It feels pretty wild to be sitting here writing this up as it is still September but I guess that is the whole point of the earn a buck program!
After tagging out last season I did a bunch of scouting. I found an area that I just knew had to be a bedding area but I was disappointed by the sign I found in it during my trek. Later in January I was coming back from another spot and decided to skirt the edge where I found a few rubs and some clearly defined trails. I thought the spot held promise so I put it on the list to at least give a exploratory hunt this year. Fast forward to last weekend and we were rained out all weekend by the tropical storm coming through. I decided to take advantage of the heavy rain washing away my scent and go check out a couple spots to see if they looked as good as they did when I scouted them. Unfortunately I had to check a few off my list but when I got to this one there were a handful of rubs, a couple scrapes and the acorns dropping. I picked the tree I wanted to be in and snuck out (only after yelling at 2 bears coming my way!). I had a hunting day planned for Monday but I had 1 spot with killer sign that I had hunted near last week and I wanted to give that spot a good sit first. Nothing showed that night so this spot moved to the top of my list.
My daughter ended up getting sick Monday afternoon and had to stay home with a cold on Tuesday. I stayed home with her and my wife said since I took off she'd try to get home right after work so I could hunt. I ended up spending a good chunk of the day organizing a bunch of hunting photos and putting together my buck photos since 2010 (you can see here: https://saddlehunter.com/community/index.php?threads/team-6.54170/post-770789 and here: https://saddlehunter.com/community/index.php?threads/team-6.54170/post-770791). Things went mostly according to plan and I was out of the house by 4:30. Fortunately this spot wasn't too far away and I was in the tree and set up by 5:30. I was excited to see that almost a half dozen new rubs had popped up within 20 yards of my tree since I was there two days prior. I actually felt so positive I texted my father, "Feels like tonight could be a kill night." For the next hour the most exciting thing to happen was a hawk landing in a tree about 15 feet away. I felt really good about the setup. This tree covered a trail out of the bedding area coming 20 yards behind me and another one crossing 20 yards in front of me. I just felt like this was the kill tree in this spot. Just before 6:40 I look up to my right and see a big deer coming my way. He was just taking his time and I was waiting for him to decide if he would go across in front of me or behind me. He did a little rubbing on a tree and made clear he was going to go behind me I took advantage of some foliage and tree trunk cover to swing myself around in position to shoot directly behind me. At this point I just hung in there and watched as he approached. When he went behind a branch with some leaves and I drew back and as he stepped out I put it right on him and let it fly. I use lighted nocks and immediately felt good about the hit and it was a clean pass through. He ran off and I marked the spot I lost sight as he crested the side of the hill. I didn't hear a full crash but definitely heard something that could have been a crash so I was positive. I knew he was a dead deer regardless. The shot was at 6:43. At 6:50 I decided to start climbing down since it would take me a while pack up. As I'm stepping down onto my top stepp I look up in the direction my buck came from and here comes another big one. I hung there and watched as he walked up the same trail and stopped right before where the one I shot was standing. He could clearly tell that something had happened. He cirlced around and came in to take a look from the other side and eventually moved on the way he was going. Pretty exciting though!! Finally I got down and checked out impact and the arrow. The arrow was covered in good red blood and there was tons of hair. I use a 500 lumen led light for tracking (actually often during the day too if needed) and I had thrown it in my pack for any early season tracking jobs to save me the walk back to the car. Well the button must have gotten pushed and it was dead! So I tracked decent blood for about 40 yards using my headlamp until I got to a spot where I lost it. I wasn't worried because I knew I just needed more light so I pulled out an arrow and lit up the lighted nock to mark the spot and went off to the truck for batteries. As I'm walking the trail to the truck I kept my eye on the ground and hit a spot with good blood crossing the trail. That's good I thought! I was only about 75 yards from the truck. I went and changed out the batteries and on the walk back mapped out how far from my tree to that spot and it was 165 yards. It was probably a quarter mile hike for me but he took the short route. I decided to facetime my father for a second opinion on the situation before I continued. The blood looked really good still and I thought I could see bubbles but the distance concerned me a little. We decided it looked pretty good but when it doubt back out is always safe. I said let me just go check what the blood trail looks like on the other side of the trail he crossed. Now that I had more light I shined it off the trail and he was laying 10 yards off the trail that whole time!!! I ended up hitting him slightly back of where I thought but it also came out slightly forward of that spot so I ended up hitting stomach, liver and one lung. I'm ecstatic to say the least. This is my first 10 pointer and my biggest to date. He is in my coolbot cooler in the garage right now and I'm dropping him off at the taxidermist in the morning.
After tagging out last season I did a bunch of scouting. I found an area that I just knew had to be a bedding area but I was disappointed by the sign I found in it during my trek. Later in January I was coming back from another spot and decided to skirt the edge where I found a few rubs and some clearly defined trails. I thought the spot held promise so I put it on the list to at least give a exploratory hunt this year. Fast forward to last weekend and we were rained out all weekend by the tropical storm coming through. I decided to take advantage of the heavy rain washing away my scent and go check out a couple spots to see if they looked as good as they did when I scouted them. Unfortunately I had to check a few off my list but when I got to this one there were a handful of rubs, a couple scrapes and the acorns dropping. I picked the tree I wanted to be in and snuck out (only after yelling at 2 bears coming my way!). I had a hunting day planned for Monday but I had 1 spot with killer sign that I had hunted near last week and I wanted to give that spot a good sit first. Nothing showed that night so this spot moved to the top of my list.
My daughter ended up getting sick Monday afternoon and had to stay home with a cold on Tuesday. I stayed home with her and my wife said since I took off she'd try to get home right after work so I could hunt. I ended up spending a good chunk of the day organizing a bunch of hunting photos and putting together my buck photos since 2010 (you can see here: https://saddlehunter.com/community/index.php?threads/team-6.54170/post-770789 and here: https://saddlehunter.com/community/index.php?threads/team-6.54170/post-770791). Things went mostly according to plan and I was out of the house by 4:30. Fortunately this spot wasn't too far away and I was in the tree and set up by 5:30. I was excited to see that almost a half dozen new rubs had popped up within 20 yards of my tree since I was there two days prior. I actually felt so positive I texted my father, "Feels like tonight could be a kill night." For the next hour the most exciting thing to happen was a hawk landing in a tree about 15 feet away. I felt really good about the setup. This tree covered a trail out of the bedding area coming 20 yards behind me and another one crossing 20 yards in front of me. I just felt like this was the kill tree in this spot. Just before 6:40 I look up to my right and see a big deer coming my way. He was just taking his time and I was waiting for him to decide if he would go across in front of me or behind me. He did a little rubbing on a tree and made clear he was going to go behind me I took advantage of some foliage and tree trunk cover to swing myself around in position to shoot directly behind me. At this point I just hung in there and watched as he approached. When he went behind a branch with some leaves and I drew back and as he stepped out I put it right on him and let it fly. I use lighted nocks and immediately felt good about the hit and it was a clean pass through. He ran off and I marked the spot I lost sight as he crested the side of the hill. I didn't hear a full crash but definitely heard something that could have been a crash so I was positive. I knew he was a dead deer regardless. The shot was at 6:43. At 6:50 I decided to start climbing down since it would take me a while pack up. As I'm stepping down onto my top stepp I look up in the direction my buck came from and here comes another big one. I hung there and watched as he walked up the same trail and stopped right before where the one I shot was standing. He could clearly tell that something had happened. He cirlced around and came in to take a look from the other side and eventually moved on the way he was going. Pretty exciting though!! Finally I got down and checked out impact and the arrow. The arrow was covered in good red blood and there was tons of hair. I use a 500 lumen led light for tracking (actually often during the day too if needed) and I had thrown it in my pack for any early season tracking jobs to save me the walk back to the car. Well the button must have gotten pushed and it was dead! So I tracked decent blood for about 40 yards using my headlamp until I got to a spot where I lost it. I wasn't worried because I knew I just needed more light so I pulled out an arrow and lit up the lighted nock to mark the spot and went off to the truck for batteries. As I'm walking the trail to the truck I kept my eye on the ground and hit a spot with good blood crossing the trail. That's good I thought! I was only about 75 yards from the truck. I went and changed out the batteries and on the walk back mapped out how far from my tree to that spot and it was 165 yards. It was probably a quarter mile hike for me but he took the short route. I decided to facetime my father for a second opinion on the situation before I continued. The blood looked really good still and I thought I could see bubbles but the distance concerned me a little. We decided it looked pretty good but when it doubt back out is always safe. I said let me just go check what the blood trail looks like on the other side of the trail he crossed. Now that I had more light I shined it off the trail and he was laying 10 yards off the trail that whole time!!! I ended up hitting him slightly back of where I thought but it also came out slightly forward of that spot so I ended up hitting stomach, liver and one lung. I'm ecstatic to say the least. This is my first 10 pointer and my biggest to date. He is in my coolbot cooler in the garage right now and I'm dropping him off at the taxidermist in the morning.
