Xpedition802
New Member
first, this isn’t a complaint. Educational hopefully. First, Some background.... I missed my bumper crop of acorns. Got stuck at 29 stumps until the 21st. Missed most of bow season. Had to work last week and took this week off. Had a nice swamp buck patterned and a sick 8 at another location. Came back to hunt my honey hole stand for some meat and rolled 2 back to back doughnuts on it. Zero sightings. Found out the property owner and his buddy had hunted and pressured all the deer I had on cam. Had 4 doe on the front lawn and decided to give it a poke and leave the week to buck. Well first year with a single pin (ha) and it moved. One was looking at me and the closet kept browsing. I figured from the original laser at 40 it had come in to 35. I was at full draw for about 2 min. It finally went broadside. I let it rip and it sailed over despite holding low. They walked off and came back a little while later at 100yds ish. Nothing tried nothin gained. Next year I’m running fixed pin only. Fast forward the next day and I’m sitting on my pinch point going into buck bedding. Set in at 6. Buck hopped the fence and came in at 930. Not a legal 3 and not my target buck. Walked past at 8 yds. Got a picture and it kept going. Stand went cold for the next 2 days after I watched a bobcat bail out after two deer in the slash snorted at it. Wind was perfect. Rainy day followed and I took a dan infalt take on it and got set up where he goes into the cattails off the high point. The stalk in would have make The instructors at benning long range school proud. Nada. He was out chasing. Not to be had I went out of the swamp to my folks and after two sits on solid sign and producing spot. Wind couldn’t make up its mind. Unusually warm weather. So today I give it the old college try and go deep to a climber I left since last year. After showering I come downstairs to find my bathroom downstairs flooded. Septic backup. So much for every two years getting it emptied. Cleaned everything up and sit on stand. Good way in. Bad wind. Get in the iwom and start getting forest gump rain. I thought fml. Well here come 3 does in the rain skirting the wooded edge inbetween the green field and me. No shot. Watched them bed, shake rain off like a dog. Go into thick bedding. 20 minutes later a 5 pointer chases them out. If I had been in a saddle single rope I could have rapped down and put the sneak on them and got them coming back to the point they were bedding I. Instead I watched for an hour hoping they’d hit the loophole I had at 35. Well nada. Grunts didn’t work. A fawn bleat. Nothing. I finally get out of stand and reposition. It’s 6 at this point. I call it and slowly start walking back to my folks a mile away. Winds nw at this point. Wind busts me on 3 doe bedded in the tall grass. I see another line doe about 150yds out on the green hilltop. I try to figure out a stalk. Wasn’t happening as the wind was at her. I pie out aroun the big pine I’m hiding behind. Big body deer at 80yds. Buck. The 8 I’ve been after for 2 years now. I get set and grunt. Doe bails like it’s being chased by the Tasmanian devil. Buck looks towards the grunt. I grunt again. He starts trotting right at me. Well remember the nw wind? He slides to a stop at 30 yds and dirt flies. I start to pull back on the bow and that deer gets traction and is gone. Big boy bounds back to the thick woods. 613pm. End of my bow season here in vermont. Get home and there’s 6 deer on the lawn. 5 doe, 1 big spike. Had to laugh. Lessons learned: don’t give up, enjoy your time in the woods, never miss an acorn bumper crop, fixed pins are better, if a stand goes cold move. Don’t forget those last 15 minutes a lot happens with deer movement. Invest in predator camo suit and the scent control struggle is real. Don’t think your ever better than their nose. Cheers men