Team 33 - Whitetail Mafia

Did you see anything? I won't be able to go out until Sat morning I think. Then Sunday morning.

 

With the early cold snap here in the midwest this is deffinitly the time for all of use to at least try to get in the woods one morning. These colder mornings should keep the bucks on their feet well into daylight hours and maybe start the prerut phase a little early.

I am going to try to do a little rattling this weekend and also break out the doe estrus and buck urine and see if something happens.

 

You are not even close. Keep dreaming.

 

Hey everything starts out as a dream buddy. Ours just may come true.

 

I will be hunting fri sat sun mon this week and then i wont get a chance until nov 8th-14

 

I didn't see to much last night. 2 small buck ( about the size Frenchy shot) and a doe. No just kidding there French you shot a dandy so now you can go lay by your dish with the rest of your team and watch us go to work. I saw a spike and a fork. The neighbors next to us are cutting the woods back 60' by 300' or so to open their field up more ( non hunters) and its really screwing us up. I hunted a stand that had a bad wind last night but I did pull cards on the way out. I have some nice shooters on cam. Not my big one but a real nice 9 I call blade because he has a 1 1/2 to 2" bladed g2 on the right side and a split g3 on the left. All the big ones are moving in the morning during the first hour of light. I couldn't get out this morning but I will be out this afternoon and in the morning. I got nothing moving mid day yet.

 

Frenchbrit hit a cord??????????? True hurts don't it??????????????

 

Not sure I understand?????

I dont speak team 23s language.... must be the minerals they have to use to kill big bucks?

 

I thought it was only gonna be Frenchbritt that was over here talkin like his lips don't match, turns out it's the whole team 23!!!

If anyone figures out what there trying to say, let me know.

 

Let them talk. Even if its a 3rd grade level.

 

C'mon guys...Let not make fun of the "mentally challenged". Help them snap their helmets on and pat them on the head. Don't be rude.

 

who is hunting this weekend

 

I am hunting Sat and Sunday morning. No evening sits for me this weekend.

 

Heck we should have 380 points on the board right?
or so if his buck goes 130

 

Yep that sounds right.

 

The Story

OK so I'm sitting here yesterday thinking I really didn't want to hunt in the afternoon because I haven't been seeing anything good. I pulled cards on Wednesday and all my big deer where moving in the morning. I was thinking I would make a nice supper and just relax. Then 2:30 rolls around and I say what the hell, You aren't going to shoot anything sitting here. I also wanted to throw out a little corn and apples at the stand I was going to hunt this morning.

We have been having a west or northwest wind at 10 to 25 mph all week which is perfect for my favorite stand but the neighbors are cutting their woods back about 300 yards away so that stand is not any good to hunt this week. My next best option is a stand on the edge of a woods over looking a soy bean field with the wind on my right shoulder or a stand on the edge of a woods with my back to the wind. I choose option 2 and take maybe 4 cups of corn and 4 apples with me and I put half 20 yards to my right and half 20 yards to my left to hopefully stop the deer before they get in my wind. I was hoping to shoot a doe from this stand and not just any doe. We have a blonde doe that we call the Blonde B**** because she will come out and start blowing and stomping for no reason and scare all the deer off. We have been trying to shoot her for 3 years with no success. I even missed her with the muzzle loader last year.

So I'm in my stand and ready by 3:15. Hunting closed yesterday at 6:17. At 3:40, Blondie came out 65 yards to my south and ate a little winter wheat and started her stomping game and went back in the woods after about 10 minutes. I'm thinking good, she will make her way down to me and I can finally whack her. I never saw her again but I kept looking that way. About 5:50 I'm scanning left and right for movement and I look to my right and all of a sudden I catch movement right in front of me. I slowly turn and look and it's a little 5 pointer standing there about 8 yards away. I still have no idea where he came from. He was looking my way knowing something was wrong because he was right in my wind. He walked right to me to about 5 yards and was trying to smell me. I'm only in a 12 foot ladder. Then he walked to my left, not being able to figure out what was wrong, and started eating my corn and apples. After he ate everything there, he walked past me and started eating the corn on my right. Now I can look around for other deer because he is busy eating and across the field about 300 plus yards are two deer standing next to each other feeding. Must be a doe and fawn I think but could not confirm that. I look again and I can see them butting heads. The little guy then finishes off my corn and walks away to my right. I grab the binos and look and can see that they are two buck but not shooters. They start walking right to me and I see they are both 2 1/2 year old 8 pointers. At 40 yards they stop and keep looking south to my right. Then they walk that way so I thought I might as well have a little fun with them and I grunt at them a couple times. The stopped and looked and then kept walking to about 65 yards. As I'm watching them the shooter comes out to greet them. They smell each other and butt heads lightly and go back in the woods. I grunt again but they won't stop. I waited a few minutes and grunted again but nothing so I thought I might as well start packing up because it's getting dark and the show is over for tonight. As I look back to my right, here comes the shooter. He was about 60 yards away and about 40 yards out from the edge of the woods. I draw my bow and I'm telling myself I have to shoot before he gets my wind. I hate to take the shot at that angle but I have no choice. At 40 yards I grunt at him and he stopped right behind a branch. (Insert swear words of your choice here) He started walking again and I grunt but he won't stop. At what I think is 38 yards, I had the only shot I was going to get before he winded me and I took it. It looked good but it was dark enough (6:12) that I wasn't 100% sure. He trotted on straight ahead about 70 yards obviously hurt and stopped, turned about 45 degrees and walked to a wooded fence line and I lost sight of him. After a few deep breaths I looked up and here comes another deer. Thinking its Blondie I knocked up another arrow but it was one of the 8 pointers. After he was out of sight, I got down to look for my arrow while I had a few minutes of light left. I can not find the arrow and I don't shoot lighted knocks. (more swear words) I cannot find blood where I shot him so I walked his path through a green wheat field and finely find a drop of blood about 40 yards down. Dark red but very spotty. I followed it to where he turned and then lost it. Not a good sign. I walked to the fence line hoping to find blood in the yellow grass and I did. My buddy who hunts a couple miles away showed up and we got on the blood. He crossed the fence line that is about 10 yards wide and I had blood everywhere. I got through the fence and looked right towards the marsh and nothing. I looked left towards the woods and there he was about 25 yards away. He was trying to circle back around me.

After getting him out of there and gutting him, I got the left lung and liver. The arrow was sticking out of him held in him by the vanes hence the lack of a good blood trail. In the pictures you will see the arrow facing forward. In reality it should be facing to the back of him but that's the way I found him.

Here are a couple pictures. I will measure him and get him posted asap.

 

Sad day guys. Today I go from being a hunter to being a cheerleader. Ya, I can go shoot doe but its not the same not being able to get points for the team. I was hoping to get a few more points for us but I couldn't let him walk. He was #3 on the list. Going out tonight to try and shoot Blondie.

Good Luck to all hunting this weekend!

 

Good luck to all that out tonight! I think i found the does so i'm waiting on the rut to start and hopefully one of our big boys shows up. I did get lucky this morning and put another doe on the ground for the meat, i waited as long as i could for a buck to show up but i like the meat pretty well so last shot possible i smoked her at 40 yards. 70 yard track job and rages did the job!!!!!

 

This is a public service announcement.
If any of you know somebody in the Wayne County IL area that is missing a dog sadly it will not be coming home because I shot it Saturday night at 5:30pm. LOL!!!!

I was hunting a tree line that extends to the west from a huge block of timber. It had winter wheat fields on each side of it as well. I got out to my stand at 3pm and the wind was just no good at all. We had 20mph winds blowing right into the timber the deer would be coming out of. So I improvised a little and sat on the ground in a three foot gap between two big trees. I figured these trees would help block my scent from blowing into the timber and from my little seat I had I could easily turn one way or the other and make a shot. Plus I had a few bushes around me which gave me great cover but still provided plenty of shooting lanes out into the fields.
At about 5:30 I heard a crunch on the north side of me along the timber so I was looking that way and never saw anything. When I turned to check the south field 2 does had come out and were already 15 yards into the field and almost to my last shooting lane. I grabbed my bow off the hanger as I pivoted onto one knee for the shot. The bigger doe was in the lead with the small one just behind her. As they walked behind a bush I came to full draw and prepared for the shot on the big doe. Well I guess the little one was tired of playing follow the leader because she was the one who hit the gap first and I was so focused on making the shot I didn't even pay attention to the fact that it was the little one and not mom. I let the arrow fly and it hit the deer a little back as it was slightly quartering to me. That Rage did its job and it barely made it 20 yards and was done.

So it is my first bow kill with my new bow and the back straps are going to be pretty dang tender! On a side note I never saw any decent bucks at all just the fergie variety.

 

Well they updated the scorecard. We are currently in 5th place. Once we get that partial buck scored it should move us up to 4th place!!!! If somebody can knock a doe down we will jump all the way up to 3rd.