute, until finally the watch finally read Six - Double-ought...
I proceeded to run through a full 10 minute cyclic sparing sequence, again trying my best to sound like a couple young punks testing out their new headgear, this fall.
5 minutes after the sequence the unmistakable sound of a snort-weezing grumpy buck was coming from the corn directly down wind of me. I thought it to be odd that I'd get a buck so grumpy so early in the season. They usually come in silent this early to rattling, but hey!, I'll take it!
I honestly didn't think much of it however... He was directly down wind of me. This "encounter" wasn't going any further. I actually started thinking about when I should perform the second rattling sequence for the night when I heard a series of short grunts coming from the north.
Out stepped a grumpy old buck, grunting his head off, looking for the young punks who were in HIS field, practicing for the month to come...
He angled his way toward the south west, effectively moving in a direction that would bring him 80 yards away from me as he passed... At this point, I was thanking the great lord almighty for the fore-sight in making me "need" to go find my grunt tube before the hunt...
One toot on the ole' tube, and that buck did an about face, and came sprinting in to 9 yards of my stand at the edge of the green field, staring right under my ladder stand. But there were no bucks to be found in this small stand of trees for this old grumpy buck...
So broadside he turned contimplating where he should go next, or where those young bucks had run off to. He stood with a branch covering his vitals like a bulletproof vest. This stand-off went on for what seemed like an hour... I was about to fall out of the tree I was so amped up, but I conquered the "fever" and picked that spot... right there... right in the middle of that rib cage... right next to that tuft of hair...
He took two steps, and before I knew it, my finger was in the corner of my mouth and my arrow was on its way. It struck a few inches back of where I was aiming, but knew worst case I center-punched his liver.
I watched him exit the green field very slowly... very hurt... almost down...
I was a mess! Are you kidding me! He's right there, just inside the corn! He has to be dead! Who should I call first! Holy Crap!
Matthew... calm down... think this through... sneek down, grab your arrow that is stuck in the ground at the site of all the drama, and back out of there quietly...
So thats what I did.......... Then the rain came........
4 Hours later, a montley crew of 6 bowhunters that have a few too many celebratory drinks fueling their bodies headed out in the spitting rain in search of my trophy...
3 Hours later, a montley crew of 6 bowhunters that HAD a few too many drinks fueling their bodies, returned back to the barn, and dispatched with no deer in tow... Talk about a party pooper!
The next morning the sun greeted me at the crack of dawn at the greenfield. 4 hours later, my buddy and I returned to the barn... again, with no deer in tow. Afternoon and evening commitments, against my will, kept me from continuing the search.
Sunday morning the sun once again greeted me at the green field. 7 different people put in some time helping their ole' buddy - ole' pal in searching for this buck on sunday at different times throughout the day.
As the day thinned out, so did my confidence, and so did the places left to look on this 80 acre farm... I knew he was dead. He had to be dead, I smoked his liver at a minumum!
Well 3:30 p.m. came around, and we were searching the final pass before my buddies had to get out of there, then the search party would be reduced to one...
I had just walked by a large sink-hole that resided in the middle of a switch-backing creek... I stood there watching my buddies swing around the hillside, and I kept looking over at that sink-hole. Something told me to check that sink hole, but after climbing, crawling, fighting thickets, and getting tricked by that log that looks an awful lot like a deer all day long, that 20 yards seemed a far distance to back-track...
Well guys... I did go look... and in the bottom of this pit was my buck...
15.5 clock hours of searching... 40+ total man-hours of searching... Here he lay...
Does anybody want to take a guess at how far this marathon wounded buck went?!?!?!
600 yards away from the site of drama! SIX HUNDRED YARDS?!?! After the autopsy, I confirmed that my arrow indeed center-punched his liver.
Thank you friends... Thank you Grunt Tube... Thank you persistence... Thank you sink-hole... Thank you Lord...
Topic: Persistence Pays.. PA Buck Down. (Read 759 times)
