Bob.
Growing up in Northern Vt. I can relate to maine hunting. My dad used to go there and bought some pretty big deer home, but a lot of years nothing.
The day I got this buck was unusual. It had been below 0 for a few days and the ground was rock hard, crunchy, like walking on corn flakes. Any tracks were weeks old in the frozen ground. I was rewarded with "thumps" and cracking brush 150 yards ahead. 4days of hard hunting=0. Then it turned warm and rained all night. Any tracks at all were very fresh. I picked up this bucks track in big timber on a ridgetop. Followed them slowly for about a 1/2 mile and then down and around a large clear cut, through more timber to the edge of another clear cut, another 1/4 mile or so and found a huge scrape and small tree demolished. I was getting pretty pumped! Over a small knoll and spotted a doe standing in the clear cut. Scoped her and there were antlers sticking up by her feet. The doe had me busted and took off and the buck took as well. Three shots and he was down. 1 in the hip, a miss, and 1 low in the chest. He turned out to be farther away than I thought. Ranged from where I shot and it was almost 300 yards. His size made him look closer. All my shots were about 6" low which makes sense with the 308's zero. Shot at noon.
One to remember for sure.
Lefty
....from Northern Vermont....You're a New Englander! No wonder you knew to track him!
Great story and great job! If he had not bumped into that hot doe, you might still be following him! She made him slow down,and they will demolish a tree and/or scrape in the presence of a hot doe.
The whole thing was too absolutely cool!
I'm getting light headed.
