I had a great hunt yesterday so thought I would share story. Gun season starts today, so I was wanting to get one last bow hunt in. I had glassed this farm the last two afternoons and saw quite a bit of activity. I jumped a big buck and a doe Thursday evening and watched another nice buck breed a doe at sunset. I decided to hunt this farm yesterday afternoon which would be first hunt of the year at this farm. I had been after two nice bucks on a different farm but have probably over hunted it.
I get to farm around 1:50, have a bout 5-600 yard walk to narrow strip of woods separating two cut corn fields. I picked a tree at bottleneck in field near a drainage/thicket that runs down to river. I had just climbed the tree with climbing stand, secured seat to tree, and was in process of screwing bow holder into tree when I caught movement of buck in drainage about 60-70 yards away. I decided to forgo holder and began pulling bow up. Rope was caught on limb, was about to panic, but it finally broke free and I pulled up bow. My backpack was sitting in stand seat, unsecured. It was a cluster. Got bow pulled up, attached release, got range finder out of pack, knocked an arrow, didn’t have time to remove quiver or time to hang it. I quickly ranged a couple of spots as buck began working toward me.
He dropped into ditch at about forty yards, popped out about 30 yards and walked into road bed at 25 yards but was walking behind me behind some limbs. With nothing to lose, I gave him a snort wheeze. He locked up and stood still for a minute. He then turned around and walked toward me! He walked a few steps, took a hard right and headed up the ridge behind my tree. I spun around in tree, found a small window, and popped him at around 20 yards! Sounded good and he ran about 20 yards and stopped. I knocked another arrow. He stood for a moment and began the shaky leg and then fell over!
I’ve killed bigger ones, but I was proud to take him. It was a quick, intense hunt. Good luck to all those with tags to fill.
