After eating wind, rain, snow, sleet for 5 hours yesterday morning on a hot stand locations, I decided to give up my all day sit and regroup at a different stand. I went home, grabbed a quick bite, and looked over my Google Earth stand location map. I decided on a stand that I had not visited since hanging it in early September. My main reason for the choice was because it was low lying area on the east side of the woods (get out of the wind). I headed to stand along the bushhogged trail that the family maintains. Within 30 yards there is a rub and then a scrape and then another scrape and another and another...all the way to my stand. Cool there is activity in here. About 420 I hear footsteps coming up the bushhog trail behind me. I glance over my left shoulder and have to do a triple take. It is the largest live 8 pointer I have ever seen (now named Gershom, believed to be a decendant of deer the family called Moses). I cant get my bow because he'll bust me on movement so I wait for him to get behind a tree. He takes a step and is spooked by my buck decoy. Bounces back behind me about 30 yards. I grunt one time and he starts coming up the right side trail to circle behind the decoy (even better more shooting lanes). He stops at 18 yards extremely slight quartering. I'm already at full draw but cannot get a proper anchor to get my dots right on the SABO Gen II sight (sight is doing exactly what it should this is operator issue). I decide that my hood is enough to interfere with my anchor and I need to take it down. I let out and the noise spooks Gershom. He bounds off 20 yards and turn to face me behind some honeysuckle. He is up wind the entire time. I stand motionless and after about 30 seconds he turns and bounds out. Not a full blown exit just a somethings not right. I shook like a leaf for the next 30 minutes. After about 3-4 minutes I try to rattle and see if I can draw him back in. No luck other than a curious 4 pointer who came in, saw the decoy, and decided to slowly exit stage right. I'm planning on returning to this area Thursday afternoon (is this enough time for hime to settle back down?) I am taking the climber as I am certain he will be checking that ladder stand long before he come within range. Do I go towards the direction he came from which is more of a bottleneck but less silhoutte breakup cover, or do I move farther down his headed direction and the scrape line (better cover less visibility)? Should I stick with the decoy or abandon it for the next possible encounter? My gut says move further into the bottleneck to catch him before he can split off on another trail and go with no decoy. Judging by my previous deer and a couple recently harvested ones, this was a 150-160" 8 pointer. I thank God and my SABO sight that I didnt push the set up and make a bad shot. With the previous peep and pin set up I would have never noticed I wasn't anchored in the correct spot and made a poor shot. Even at 18 yards placement is important to me.
Wow what an encounter. Kudos on not letting a questionable arrow fly. Definitely the right thing to do. this is just my opinion but id go with the climber and no decoy so that the variables aren't to similar for him next time. Good luck
Thanks. I hope he's back to hitting the scrape line he's got going. I resisted the temptation of setting a camera up on the trail. Try to get everything back to his "normal".
Wow, that was close. Without knowing the lay of the land, I'd wager on moving the stand toward the way he went. Thinking that if circled around to where he was originally going, he might head back through the safe area on his way back.
Heading back in this afternoon with climber and bow only. I'm going to try and find a spot closer to the bottleneck.
