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The Saturday before Thanksgiving was the WI deer opener. We hunt northwest WI, in Douglass County, on county and state land with the pumpkin army. Deer sightings were difficult this season to say the least. I hunted about 5 full days of bow hunting without success. Saw deer everyday but nothing too exciting. There just isn't a lot of deer around.

Opening day the wind was out of the SW which doesn't give my son or I a lot of options for stand locations. But he did have a good spot and was seeing deer immediately. I was about 1.5 miles away and also started seeing deer about 1/2hr after sun rise. Our other two buddies with us hadn't seen anything by lunch.

Jack picked the stand he wanted and I took the leftover for what we had set up for a south wind. We call it "The Double Ladder" well...because it's a double ladder. It's also the stand that Jack shot his first deer from 7 years ago. We've never seen a buck from it, let alone shoot one from it. There was actually some decent sign near it though. I was carrying a Win M70 XTR Fwt, in .270 with 130gr Federal Blue Box.

Around 7:00am I saw a deer come out to the east and walk north (stand faces north) along the trail I came in on. It had it's tail up, but was walking. I couldn't tell if it was a buck or a doe. but it walked out of sight, tail up the entire time.

At 7:10 2 more deer came from the east, walking west, past me to the north. The first one got past me before I could really see what it was since it was in the brush and kinda still dark out. The next one stopped when it caught my wind. A doe, about 50 yards away. She was on high alert sniffing the air and looking at me for about 5 minutes. Then a close shot cracked off. Close enough that I about sh'it myself. They bolted at the shot to the north. Shortly after, Jack texted that he'd seen 8 deer, 2 were bucks, and he passed both.

At 7:35am I heard a stick crack behind me, which is to the south. Without moving my body, I looked behind me and saw a decent buck looking towards where the does ran. He stood there for a bit. I couldn't get a good look at him because I didn't want to move. He caught me anyway and had me pegged. He moved quickly, west into the brush about 40 yards away, turning 1/4'ing too me. I could now see he was something I sure wasn't going to pass up in this country we were in. Decent mass and outside the ears....

I took the shot. He stood still for a full second. Then jumped to the north running a circle back to the east. He disappeared behind some trees. I though I saw him go down, but wasn't sure. Five minutes later a fork or a spike came from the west, walking right at me. He hit the spot where the buck crossed and followed that way. When he got to where I was pretty sure I saw the other one fall, he gave no indication at all that it was laying there. Now I didn't know what to think. I didn't want to text any of the guys until I was sure of what happened...or not at all if I missed. I climbed down when I calmed a bit and could see him laying about 40 yards away. Dead'r 'n heck.

I must have hit some brush on the shot because I was aiming for high, onside shoulder and hit it square in the neck. Nice Northwoods 8pt.


exit side


cooling down, waiting for my dragging help.


exit hole on the pole