I hadn't been seeing any deer of late and knew I needed to move my stands. I'd been putting it off because with rifle season coming 11/16/13 I'd have to get them all in off the land I hunt to make sure I didn't get anything stolen during the ten day rifle portion.
So when I'd put it off as long as I could 11/15/13 the last day, it was time to pull them. I'd been seeing some scrapes under the big oak trees at our back fence row and new it was time to give it a go, even though it's not a likely place to see a buck in daylight. This time of year you just never know
gotta try.
I hung a Chippewa stand in a big white oak over the freshest looking scrape, then put some James Valley scrape gel in the scrape and some doe in heat gland gel on the licking branch and headed to the house for lunch at about 1:00 PM.
I headed out to hunt this stand at 3:00 PM just two hours after hanging it. It was really windy and I had 0% expectations but I though what the heck with gun season coming the next morning I needed to be out.
At 3:30 PM I glance up and see antlers trotting across the field about 150 yards out in front of me. I think to myself he ain't coming over here, but sure enough he's making a big semi circle and coming to the scrape. I get stood up and ready, hoping the wind will let up if I get a shot opportunity (it never did let up). His fatal mistake was on final approach, he came in with the wind at his back so no chance of winding me.
At 15 yards I let him have it and the Landshark tipped AD was through him and he was gone. I set for about an hour then got down for a look.
First significant blood found at 60 yards where he paused and looked back for a few seconds.
It was getting dark pretty fast by this time and when the blood got really hard to find I started letting doubt creep in that maybe the shot wasn't as good as I thought.
Topic: Home place buck (Read 716 times)
