Thanks Nick! Found a super fresh scrape line Friday morning scouting my way out. I know it probably fools gold, but worth a shot with the weird NE wind!
So, in spite of the winds and the nearly 80 degree weather, my son really wanted to go out again tonight so I was not going to argue. We went to my brother’s land as his property is set up better for a strong SSW wind. We got settled in the stand at about 4:30 and immediately saw a doe and two fawns out in the food plot across the field so that was a good sign. I’m not used to hunting my brothers stands so we were settled and practicing shots and I was having him hold the rifle where he was most likely to get shots and it just wasn’t working. He was struggling with angles and adjusting the shooting stick so I called an audible and moved us to an enclosed elevated stand about 125 yards to the south. We got in quietly with the wind giving us plenty of cover. As soon as we got settled, two bucks were fighting about 80-100 yards to our southeast. I got the binocs on them and they were two nice 1.5 year old 8s. Great first buck material, but my son was on the opposite side of the blind and couldn’t shoot so we had to switch seats. By the time we switched and got set up, the bucks had stopped fighting and were starting to walk around toward the food plot we had seen the doe in earlier. We were quite a bit closer to that plot now but still 175+ yards. The bucks were only about 100 yards and he was settled on one at one point but right before he was about to shoot, it quartered away a little too harshly and started walking into a little thicker brush. We decided to pass and wait for a better opportunity. We watched those bucks for a good half hour and they chased some doe and fawns that had come into the plot a little bit but the doe wanted nothing to do with them and ran off. The bucks remained and we were watching them when I glanced at the woods edge to our immediate west and caught a rack at the edge on a trail coming out. Big buck! My son was in position but had to switch windows. We did so smoothly and had him in ready position. The buck stepped out and was very relaxed and scraping and rubbing on the branches at the woods edge. He then started feeding and was perfectly broadside. He was at 140 yards but we had a nice steady rest and he was holding very steady from what I could tell. The scope was zoomed in and he said he felt good. I told him to take his time and really settle in the front shoulder and squeeze when he was ready. He took his time and BANG! The buck ran forward toward us but I could tell it was hit and pretty good from the looks of it. It stopped about 70 yards away quartering toward us and was looking back where it hand been standing. I told him to rack another one in case and as the deer stood there, I told him to shoot it again at the base of the neck where the neck and shoulder met. BANG! Dropped in his tracks! 9 point (main frame 10 with a broken brow) 17.5” inside spread. Rough green score at 135” and change even with the broken tine. I thought initially he was 125”-130”ish. Not that score mattered in this instance one bit! A memory I will cherish forever and a buck an 11 year old will have a tough time topping for a bit!
That's Awesome Aaron! Great buck for an 11 year old. I bet he was pretty excited. I'm surprised he was able to get the second shot off, that's usually when buck fever has set in and the shaking starts. Congratulations!
I got skunked this weekend in Ohio. I didn't see a deer on stand. My Cell Cams were showing movement all night. It was definitely to warm for me. I'll be headed back in 2 weeks, so hopefully it cools off by then.
I'm back from Southern Illinois, where they apparently don't ever get cell service. My dad and brother had been hunting this wildlife area all week, but we only showed up to camp and fish on their last weekend (I wasn't paying $600 to hunt 2 days). My brother shot a young buck on Saturday morning that we never found. Good blood for 100 yards, then very sporadic drops for 200 yards, and then 5 of us followed trails out from last blood. No luck. They definitely called off the search before I would have... I'm home now and have the day off. I'll check a couple cams and then hit the woods with my 3 year old. His first sit in a blind should be very interesting!
I run spypoints, I hear alot of issues with spypoints but mine have worked very well! I also have a tactacam and that works very well!
I was going to buy a Spypoint this past summer but wanted to try the Tactacam Reveal X. The reception worked so well I bought another one. I really need 1 more buy was waiting on the SK to come out. Where I have them I couldn't get a Bushnell or a Moultrie cell cam to work. I read some many good reviews that I had to try one.
The main thing I hear is customer service issues. I wouldn't mind getting a couple of the cell-links to make my current cams cellular.
The cell links I would shy away from, those are the only ones i have had some issues with, and depending on what camera you use the quality of the images sent can be horrible.
Now that you have owned both, which one do you like better or do you like some things from one and wish the other had it?
In my opinion they both work pretty much the same. The tactacam seems to be a little faster to set up and start sending me pictures when I sometimes have to restart the Spypoints to get images to start sending. But overall I would say I like the spypoints ( I have 8 of them now) better due to the free 100 pictures option, I am not in a very deer dense area so most of the time it costs me $0 per month to run 8 cameras
I just pulled the card at the millionaire property...my #1 was there once over the last 3 weeks, but this nice 3 year old is almost a daily visitor. Hmmmm! He's eating cheetos BTW!
