A very nice 8pt. was shot at last Sat. by a rifle hunter who was right next to one of our farms. A clean miss with no injury. For my area this is a very nice buck. I had the GW set up on this farm for a few weeks back in Sept. and he finally caught the poachers that I knew would come looking for this deer. He got them about 2am on a Friday night (Sat. morning) back in late Sept. They were spotlighting the fields and had rifles in the truck. They told him they had seen a big buck in that field earlier. After taking their guns, license,handing out tickets and fines, the GW told them if he ever caught them back in that county, he would come back with a rollback truck to get their truck. My question is after getting shot at this past Sat. at 6pm, how spooked do you think this buck is now??? He has everything he needs right there... very thick cutover about 10-11 yrs old, secluded uncut cornfield about 1 1/2 acres that I will not cut plus a few old oaks that did produce this year and a creek/swamp for water. 1. Was this enough to move him out of here? 2. Will he just go nocturnal till maybe the rut comes in? I am thinking that if he is not spooked too bad I should get in there either this week (chances are Wed. or Thurs) or Sat at the latest before the rut kicks in and he is roaming? What are some of your thoughts??
That's atough call. He may go nocturnal or he may avoid that spot. I doubt that he will vacate the area.
Thanks for the input and the optimism. I am hoping that since most of the blocks around will be run by the hounds from now until the end, this will put enough pressure on him to stay put or at least close by. I may even have to wait until late season to see him once all the beans and acorns are gone and not much is left but this cornfield...the bad thing is they have already eaten well over half of this uncut 1 1/2 acre field. I may have to resort to getting the farmer to fill a fertilizer spreader full of corn and scatter the field if they eat everything before the end of season....just a thought. I did not think they would eat the entire field so I did not plant a winter plot with this corn. Needless to say, my all day sits will begin this weekend and I will be concentrating on this buck for a while. Hey G, you may be on to something here. My little girl's fastpitch softball tournament game was called tonight because of rain. It has been re-scheduled for Thurs. night which means...you guessed it...I am hunting tomorrow evening instead of Thurs.
