November 12th is kentucky's opener for rifle season. I'm lucky to have friends more like family that own property close by with a cabin where we enjoy each other's company, good food, and cold beer. I like most of you fell in love with bowhunting and have yet to pick up a rifle since shooting my first doe with the ole stick and string. The property is an East facing bluff with two 20-50 yard wide shelves on the way down, before finally turning into river bottom. They own the entire river bottom and east facing bluff with the property line stopping not far up the opposite western facing bluff. Excited I was the only one to bring my bow and my climber stand I went to the far side of the property and got setup around 3 o'clock. After sitting for 45 minutes I heard something walking through the creek that separates his property in half. I couldn't see what it was but as it got closer I heard more then one set of feet walking through the water. After looking at the Ariel map I chose to hunt this specific spot due to the creek making a horse shoe and creating a funnel between the creek and a shelf. After 10 minutes of carefully watching and listening a giant 8 jumped out of the creek on the opposite side of where I sat and nosed around. I'm not an expert at scoring by any means but just from looking at him through the bino's I guessed him around 150-160. Finally two does jumped out of the creek as well and nosed around at around 75 yards for aprox 10 minutes. Knowing I needed to do something I picked up my grunt call and grunted a few times to get his attention. Finally hearing me jumped back into the creek and headed my direction. However, he stopped halfway and stopped to get a drink. I guess being down in the valley the wind swirled and the does took a few big jumps into the thicket on the other side of the creek. Confused at what to do, wether to follow them or come see what was grunting he stood in the creek for another 5 minutes perfectly broadside. Finally he made up his mind to jump back on the bank opposite side of my and disappear into the thicket. This makes the third year in a row I've had a shooter buck within gun range and unable to get it done because I brought my bow. All of my buddies are giving me up the road for it, and as bad as I want to kill a nice buck with bow I'm starting to think the might be right.
It's definitely your choice. My buddies use to give me a hard time about hunting with a bow. Now they see that my biggest bow kill is bigger than any of their gun kills. It all works out in the end.
I understand your pain sir, have had four dang good bucks and one monster under my stand this year only to find out I couldn't get a shot throw all the brush with my bow, I could have done it all day with my rifle but I want so bad to get it done with the bow I can taste it.
Feel free to use whatever you want but it's such a satisfying feeling getting it done with a bow during rifle season.
