• The SH Membership has gone live. Only SH Members have access to post in the classifieds. All members can view the classifieds. Starting in 2020 only SH Members will be admitted to the annual hunting contest. Current members will need to follow these steps to upgrade: 1. Click on your username 2. Click on Account upgrades 3. Choose SH Member and purchase.
  • We've been working hard the past few weeks to come up with some big changes to our vendor policies to meet the changing needs of our community. Please see the new vendor rules here: Vendor Access Area Rules

TEAM 10 Discussion Thread

Okay guys. Sorry for the delay on the story but life has been crazy busy. The hunt took place on Saturday evening, October 12th. I had picked out this spot before the season and was waiting for the best possible day i could get to hunt it. The spot was a south-western inside corner off of a CRP field. I finally got the perfect south-western wind I needed and It also happened to be the evening before the full moon. I have never been the biggest moon guy but I try to stack odds in my favor. I made my way through the hardwoods until i reached the NE corner of the CRP field. From there i hopped in a little gully that ran close the the back corner where I wanted to set up. I ended up choosing to find a tree slightly further South East of the corner because it felt a little more secluded. I hand drilled my tree, placed my Cranford Scaffold ROS, settled into my sitdrag and was all set up at 4:30p. At around 6p I heard movement in the woods across from me. After A short period of time i saw a deer come out of the woods 75 yards away from me where a tiny point comes in the CRP. I raised my binoculars to see it was a good buck. He stood there for what seemed like an eternity. During that time a large group of does came out of that point and started crossing the middle of the CRP field. Then from the same point a little spike appeared and started feeding toward my tree. Just then, the does must have finally hit my access point and i heard them blow and ran back across the CRP field into the woods they had come from. The spike and bigger buck looked up but didn't seem bothered. The spike eventually worked the 75 yards and was almost directly under my tree. The bigger buck slowly worked his way up the treeline toward my corner. He was going so slow i didn't know if he was going make it by legal shooting light. I had positioned my body for the shot as soon as I was worried that spike may pick off my movements and held that position until the buck finally stepped into my shooting lane at 20 yards. At that point my body was screaming at me from holding that position for such an extended period of time. As the buck stepped into my lane i pulled through the shot and could hear the arrow hit what sounded like very soft tissue. The buck immediately bolted back into the woods he came. I heard what I thought was a crash and then silence. I was pretty sure I had just heard him go down but was still really nervous from the sound of the impact. I got down and found good bright blood right at impact. After taking my gear back to my vehicle and returning, I followed the small but consistent droplets until they entered some very think underbrush where i lost the trail. I decided to head to where I thought I had heard him crash and did not see him. This is when I got really nervous. I went back to the thicket and got down on my hands and knees. The tiny but very consistent drops of blood continued to reveal themselves as I crawled. After crawling about 35 yards I looked up with my headlamp and there he was. He ended up only going about 50 yards but my shot was way to far back and wasn't a passthrough. Someone was looking out for me that day because it could have definatly ended up a different story. There are a lot of firsts for me with this hunt. First deer from a saddle, and my first decent buck. Its also the first season I feel like I finally have a little traction on understand how to start developing into a better hunter. Anyway, I want to thank everyone on here for all the great advice, information and entertainment. I have a lot of friends here that just dont know it yet haha.
20191015_110808(1).jpg
 
Last edited:
Okay guys. Sorry for the delay on the story but life has been crazy busy. The hunt took place on Saturday evening, October 12th. I had picked out this spot before the season and was waiting for the best possible day i could get to hunt it. The spot was a south-western inside corner off of a CRP field. I finally got the perfect south-western wind I needed and It also happened to be the evening before the full moon. I have never been the biggest moon guy but I try to stack odds in my favor. I made my way through the hardwoods until i reached the NE corner of the CRP field. From there i hopped in a little gully that ran close the the back corner where I wanted to set up. I ended up choosing to find a tree slightly further South East of the corner because it felt a little more secluded. I hand drilled my tree, placed my Cranford Scaffold ROS, settled into my sitdrag and was all set up at 4:30p. At around 6p I heard movement in the woods across from me. After A short period of time i saw a deer come out of the woods 75 yards away from me where a tiny point comes in the CRP. I raised my binoculars to see it was a good buck. He stood there for what seemed like an eternity. During that time a large group of does came out of that point and started crossing the middle of the CRP field. Then from the same point a little spike appeared and started feeding toward my tree. Just then, the does must have finally hit my access point and i heard them blow and ran back across the CRP field into the woods they had come from. The spike and bigger buck looked up but didn't seem bothered. The spike eventually worked the 75 yards and was almost directly under my tree. The bigger buck slowly worked his way up the treeline toward my corner. He was going so slow i didn't know if he was going make it by legal shooting light. I had positioned my body for the shot as soon as I was worried that spike may pick off my movements and held that position until the buck finally stepped into my shooting lane at 20 yards. At that point my body was screaming at me from holding that position for such an extended period of time. As the buck stepped into my lane i pulled through the shot and could hear the arrow hit what sounded like very soft tissue. The buck immediately bolted back into the woods he came. I heard what I thought was a crash and then silence. I was pretty sure I had just heard him go down but was still really nervous from the sound of the impact. I got down and found good bright blood right at impact. After taking my gear back to my vehicle and returning, I followed the small but consistent droplets until they entered some very think underbrush where i lost the trail. I decided to head to where I thought I had heard him crash and did not see him. This is when I got really nervous. I went back to the thicket and got down on my hands and knees. The tiny but very consistent drops of blood continued to reveal themselves as I crawled. After crawling about 35 yards I looked up with my headlamp and there he was. He ended up only going about 50 yards but my shot was way to far back and wasn't a passthrough. Someone was looking out for me that day because it could have definatly ended up a different story. There are a lot of firsts for me with this hunt. First deer from a saddle, and my first decent buck. Its also the first season I feel like I finally have a little traction on understand how to start developing into a better hunter. Anyway, I want to thank everyone on here for all the great advice, information and entertainment. I have a lot of friends here that just dont know it yet haha.
View attachment 18482

He’s a beaut, Kart. Good story.
 
It’s officially deer season in Bama as of 6:22 am and I’m in the saddle for my first saddle hunt. Let’s go!

I completely struck out today on my morning and evening hunts. I didn't see or even bump a deer. It was a light SE wind and those are not very productive. Lots of switch and swirl with the wind. I did sit for 5 hours in my saddle this morning so it was a pretty solid first sit. The saddle is amazing. Obviously had to adjust some but I would have had to adjust in a stand as well. I found super fresh dropping under my tree so I had just missed them. The afternoon hunt was a scout and hunt. I found the most amazing quantity of 1-2 week old sign (insane amount of droppings) but it was all just a little bit too old. I ended up on the ground on some ok sign for the last hour of the afternoon because we were so far back and couldn't jump to another spot before dark. We were finding so much 1-2 week old sign that we kept expecting to get into the fresh sign but it never really materialized. I leave Thur for IL and I will get at least 2 does there (plan is 4-6 doe patrol mission) so I should be able to put up 10 points. Then I will get back after an Alabama buck.
 
Last edited:
Arrow just released on a doe. Shot looked pretty good. Still have another doe tag in the pocket and an hour and a half of shooting light.
 
Arrow just released on a doe. Shot looked pretty good. Still have another doe tag in the pocket and an hour and a half of shooting light.

Shot was a little back. Had a decent liver blood trail but she crossed a boundary I couldn’t go past. Not able to recover. I’ll be back after the does again tomorrow. My buddies property needs a serious herd reduction.
 
Shot was a little back. Had a decent liver blood trail but she crossed a boundary I couldn’t go past. Not able to recover. I’ll be back after the does again tomorrow. My buddies property needs a serious herd reduction.

Hate hearing that you couldn’t recover one. Sucks. You sure you can’t get access to where she went? Cuz if it’s a liver hit then she is dead and it’s a shame not to recover her....
 
Hate hearing that you couldn’t recover one. Sucks. You sure you can’t get access to where she went? Cuz if it’s a liver hit then she is dead and it’s a shame not to recover her....


Yea, he is “that neighbor”. I know she is dead. I glassed her up with the binos on the ridge after I saw the buzzards today.

It stinks, but the property owner I am hunting on had me come up to reduce the herd. Super high numbers of does. I wish I could have her, but Mother Nature gets to have that one back. Plenty of animals will use her for food.
 
Got another doe for Team 10 this morning.
38f01cf5d9d43c2dbf6240126b0b6ece.jpg
 
My time in the saddle is about to pick up! Hopefully that means I’ll be posting some points soon!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Got my first two hangs of the season in last night and this morning. Got eyes on a large deer this morning about 8:45 walking along a bench above my location. Could not get a look at the head. Planning an ambush Saturday morning.
 
Got in a sit last night and jumped one doe going out to a new spot. Met a guy on my walk out who said there were some decent bucks back in there though. Keeping the hopes high!
 
Back
Top