This subforum has been a mite dead for awhile!
First of all, as I have mentioned before on this site, I'm a member of a Mennonite group that doesn't use cameras. ( Before you conjure up images of horses and buggies know that I own two vehicles and sometimes post on my laptop and sometimes on my phone lol!) I won't get into all that at this point except that I won't have any pictures to prove my story. I know the rule of the net is " pics or it didn't happen" so if your a little skeptical I understand. Because of this I almost didn't post my story because I wasn't sure people would believe me. Then I got to thinking that if it were someone else's story I would want to hear it regardless so I will throw it out there.
I killed a doe 4 days after the archery season opened in sept and then had a hard time seeing very many deer for some reason. My brother and I are starting a new business so my time was also a bit more limited this year and my Oct and Nov bowhunting wasn't very productive. Our firearms season opened Nov 14 this year and basically hit the most active phase of the rut dead on. The forecast the week before opener looked good for camping so I decided I was going in overnight the evening before.
The area where I was hunting is a designated wilderness area of about 6500 acres. I scouted a few spots in it last winter and found a ridge that was just torn up with rubs. It was close to 2 miles from the trailhead so I thot " great, I'll have this to myself!"
The afternoon before opener I hiked in to the next ridge over and set up a little spike camp just as it was getting dark. I cooked my supper, crawled into my sleeping bag, and had one of the best nights sleep I've ever had in the woods. My phone alarm went off well before daylight and I ate my granola, gathered my gear, and headed for the next ridge.
I was within 100 yds of where I wanted to set up when all of a sudden I saw a climbing treestand sitting at the base of a tree. Somebody else had found the same spot I guess! No hunter was in sight and I stood there for a bit trying to decide what to do. I really didn't want some guy to come along and have to discuss who was going to hunt there so I turned and headed up the ridge aways. I wound up about 2-300 yds away in a spot that looked really good also. I had a little water hole just out of sight from me and a little cut in the ridge next to me that funneled deer traffic to the top of the ridge. I set up and settled in for the day.
The morning was uneventful except for a thousand squirrels and ( of all things!) another hunter about 11:00. I think when he saw me he was a little perplexed at this dude hanging off the tree on a rope but he headed down toward that climbing stand.( I've since found out there is a somewhat closer access point I didn't know about) at this point it's about 55 degrees and a little windy so my optimism wasn't real high. I climbed down at noon and cooked a warm lunch on my backpack stove. I almost moved to a different spot at that point but decided I had good reason to sit there and climbed back up in the tree.
At about 1:30 I suddenly saw a deer moving off to my left about 100 yds. I couldn't see antlers but seems like you know a mature buck when you see him! He was headed for the little water hole. I grabbed my grunt tube and grunted aggressively at him 3-4 times but he never stopped. Once he was out of sight I hit my grunt tube a couple more times real loud hoping he would get his drink and come investigate.
At this point I've got my rifle in hand and I'm shaking like a leaf because I know there's a good buck within 100yds of me somewhere! And sure enough, after one of the longer five minutes of my life, I see antlers coming through the tree's. I saw he had eight points and that's all I needed. He stopped about 65 yds away and was trying to see this other buck he heard.
I came so close to jerking the trigger it scares me. Just in time I got ahold of myself, took an extra couple seconds, got steady against my rope bridge, and squeezed the trigger. He turned and burned for the bottom of the hill and I ran the bolt hard. I had just closed my bolt on the next one when he did a little circle and tipped over.
At this point I had went from " today's gonna be a dud with a long hike out tonight" to " I'm gonna be packing meat tonight!" in about 10 minutes. I was a little worked up! I made myself take all my tree gear down before I went up to him. Only when I got within 20 yds of him did I realize what a cool buck he was! He has a nice symmetrical 8 pt frame with one kicker and the biggest, knarliest bases I have ever seen. One is right at 6" around and the other is 6 1/4". Inside spread is 16 5/8". I will hunt public land around here for awhile before I find another one like him!
It would not be correct to say it was all over at that point. I boned him out where he lay and had one 80-90lb load of meat, head, and rifle and one 35-40 lb load of camp stuff. I packed the meat and head back to my truck where my wife and folks met me with a hot supper which I needed by then! My brother came down to the trailhead and went back in with me for my camp. By this time I'm pretty much running on fumes! We got almost back to my camp and ran into what we are quite sure was a black bear next to the trail. We couldn't see well at all as I had lost my headlamp and all we had was a little cap light! We were both a little nervous breaking down camp but never saw him again. We hiked back out, drove home, and finally got to bed between 11 and midnight.
Some days you don't forget! I've had a year to remember as far as my hunting as I killed my best gobbler this spring on a backpack hunt not very far from where I killed this buck. ( story's posted in this subforum) I'm absolutely tickled to have gone in and killed a mature deer in a place like that.
I'm gonna euro mount this buck. The head is sitting in a tub of water with an aquarium heater as we speak. ( search cold water maceration on archerytalk to see the method I use)
I may post on some of my new gear I used here at some point but I'm kind of tired of typing right now!
Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
First of all, as I have mentioned before on this site, I'm a member of a Mennonite group that doesn't use cameras. ( Before you conjure up images of horses and buggies know that I own two vehicles and sometimes post on my laptop and sometimes on my phone lol!) I won't get into all that at this point except that I won't have any pictures to prove my story. I know the rule of the net is " pics or it didn't happen" so if your a little skeptical I understand. Because of this I almost didn't post my story because I wasn't sure people would believe me. Then I got to thinking that if it were someone else's story I would want to hear it regardless so I will throw it out there.
I killed a doe 4 days after the archery season opened in sept and then had a hard time seeing very many deer for some reason. My brother and I are starting a new business so my time was also a bit more limited this year and my Oct and Nov bowhunting wasn't very productive. Our firearms season opened Nov 14 this year and basically hit the most active phase of the rut dead on. The forecast the week before opener looked good for camping so I decided I was going in overnight the evening before.
The area where I was hunting is a designated wilderness area of about 6500 acres. I scouted a few spots in it last winter and found a ridge that was just torn up with rubs. It was close to 2 miles from the trailhead so I thot " great, I'll have this to myself!"
The afternoon before opener I hiked in to the next ridge over and set up a little spike camp just as it was getting dark. I cooked my supper, crawled into my sleeping bag, and had one of the best nights sleep I've ever had in the woods. My phone alarm went off well before daylight and I ate my granola, gathered my gear, and headed for the next ridge.
I was within 100 yds of where I wanted to set up when all of a sudden I saw a climbing treestand sitting at the base of a tree. Somebody else had found the same spot I guess! No hunter was in sight and I stood there for a bit trying to decide what to do. I really didn't want some guy to come along and have to discuss who was going to hunt there so I turned and headed up the ridge aways. I wound up about 2-300 yds away in a spot that looked really good also. I had a little water hole just out of sight from me and a little cut in the ridge next to me that funneled deer traffic to the top of the ridge. I set up and settled in for the day.
The morning was uneventful except for a thousand squirrels and ( of all things!) another hunter about 11:00. I think when he saw me he was a little perplexed at this dude hanging off the tree on a rope but he headed down toward that climbing stand.( I've since found out there is a somewhat closer access point I didn't know about) at this point it's about 55 degrees and a little windy so my optimism wasn't real high. I climbed down at noon and cooked a warm lunch on my backpack stove. I almost moved to a different spot at that point but decided I had good reason to sit there and climbed back up in the tree.
At about 1:30 I suddenly saw a deer moving off to my left about 100 yds. I couldn't see antlers but seems like you know a mature buck when you see him! He was headed for the little water hole. I grabbed my grunt tube and grunted aggressively at him 3-4 times but he never stopped. Once he was out of sight I hit my grunt tube a couple more times real loud hoping he would get his drink and come investigate.
At this point I've got my rifle in hand and I'm shaking like a leaf because I know there's a good buck within 100yds of me somewhere! And sure enough, after one of the longer five minutes of my life, I see antlers coming through the tree's. I saw he had eight points and that's all I needed. He stopped about 65 yds away and was trying to see this other buck he heard.
I came so close to jerking the trigger it scares me. Just in time I got ahold of myself, took an extra couple seconds, got steady against my rope bridge, and squeezed the trigger. He turned and burned for the bottom of the hill and I ran the bolt hard. I had just closed my bolt on the next one when he did a little circle and tipped over.
At this point I had went from " today's gonna be a dud with a long hike out tonight" to " I'm gonna be packing meat tonight!" in about 10 minutes. I was a little worked up! I made myself take all my tree gear down before I went up to him. Only when I got within 20 yds of him did I realize what a cool buck he was! He has a nice symmetrical 8 pt frame with one kicker and the biggest, knarliest bases I have ever seen. One is right at 6" around and the other is 6 1/4". Inside spread is 16 5/8". I will hunt public land around here for awhile before I find another one like him!
It would not be correct to say it was all over at that point. I boned him out where he lay and had one 80-90lb load of meat, head, and rifle and one 35-40 lb load of camp stuff. I packed the meat and head back to my truck where my wife and folks met me with a hot supper which I needed by then! My brother came down to the trailhead and went back in with me for my camp. By this time I'm pretty much running on fumes! We got almost back to my camp and ran into what we are quite sure was a black bear next to the trail. We couldn't see well at all as I had lost my headlamp and all we had was a little cap light! We were both a little nervous breaking down camp but never saw him again. We hiked back out, drove home, and finally got to bed between 11 and midnight.
Some days you don't forget! I've had a year to remember as far as my hunting as I killed my best gobbler this spring on a backpack hunt not very far from where I killed this buck. ( story's posted in this subforum) I'm absolutely tickled to have gone in and killed a mature deer in a place like that.
I'm gonna euro mount this buck. The head is sitting in a tub of water with an aquarium heater as we speak. ( search cold water maceration on archerytalk to see the method I use)
I may post on some of my new gear I used here at some point but I'm kind of tired of typing right now!
Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
those boys could walk! They get driven into areas and hunt for a wk or so and then a driver picks them up and its off to a new area. They all had high tech equipment, better than ours. We enjoyed talking with them. Sorry to ramble, your post reminded me of that hunt. 
