Well, we hunted the whole day yesterday. The morning hunt seemed to be on point, 25 degrees, no wind, lots of rut activity all week. But the morning didn't produce, saw only four does at about 60 yards. Switched stands for the afternoon and it was absolutely dead for about 3 hours. At about 4pm I saw a deer out in the field where I saw 7 does funnel out of the other day. After a few minutes, I saw a glimmer of an antler and figured I'd have some fun. I knew he was a small one so I put the bow down and grabbed the grunt. After ignoring the first few the calls, he turned and came in. He used to be a small basket rack I'm guessing, but lost the whole left side somehow. Not even 5 minutes after having him come 10 yards in front of me, the tree line began moving from another buck hitting the rub line. I grunted a couple more times and a nice 8-pointer came in. The broken 3-point walked right past him passively in an effort to not get involved with the 8-point. The 8-point walked by me into a shooting lane and I let one fly. He hopped across a creek and stood there, then walked out. I had no idea what happened, but I sure missed. Two minutes later a bigger 8-pointer came in and hit the same rub line. Grunted him in and I didn't miss this one! Missing the smaller 8 was a blessing in disguise. People always say stuff happens quick during the rut, but I've never seen anything like that!
yeah fitz, after I shot the big 8, i hopped down and walked right to the lane where I missed the other...for the life of me I couldn't find it across the creek or in the leaves low...because I put it into the tree the deer was about to walk behind lol
