Feeling pretty good about the direction this season is heading. I'm always happy to get an early season buck to get one on the board. We start with a fall bow season which goes out sometime around halloween and then our second bow season called permit bow comes in. Sometimes I get only 1 crack at a buck during the early bow season and it can be tough to decide to shoot or pass when you know that last week of October the bucks are starting to move but the clock is ticking. I'm going to do a bunch of scouting, some striper fishing (I bought a new boat this year
) and rest up for the rut. I have October 29-November 8th off. I also picked up a tag to do a muzzeloader hunt 20 minutes from home November 2nd-5th. In a perfect world I could have 2 bucks down during my rutcation. That being said I'm not going to be that picky with that muzzleloader tag but the pressure is off and I can try to hold out for a real big one during the rut.
I skull capped my buck tonight. That brow tine just isn't going to make 1" lol. I also cut out his teeth and am sending them out to deerage.com to age him. His rack really doesn't do his body justice. He's definitely 2.5 but I also wouldn't be surprised if he comes back 4.5. I have had a lot of my bucks aged over the past 10 years and I'm constantly amazed at the age of some of the bucks I've shot and yet none of them have racks that would break 100". My 3 biggest are all right around 100". One of them aged at 4.5, the other 2 I didn't get aged. One was before I found deerage, the other one the teeth got lost at the taxidermist. Those 2 were both bigger bodies, old and gray so I know they were older than that.