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DAY 3

Saturday Morning Hunt

The wind was all wrong for the River stand so we decided on Ken's tree for my saturday morning hunt. It was pretty slow. I had a couple of dink bucks show up before 8 and a decent 10 that needs 2 more years to be a shooter.

At 9:30 AM I could hear some commotion to the South and a flock of Rio Grande Gobblers were feeding their way down from the sage toward the road I was hunting. As I do most years, I had tagged up for turkey in the off chance that some came in. That turned out to be a good move. Some of the turkeys spotted me in the stand and alarm putted. But after a few moments of remaining motionless, other turkeys made their way in range. I had never shot a bird from a stand before, usually they won't let you get away with the draw. But these birds were either brain dead, my Predator Deception Brown made me invisible, or I made a world class draw. Who knows. I put my pin on the 3rd bird down the trail and hammered it. It ran off but we recovered it later. This Rio makes number 3 in my grand slam of turkeys. Only the Osceola remains. Pretty cool.

Watch the video of this shot

Saturday Afternoon Hunt

An old joke between friends here is Kent's tree belt. Kent W and Kent J always tell me how good this stand is and every time I hunt it I see squat. It's almost gotten to be legendary between us. So when they suggested it for tonight I laughed and said - OK. They seemed surprised but I figured the streak had to be broken at some point. Tonight was that point.

I saw several deer before the sun began to set. But as the hay field turned orange I could see the form of a buck moving to the tree belt. From a distance he looked to have a big frame but I needed to see him clearer to determine if he was a shooter. He jumped the fence and walked by my stand, but then he looked right at me. I stayed motionless. He eventually gave me a brief shot opportunity but I didn't need it. His right G3 was busted off and his left G1 was gone. That effectively made him a 6 with a forked G2. He was a hell of a buck and I would have shot him in a second if he wasn't busted up. As an 8 I guessed he'd go low in the 160's.

At dark another nice buck came in. He wasn't as big or old as the 8 but he'll be a really good one in a year or two. I could have shot him 10 times but he was too small for any of us. The bad streak was over, my two friends have been redeemed.

It was a slow day all around.