I was fortunate and prepared to take a doe with my new bow in October (see harvest thread). I had upgraded my bow in the offseason and practiced much more than recent years to break it in. I hunted hard in November here in PA to try for 3 bucks in 3 years. I passed on a decent 7-pointer because I had trail cam photos of some more mature bucks. Archery season ended without a buck. I'm primarily a bowhunter, but I had my best rifle season, taking a fawn and a buck 5 days later on the last day of rifle season to wrap up my first 3-deer season. The buck was a one-antler 4-point taken from my ground blind at about 130 yards. I was set up beside a creek and heard deer crossing about 7AM. I could see through the blind window mesh that the last of the 4 deer was a buck. I waited for them to climb the bank and cross the grass field. The 3 does crossed the field and stood nervous in the treeline, looking back for the buck, who hung up for a minute. Eventually he crossed and offered a shot. They took off on the shot and scattered. The buck shed his last antler right before he died about 40 yards from the shot. He weighed 120 pounds dressed...I estimate 3.5 year old. I estimated he'd score 105 if symmetrical and modest 14" spread. I deboned all 3 deer and took about 100 pounds of meat to two butchers for burger, sweet sticks, bologna, sausage, and hot dogs, excluding backstraps, tenderloins and heart.
Great job and cool story! Sounds like a season to set a new base line for your expectations Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk
