I got my first double up this weekend. I usually hunt a property I lease, on my lease I put in a lot of time into maintaining, planting food plots, keeping feeders full etc. I have a couple nice bucks that I have been hunting on this property but only have pictures of these bucks on camera and have not seen them from the stand. I have become somewhat obsessed with hunting these bucks and all of my free time has been dedicated to hunting this property for one of these bucks. This past weekend I had a cousin come into town and he wanted to go hunting. I am not allowed to bring guest to hunt on my lease so my only option was to go hunt public land. I haven’t hunted on public land in several years as I spend all of my hunting time on my leased property, but I had a few spots on this public property I thought might work out well for us. Since this was public land I knew we had to get their early, much earlier than I usually go to the stand to beat anyone else to the spot. I put my cousin in what I thought would be the best spot for success. That morning I had a great hunt seeing 4 does and an 8 point making a scrape out of range. As this was my first hunt in this area in 3 years I had set up blindly not knowing where the deer might come from. For the afternoon hunt I showed my cousin where all the deer sightings were and let him pick where he wanted to put up his stand. He chose to set up where all the does were coming out of the thicket and into the oak bottom. The acorns are falling and the deer were all over them. I set up about 150 yds away to where I saw the deer leaving the oak bottom back into thick cover. It wasn’t long after we got settled into our stands the first set of does come out. They walked by my cousin, he didn’t have a clear shot and walked within 20 yds of my stand. These deer didn’t have a care in the world and were the most relaxed I have ever seen. As they feed into range I drew back and put an arrow into the biggest of the 2, she ran about 50 yards and I heard her drop. The second doe ran off just out of range and then began feeding again. 10 minutes latter a group of 4 more does come in and begin to feed. I already had another arrow ready and sent it flying into doe #2. She took off and I heard her drop at 30yds away. This was my fist double and very exciting hunt. My thoughts going into this hunt were of low expectations, hunting on private land and knowing I had a couple great bucks on my lease but as it turns out this was one of my best hunts ever and I got to do it with family. I am also glad I had help because I was worn slap out dragging 1 deer out of the woods, I might still be in the woods dragging if I would have had to drag both by myself.
