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Untitled Document
Monday Morning Hunt
The wind picked up overnight and was blowing pretty hard this
morning. Kent suggested an area called the "tree belt" which is a
long strip of trees in between two CRP fields. There was some tremendous buck
sign in there, rubs, scrapes and trails. I got settled in and not more than
15 minutes after setup, a buck came in. It was too dark to see how big he was,
he looked like a good buck but it was too hard to tell. Another deer must have
been downwind and started blowing, the buck turned and left. I had two does
show up at 10:00 AM but other than that it was a slow - windy morning.
Monday Afternoon Hunt
I went back to the stand I hunted yesterday morning. About 3:30
PM, I heard a big crash at the bottom of my stand. I reluctantly looked down
(I knew what it would be) - the video camera was laying at the bottom of my
tree - in pieces. To make matters worse, it wasn't even my camera, I had borrowed
Kent's new Canon GL2 since mine was having problems. I was sick - primarily
for wrecking Kent's new camera, but also because I just knew I was going to
get action and had no way to record any of it.
I was right. The evening started with just a few does, but then
a young 8 came in. He was not a shooter now, but he'll be nice in a couple years.
Shortly after him, a spike and a forky came in. They fed around me for quite
a while. The light was fading as I saw another deer moving toward the 8 point.
I knew it was a buck. He made a scrape and was much larger than the does in
the area. But I couldn't tell just how big he was until he approached the young
8 point. The 8 moved away from him submissively, then a loud, bellowing grunt
came from this new buck as he came near my stand to feed. I put the binoculars
on him and almost joined my camera on the ground. It was the single largest
deer I have ever had in range. He was unbelievable. His Main beams were massive,
they extended up high then wrapped around leaving a 12" gap between them.
I guessed 5 inches of spread past his ears and eight long, heavy, and perfectly
symmetrical points. I'm no expert on judging antler size but my best guess would
be 160 inches.
The buck moved in front of me at 8 yards. I had to question legal
shooting light. It was getting so dark I had trouble seeing his points but I
had no idea what time it was. He moved by, I never shot. He moved toward another
deer before walking uphill and into the trees. Shortly after this, Kent came
to pick me up. I'm going to hunt for this buck tomorrow.
Sorry, no pictures today.
I'll have a camera with me tomorrow - it will be wearing a safety harness.
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