well I posted earlier about thinking my Tahoe Hybrid's engine being shot. Well it was so and now is costing me around $6 to replace. leaving me no money to pay for the lease. So I was forced to hunt behind me parents house. I wasn't excited about this prospect based on not having one tree to put a stand in, and my dad hunted it for years and never shot one. Personally, I've 2 does back there and have seen decent bucks, but nothing of the calaber I'm used to on my lease. Well I was wrong about the trees. This spring I noticed one particular tree on the fence line that was 50/50. Yesterday morning I took my Muddy hang on and sticks and was able to put my stand up high enough to see above the under brush. it was snug and I was happy with the set up. I'm usually a 20' high in the tree guy, but this stand was about 12'. it is what it is!. I started seeing activity right away. I very large doe walked out right at first light. I was only in my stand for 20 minutes. about 30 minutes later I saw a limping doe walk out into the field on my right. Back story, My mom said she saw a limping doe in her front yard the day earlier. I connected the dots and grabbed my binoculars to get a better look. What I found was another deer following her. I only saw the rack and it was big and tall. I replaced my binocualars with my shotgun but the buck was walking back where it came from following that limping doe. I was hoping he would walk the tree line towards me. While I stood and waited I glanced to behind me and saw a single doe grazing in a grass field about 75 yards out. she keep looking into the neighbors woods, where I had believed that buck and doe went. all of a sudden things went crazy and deer were racing across this grass field from all directions. all together, there were 7 does and 3 running this way and that. pretty soon it became quite and all the deer disappeared on both sides of the field. One of these 3 bucks was pretty decent, but everything happened so fast I hadn't been able to pull off a Shot. Where I'm sitting my stand is facing north into a 5 acre cut corn field. the total property is only 20 acres with a pond, CRP & small trees. north of that is a very large cut corn field. On my right is a few hundred acres of woods as well as tons of hunters. To my left beyond the cut corn is CRP and small trees for about a half acre then our pond. follow the fence line across the levee and you come to even more CRP/Small trees. we made a trail along the fence ling around the entire property. My folks house and barn are to my left about 500 yards away behind me and sort of to my right is about 20 acres of mixed grass fields, woods, and a single tree line separating the two grass fields. beyond this at about 200 yards is a lake front subdivision with million dollar homes and what not's. with the subdivision being where it was I'm not able to simply take crack shots if you get me drift. with that being said I wasn't about to shoot at running targets. What happened worked to my favor. about 15 minutes after the craziness, a single doe ran out of the woods to my rear left, boarding up to the lake. almost immiditaly after a buck appear out of the same woods. I knew it was a buck because he came out and started licking branches. he started walking across the field when a 2nd buck appeared out of the same woods. I glassed the two and decided the 1st was my buck. as soon as they hit the tree line I grunted at them and grabbed my gun. I assumed the target buck would come out first. as soon as a buck appeared I put my scope on him and pulled the trigger. it was the smaller buck FML. I'm still happy but disappointed in my lack of patience. he's about 100" 8. 2 year old
i understand the meaning of FML, but i don’t see how it applies to this situation at all. you saved hundreds or thousands of $ on a lease and only got an 8-pointer...
