Up to this point, it had been a fun but exhausting season starting with archery antelope in WY then SD, a 2 week out of state elk hunt then whitetail hunting starting at the end of Sept. With nearly 30 sits underneath my belt and passing many bucks along the way including missing one dandy, my wife’s patience was starting to wear thin and the hour glass on my available hunting time left for the season was starting to run low. It was time to mix things up. I started to come to the realization that if I was going to fill my tag I was going to have to throw a Hail Mary so on Tuesday afternoon I left my private ground and drove over an hour further away, hopeful I would get into an area with better deer numbers. With only 1.5 days left of my deer hunting vacation I decided I was going to hunt a public area that I had briefly checked out prior to the season but never actually hunted. Tuesday afternoon was promising as I saw numerous deer including 2 smaller bucks within shooting range. Wednesday AM I decided to hunt my private ground closer to home. Shortly after 9AM with no deer sightings, I decided it was time to give the public ground one last shot. Showing up around 11AM, even with the action I saw Tuesday, I decided to setup ½ mile north and try what I thought would be a great cruising area. I walked in, identified what I considered the main trail and set my stand. Shortly after 2:00 I saw a buck cruising through the timber. When he hit around 50-60 yards and went behind some brush I drew, anchored and waited... At 25 yards, I shot - he went around 50 yards and disappeared behind some brush. As it turned out, that was his final resting place. Not a big buck but considering the impending pumpkin army and how my season had been going so far, it was just time to punch my tag – put some venison in the freezer and start making up for all the time I’ve missed with the family this fall…. So here is the buck I missed and still haunts my dreams... The big branch you leave to give yourself more cover - yeah that one bit hard... I passed these on the way to my new stand site - always a good feeling seeing sign... View from my last day perch.... My last day public land buck..
Sorry you didn't get the one buck but congrats on the buck you got !! Now go suck up to your wife !!!! Let me know what works cause I will probably be needing that info later on so mine forgives me. :D Congrats again !! Tim
Make sure a thread gets started as to how to make up that missed time at home. I work all summer where I hate the sun and heat, covered in bug spray and sun block so i can all but disappear in the fall ;-) Congrats on the buck! Any deer with a bow is a trophy.
An interesting twist on this was that the wife started staying home with the kids full time this last year. One of her selling points to me on it was that she said I could hunt as much as I wanted and she wouldn't complain... She was pretty good this fall with as much time as I spent in the field - though I think even she underestimated how much time I would actually spend hunting if given the green light.... :-) It was an amazing stand setup, that's for sure. So you can see the field edge through the trees but what the pic doesn't show is that on the other side there is a deep bank the deer don't like crossing so it was an absolutely sweet setup...
