I just knew something good was going to come out of this past weekend. My dad and I hunted non-stop for 3 days because of this nice cold front that passed through on the 24th. Just to give you some back ground I'll start at the beginning of the season. The property that we hunt is about 100 acres of dense thicket, about 3x that of hardwoods, all surrounded by crop fields. There is one small crop field in the middle that is also adjacent to the thicket and about a 2 acre oak flat. Perfect location for an evening stand. I hung the set myself a couple years back. I found a huge oak tree and got the stand a good 25 foot up in the tree, about 3 yards off the field edge. Many does fell those first two years to that stand, but I had never killed a big buck out of it. My Grandpa killed a 160" buck out of that field during shotgun season, I have killed two 130" bucks in the area (one with a bow, one with a muzzleloader). But none had been taken out of that stand. This year it was not planted for some reason. This hit our gameplan for the property hard. Usually that you could sit in that stand from Oct. 1 until the end of December and never go two days in a row without seeing a deer. This year it was not the case, we had seen a grand total of 3 deer between 3 people and 3 weeks of hunting. It was shaping up to be the most miserable season we have seen. I started getting excited about two weeks ago. I saw that the temps. were on their way down to below freezing for the first time all year. I went out and bought a new lock on, hung it in a new spot since my "go to" had been slacking and hung it as far away from hunting pressure as I possibly could get. I quickly figured out why there was no hunting pressure out there... Evening 1: Wind Burn On the evening of the 24th, I hunted my new stand. Perfect wind, cold front coming in hard, I was pumped. I got in the stand about 2 PM and proceeded to freeze my *** off. Northwest wind, stand faces northwest of course. Forecast called for winds 10-12mph... Not to bad. What the forecast didn't say was gusts at 40. I was lucky enough to see a one horned spike buck, six turkeys, and the biggest Golden Retriever I have ever seen. The people that live near the thicket I set up in let their dogs run free. So as you can imagine there aren't many deer that just love getting chased all day. I knew that I would eventually be alright in that location because I was in a very nice transition spot during the rut but for midway through Oct. I may have just had a little too much wishful thinking going on. Morning 1: Frostbite The next morning I found myself on my way to my go to stand. There was a fresh new scrape on the opposite field edge. I put on some Tink's 69 and made my way into the stand. Of course on my way out the stand the night before I stepped into a creek and got my boot a little damp, not completely swamped but damp. For the first time in years my feet were COLD. I could not wait for the sun to break over the top of the trees. I heard a couple deer moving behind me shortly after day light and grunted at them. They didn't like that. They blew and took off into the thicket. About a half hour later when I could see back into the thicket a spike buck came through, on the same trail as the deer were that morning, with his nose to the ground and a mission. My thought was it was a doe who may have been getting hot because of the cold weather, and that I would be in this stand that evening. Evening 2: Sun Burn I had to get to class shortly after the morning hunt. Most people would skip class, and normally I would too. But I'm half way through mid terms as an engineering student, and I don't have a death wish. All the way through class I was staring at the clock ready to be back in the stand. I ran to my vehicle, threw my books in the back and made my 1 hour drive back to the stand. The Indiana weather did not disappoint. It had gotten pretty warm and the sun was beating down on my face. The air was still somewhat cool so a jacket was still necessary especially once it got later in the evening, but that sun was getting brutal. On the way in my dad and I noticed that a big buck had been walking across the field in the past day. Further affirming that I was making the right call by hunting that stand. It was pretty slow up until two hours before sunset. All of a sudden a doe and a fawn crashed out into the field. They seemed kind of spooky so I grabbed my bow. Right then the spike buck from that morning came busting out of the woods about 100 yards away. He chased the doe around in the field for a bit, and I decided to grunt at them just to see if I could get their attention. It worked better than expected. The doe came sprinting in, bleating, the whole bit, and stopped about 5 steps away. The spike followed suit and came in nose to the ground and grunting. They milled around for about 30 min and worked their way into the thicket and out of the field. I no sooner than sat back down when I saw a buck come into the field just down from where the spike and the does came from. I grabbed my binoculars from my backpack to find that they were fogged up. Right then another buck stepped out next to the other. I couldn't believe it. The bucks had split from their bachelor groups out here weeks ago so something had to be up. Finally I got my binos cleared up enough to see that one buck was a beautiful 3.5 year old 8 point. Well outside his ears, but not very tall probably around a 115-120" deer. The other was an old, old buck and already swollen up like he was ready to fight. Right then I knew I was in for a show. The two faced each other and locked up. The old buck proceeded to kick the crap out of the younger buck. I had never seen bucks fight before so this was a treat in itself. I wasn't even disappointed that they were out of range. The two separated and walked back into the woods. 5 minutes later the two were right back in the field. This time the younger buck made his way straight across the field while the older buck stood at the field edge. I picked up the grunt tube and gave him a little cadence and a snort wheeze. He looked my way, grunted, and started walking toward me. I had to make up my mind whether or not to shoot him. It wasn't too difficult when I boiled it down. He was pretty messed up, sway back, Roman-nose, and obviously a more dominant buck. Here he came grunting down the field edge. Made a scrape at 40 yards (another first for my eyes) and walked out in the field. I knew he was at 40 and broadside. A chip shot. I drew back the deer was completely calm feeding on the grass in the field. Anchored in. Squeezed off. Slap! My heart sank as the arrow took off. I hadn't compensated my form for the extra layers of clothing. The arrow was headed right for a gut shot. I had never been so glad to miss a deer in my life. He ran out too about 80 yards and stood there. I knocked another arrow and threw up my binos to make sure it was a clean miss. I confirmed I had missed the deer and again picked up the grunt call. Gave him two soft grunts and to my amazement, here he came. He stopped at 50 yards and turned to give me a quartering away shot. A shot I felt very comfortable with. Again I drew back, Settled in. Squeezed off. This time all I heard was the arrow whizzing through the air. It seemed like forever. Then a loud CRACK. The buck took off and I lost him behind a limb. I leaned out to see he had jumped out about 30 yards and he just stood there. I remember thinking "No way. No way I missed that deer twice." Just then he stumpled and fell. Didn't make it out of the field. He's not my biggest deer by any means. And no where near the smallest. I almost regret it that I don't have the chance to kill another buck this year because IN is a one buck state unless you can find a place to hunt in an Urban Zone (I don't have that luxury). But now I can focus on killing some ducks this winter. The only thing I know I regret is that I didn't get my bow in the picture. I saved up the past year to get a Hoyt Vector 32 this past fall and this was my first deer with it. We were in a hurry to get to a movie and didn't have time to mess around getting pictures perfect. Regardless I'm proud to get this bruiser down on the ground. We couldn't believe how swollen he was this early in the year.
Oh I do! It was deeper than knee boots. I took a different way into the stand that evening than I normally do because of the wind and found myself in a pickle. It was either get wet or walk a mile around a lake, and I'm extremely lazy. XD
