- Joined
- Jun 28, 2019
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- 8,070
Was out all day Lucky 13 Team Members and I saw plenty of deer too. My evening hunt was comical and frustrating. I snuck up on a small draw to a great inside corner on public that transitions to an old overgrown apple orchard. My second step up and all of a sudden a buck is standing like not even 10 yards away to my upwind side, It's a decent buck but my bow is on the ground!!! It just stared straight away not knowing I'm there and then it just mule deer jumps a couple of times and goes down into the draw. No tail up no blowing. I think it was playing I'm not kidding because seconds later 4 does filter by and they were heading in the same direction as the buck. He must have been a basket 7 or 8 point totally a 2.5 year old. The does stop and begin to feed on greenbrier like 15 yards to my upwind side!!! One stopped and looked at me for a few seconds (I'm literally just hugging the try trying to blend in to the tree trunk as much as possible. They finally feed off and I continue my ascent. Several minutes later I'm still fiddlin' with gear and haven't pulled my bow up yet as I'm at HH and was trying to decide how to place my platform. A spiker comes by reading the script on where I was setting up and so I let him feed off into the orchard and finish. I then saw one doe heading slowly back in and she stopped for a drink at the small creek draw to my weak side and continued heading east back into the cover. At about 6:15 I hear quiet steps down in the draw immediately to my right (weak) side. Seconds after that a nice thick racked shooter comes right to the rear of that doe and one other deer behind the shooter that I believe was another buck. It may have been the one early that mule deer jumped but I couldn't tell for sure. I had intermittently been sending milk weed out hoping the evening thermal drop would occur because most of them were coming from my immediate west further back from the inside corner transition then they usually have in the past. In a nutshell, I botched my set up and should have set up facing the hill instead of with my back to the hill covering the inside corner like I have done in the past. I noticed the alternative area was starting to develop some buck brush and they are following that more. That buck was total beauty probably P&Y at least. The two bucks and that first doe got right to where my milk weed was heading earlier and stood there and then went back in the direction they were heading. I think they winded me and started to loop around. I probably could have gotten a shot if I set up with my strong side to the east but again, my original set up was based on them hugging that inside corner in the past. Grrr. Anyway, the pics below show the inside corner transition to the overgrown apple orchard. The second pic is the overgrown apple orchard hardwoods transition that I like to overlook. The last pic is the draw and creek that I snuck up in to my set up. To my immediate right or east, was where the nice shooter showed up with the other two deer.
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