I had an awesome hunt this morning. This past week I have been trying to get my first deer with traditional equipment, but it hasn't been going good. The evening hunts have been pretty terrible so I decided to give the mornings a try. I walked to my stand well before daylight and climbed to the top of the tree as quietly as I have ever done. I must have been in ninja mode because usually my climber does make some noise. Anyways, as soon as I hang my recurve on its hook, I hear a deer walking directly behind me. This activity continues until daylight, but once the light comes the noise stops and I see no deer. Fast forward to 7:45 and I see a deer up ahead walking my way. I throw up the binocs and see that it is a buck. Not just a buck, a nice buck. He closes the gap to 50 yards and I am staring at a gorgeous ten point. He has it all..symmetrical, tine length, decent mass. I am certainly no expert field judger, but I would guess him to be a 125"-130" buck. My mind starts racing and all I can think about is laying my recurve across this buck's body to take the perfect photo...all this time he is getting closer and closer. Seconds later he is standing at 23 yards perfectly broadside and I am cursing myself for not bringing my compound. That is just outside of my range, so I just had to sit there and wait. He stepped behind a small thorn thicket and hung out there for a few minutes. Suddenly I realized that as soon as he steps out from behind that thicket, he will be at 15 yards. I can make that shot. I shifted my weight slightly to get in the perfect position to shoot, and my climber made the faintest creeking noise. The buck immediatly froze like a statue and seconds later he trotted off down the trail that was heading away from me. He wasn't spooked, he just knew something was wrong. I'm pretty sure my heart was beating louder than that noise the stand made. So I sit down and try to compose myself as I analyze what just happened. Five minutes later I am still pretty rattled but I look up and see a small four point coming my way, using the same trail. When he gets to 30 yards I stand up and grab my bow just in case he has any other deer following him. As I stand, I somehow lose my balance and my bow hits my climber, making a pretty loud noise. The little forkie freezes in his tracks and stares me down. Five seconds later he continues down the trail like nothing happened. I watched him walk right past me and just smiled, thinking about the two different bucks. What a difference a couple years can make. That was the only two deer I saw this morining, but man it was fun. About half an hour after the deer were gone the wind suddenly switched and started howling out of the North. That is a bad wind for this stand so I climbed down and went home for some breakfast....what a morning. I even had time for a glamour shot on my way out:d. Some of you old school trad guys may appreciate the original Quickie Quiver with no hood
Awesome experience and some lessons learned.... Get a stand that don't creak BTW you look like you were hunting in the arctic in all that gear... It was 42 degrees :d
Cool morning.. up until the creaking part. But dude.. I have to ask.. is that your name on the lower right side of the pic.?
Talk about buck fever :d Sounds like you had a great morning Will, I'm better you're gonna kill him by the end of your break
Great day in my book Oh, and i got one of those quikee quivers with no hood. and i got an anchient ben pearson with the hood :d
Great story and good read. But look how you are bundled up. Good thing you don't hunt up in the north land.
Where did you get that quiver? either of you? I might try picking up this "Hobby/lifestyle" of the trad. I am going to check out my dads recurve. it might only be used for fishing thou.
Now that's an a great story All in all a very productive morning. Just that drive you crazy, when something as simple as that little creak from your stand is what made the difference, and sent him on his way. quite maddening some times.
