No afternoon hunt today. Marshall had something come up, which is kind of a good thing, my knee is a little sore. We'll get out for our last hunt on Wednesday, but that will only be a morning hunt, as I have a job interview on Wednesday afternoon.
Quick recap of this morning's hunt: We hit our parking spot just after 4:30 and started in. We moved in rather quickly as we noted that we had beaten the light. We got in where I had scouted and posted the video from at 6:00, about 30 minutes prior to sunrise. We sat in place for 30 minutes before we noticed a group of does about 175 yards above us. We dropped a little lower and tried to come up and around and we jumped a decent buck. I never got eyes on his rack, but Marshall said he was a good one. We split up to try and get around him and Marshall watched him tend a doe in the other direction. We continued up the mountain and watched three separate groups of does, ranging from 204 to 400+ yards away. Looking at how high we were and the lack of buck action, we decided to call it a day. We walked back and got talking about changing our approach from "tagging out" to "having a good time" by loading up the Rhino, a cooler and our bows and seeing what would happen. We started to drive out of our spot when Marshall noticed a little forky. I fumbled for my release and bow and Marshall ranged him at 40 yards. Unfortunately for me (and fortunately for the buck) he moved about 6 yards closer and the arrow went right over his back. I followed in pursuit for about 5 minutes before realizing that our best chance of seeing him again was to continue the drive out. No luck. We planned on taking tomorrow off for my niece's birthday, so we won't be back in the field again until Wednesday, which will be our last day. We will be loading up the Rhino and taking off early in the morning, since Wednesday afternoon filled up with an interview and some last minute studying (I applied for an IT position within my company, and am a little out of practice in the field. IT was my military specialty and Networks were my function during a deployment to Afghanistan) My wife is convinced that going out by myself is a bad thing, but I might try to go find that little buck down low Thursday morning, the last day of the season. It's been an enjoyable hunt so far, with hopefully a couple of outings left. I'll end up posting my season breakdown after I get it all figured out.
Tomorrow will be our last hunt of the season. I had my interview moved from tomorrow to Thursday in the morning, so that doesn't allow me to have a morning hunt. And I don't know if I'll have the gas to squeeze in a trip to our spot Thursday afternoon.
We loaded up the Rhino last night and took off this morning to the only other spot that we had scouted this fall. We decided that today, being our last day out together this season, would be about having a good time and enjoying the ride more than it would be about tagging out. We took off racing around after rigging the Rhino to hold the bows. About 45 minutes in, we jumped a coyote. I jumped out and grabbed my bow. The coyote took off and we never got closer than the initial 125 yards. We found a nice little canyon road that no one had traveled, so we went up it. Once we got out of road, we hiked straight up the mountain. On the way up, Marshall noticed a lone buck, so we sat down and watched it disappear. Once he was out of sight, we continued up the mountain and over the saddle. We nocked up, on Marshall's gut feeling and crested the saddle. We noticed a deer go behind some brush and then by a tree, but kept walking. A little bit further down, I noticed him in the trees and we began to slide down the mountain. No snow on this so it made it easy. I got to about 50 yards off the deer, 25 yards from where I thought he would run if Marshall missed. Marshall got to 20 yards before shooting. Double lung hit. The deer ran about 50 yards before dying. Here's Marshall's hero shot. . Got him quartered out and headed out. I did find this nice shed . We did go back up to where I had my overshot and tried to see what we could. I got on another little buck, quickly lost him in the brush, and then on the road back to the truck, we jumped the 2x2 that Marshall had jumped opening morning. I have tomorrow left in the season, and I doubt that I'll get out. I'll post my my season review a little later.
http://forums.bowhunting.com/bowhunting-talk/68242-2014-season-review.html#post1038644 Season review.
My season is officially over. It's bittersweet. On one hand, it was 100 times better than last year. On the other, I still have a tag at the end of the season. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Well boys, I have good news and bad news. the good news is I shot a nice 10 point buck. the bad news is I shot him with a gun. Sorry, no points from me, but it was a great hunt, I passed up 11 bucks and the best of all....my 10 year old girl shot her first ever deer, a button buck.
Very nice. Congrats on the deer and your daughter's first harvest! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Havent drawn back yet on a deer either. Will probably stick a doe at least before its all said and done though.
