Button Bucks

Back in the Saddle

It had been almost 2 weeks since I'd climbed into a stand with my bow in hand.  This morning I ended that streak.  I stayed up late last night watching the Cardinals pull out a World Series game 3 win, and didn't set an alarm to get up today.  Our youngest, Emmett decided he'd be my alarm and had me up at 5:15am.  I fed him and tried to get him to fall back asleep, but he wasn't having it.  I let the dog outside and noticed it was DEAD calm and a crisp 27 degrees!  The frost was building on just about everything and I knew I was going hunting.

I wasn't in the stand 5 minutes and I heard leaves crunching to my left.  One after another, a line of 5 deer moved past me and through a shooting lane at 25 yards.  The first 4 were a couple does and yearlings and the last one was either a big button buck or small spike, but it was still too dark to tell.  They wrapped around my location, seeking to enter the corn on the other side of my stand.  Of course with it being so still, one of the big does started getting a little fidgety and stomping her foot.  This in turn caused the rest of them to do it too and one even gave out a good ol' alarm snort.  I thought it was over, but they just walked around me in circles, seeking to find out what or where the threat was coming from.  Finally after about 20 minutes they slowly walked off.  But not before that big doe gave me about 15 opportunities to put her in the bed of my truck!  She must have known I didn't have any antlerless tags and was holding out for a buck.

After these deer wandered off, I looked straight down below me on the other side of my stand, and there was a FRESH scrape! 

The big scrape

I was kind of excited because I knew I had a trailcam pointed in the direction of this scrape and was hopeful I had captured the buck that created it.  After my hunt I swapped out SD cards in the camera and here's what I found when I got home.

This big boy showed up a little over 24 hours prior to my hunt.  He's got plenty of meat on him, but probably won't make this fall's hit list.  I do like the forked G2 on his opposite side though.

Makin' the scrape.  Although I have my doubts this is the same buck as above because the time is almost 1/2 hour difference and I doubt that first buck hung out in the area that long.  Plus, I have a couple pics of this buck approaching the scrape and his rack doesn't look as big as the one above.

  It was just a beautiful morning to be in a treestand and I'm glad Emmett woke me up early to go!  Here's some more pictures of the fall scenery from this morning's hunt.  I'll be back out this afternoon for a hunt deep in the timber in one of my "buck" stands.  I hope the action's as good tonight as it was this morning.  Stay tuned......

No Turning Back

 

 

My wife Trisha took her rookie deer hunting campaign to Iowa's early muzzleloader season this year.  With two little ones at home, we had to pick our times to hunt carefully and line up some help to watch the boys as I went along to help introduce her to the sport.  Trish's parents came over for the last weekend of the season to take care of their favorite grandsons!  A big THANKS to them and also our friends, the Hockenson's, who watched the boys Friday night before the grandparents got here.

 

Friday night, October 18th was our first sit, and proved to be the best hunt of the weekend.  The deer started moving early and often.  Trish had 2 tags, one for an antlerless deer and one for any sex.  She was looking to fill the antlerless one right away and then spend the rest of the weekend hunting for a nice buck.  She had some decent chances Friday afternoon, and finally a big doe presented a shot at about 75 yards.  Unfortunately the shot was a miss, but at least we were seeing deer.

 

We had 2 deer walk by within 15 yards of our stand Friday night, but unfortunately one was a button buck and the other was a little spike buck.  She wisely let them walk to gain more years, more meat, and more inches of antler!  The video is a clip of the button buck walking by at close range.



 

 

 

Saturday we hunted morning and evening, with no luck other than a few deer sighted at long range.  The weather wasn't horrible Saturday, but there was a persistent wind that kept deer movement down.

Sunday we hit the morning hunt early and were skunked!  After some naps during the day, and grandparents hitting the road shortly after lunch, Trish decided to give it a go by herself that evening.  It was a first in the Bartlett household, Mom went hunting while dad stayed home to watch the boys.  We knew the wind was going to be strong that afternoon, so after our morning hunt we constructed a quick & dirty ground blind out of some fallen limbs.  It provided good cover and excellent shots in the directions we'd seen deer moving earlier in the weekend.  The make-shift ground blind looked great and served its purpose as the wind was strong all evening, but the deer didn't cooperate and nothing showed up before it got dark.

All in all I am proud of my wife for sticking it out for about 13 hours on-stand during the weekend.  Even though we didn't see many deer after Friday night, I think the addiction has begun to take hold.  She made a comment to me Sunday night that deer hunting was like gambling...if she could just go one more time, maybe she'd hit the jackpot and something would show up!  She has tasted the world of the whitetail and as I've known for years, it's an addiction with no cure.  For Trish, there's no turning back.

Joanna's First Buck

This past Thursday, October 17th, I had to go to my best friends wedding rehearsal in the afternoon. Joanna had the day off, and she was going hunting. It was the first day of her planned 4 day mini vacation. The plan was to get in as much hunting as possible before the end of Iowa's early muzzleloader season which came to a close with the sunset on day 4 of her vacation. Turned out, Joanna didn't need 4 days.

She went out and sat in a fence line Thursday morning and got busted by a yearling. Nothing else showed up so she drew a line through the morning's hunt and came home to regroup.  She called me during lunch at work and we talked about where to go in the evening. We both agreed that the best place would be on the same farm but a different spot we call "the ditch". The only problem was she thought she should go to the south side of the ditch and I recommended the north side. She chose the south side.

The ditch is wooded and there was corn along the south side. Joanna is a die hard corn field hunter so it was perfect for her. She went in until she was 10 rows from the edge of the ditch. Because of the woods, the last 10 rows of corn were shorter, making it perfect to monitor deer movement and negotiate a shot. Not long into the hunt, Joanna spied movement.

She saw it was a buck and as he got closer more of his rack became visible.  She could tell it wasn't a huge buck but it was good enough to be her first buck.  He moved along the edge of the woods towards Joanna. She slowly raised her gun. He was so close she had a hard time finding him in the scope.  She finally got him lined up in the cross hairs and pulled the trigger. The puff of white smoke muzzleloaders are known for obstructed her view as the buck retreated, crashing through the corn field.

I got a text while sitting in a church in Iowa City. "Just shot at a buck, still shaking!" I snuck away and called her. I told her to call her dad and go look for some blood.  She didn't find anything at first but then noticed some blood in the corn. She followed the trail, spotty at first, then she saw something she said she'd never forget. There was an entire row of corn that was completely sprayed with blood and knew it was a good hit.  She eventually found the buck in a waterway and her dad drove right up and they got it loaded in the truck. By the time I got home the deer had been hung up and skinned out and Joanna was sitting on the couch relaxing!  

I couldn't be happier and more proud of the hunter my wife has become. Congratulations, I love you honey!

1st Sit of the Year

I was able to make it out to the treestand yesterday morning for the first time this year.  It was more of a scouting mission than anything as my wife is going out this weekend for her first deer hunt ever with her new muzzleloader.  I wanted to see if the deer were moving, where and what time they were showing up at the food source so we could put the hit on a big doe, and hopefully a buck, as she has an antlerless tag and a statewide tag for early muzzleloader season.

I don't have any good pictures from the hunt so this post is going to be more of a story than anything else, but it's a story that is worth the read.  I got out a little late as is usual with the first hunt of the year; working out the kinks in gear and what I need to take to the stand.  I hurried into our 2-person ladder stand on the edge of a 5 acre corn field just as legal shooting light time started.  Luckily I didn't spook anything out of the corn walking to the stand or bedded in the nearby timber.

It wasn't long until the first deer showed up.  Right at sunrise I heard a noise behind me and slowly turned to see a HUGE doe sneaking out of the timber and towards the corn.  She came RIGHT under the ladder stand I was in and stopped.  Normally I would have had an antlerless tag myself and would have tried to fill it right then and there, but I gave her the pass in hopes she'd return this upcoming weekend for my wife.  She must have smelled a little of my scent trail because she became a little spooked and turned around.  She circled back through the timber and came out in my turnip plot about 75 yards away.  I should have taken a picture when she was right under me, but the thought didn't cross my mind until she was 75 yards away and not standing still.  So for the sake of breaking up all this writing, here's  the best pic I got of her.

Terrible pic, I know, but you can make out the brown dot amongst the green turnips.  Trust me, it's a deer.

This doe made her way through the corn, coming back a little closer to my location, and presenting several good 50 yard shot opportunities that would have been ideal for a muzzleloader!  It made me even more excited for the upcoming weekend.

Shortly after she disappeared, I heard a noise to my right.  Turning I saw a big fox squirrel perched on a down tree.  I have always kept an arrow in my quiver with a field point on it, for such opportunities.  I slowly took the current arrow out of my bow rest, placed it in the quiver, eased out the other arrow and nocked it to the string.  The squirrel sat straight up, still perched on the tree.  I happened to glance back at the plot in the picture above and was startled to see a deer out in it, making its way right towards me!  It looked like a yearling deer, with no antlers, so I turned my attention back to the squirrel.  Slowly drawing my bow back, I anchored the string to my cheek.  The shot couldn't have been more than 15 yards as I settled my top pin on the squirrel and hit the trigger of my release.

The arrow flew true and smacked the squirrel right where I was aiming, catapulting it off its perch and onto the ground.  I heard a little kick from the tree rat and then nothing.  I turned back to the deer, who was none the wiser, as it approached a 20 yard shooting lane.  I noticed it was a button buck and it briskly walked off into the timber.  I was sort of excited to have knocked some rust off with a good shot on my first hunt and couldn't wait to get down later and retrieve the squirrel.

The morning hunt continued on with one more yearling deer showing up behind me for a moment and then moving on.  The wind picked up early and I think that kept most deer movement down, but it was good to see some deer up close on the first hunt of the year.  As I sat there nearing the end of my hunt I heard another scratching noise behind me.  Thinking it was another squirrel, I turned around found the source of the noise in a large Red Oak tree.

There, 30 feet up the tree was a large fox squirrel with an arrow sticking out of it!!!!!  I could hardly believe my eyes.  I watched as it tried to get in a hole in the tree but was unable due to 12 inches of arrow sticking out both sides of its body!  The squirrel made its way down the tree, arrow and all, and stopped at the bottom on the ground.  The arrow had literally blasted through both front shoulders and was sticking equally out both sides of the squirrel. 

I thought surely it couldn't go far on  the ground with an arrow sticking out of it and I'd retrieve it shortly after getting down.  Where I was hunting was near the edge of our property line and the neighbors have a secluded fenced-in garden right on the line.  The neighbor lady picked THAT time to come out and collect apples off her tree!  Not wanting to make a "scene" by either flinging arrows at a crippled squirrel or running it down, knife in hand; I did the neighborly thing by climbing down slowly and making a point to talk to her.  All the while biting my lip in anticipation of going after that squirrel!

Finally after about 10 minutes of chit-chat I went back to the base of the Red Oak.  The squirrel was nowhere to be found.  I conducted a grid search of the immediate area, turning up nothing.  I looked up into every tree too, but no arrow or squirrel perched up high.  I tried to find a blood trail, but only found one drop of blood by the base of the tree.  The Terminator Squirrel had literally disappeared, taking my good arrow with it!

I spent most of the day at the property, making final preparations for the weekend ahead.  I took the time on several occasions to do more searching, but in the end was unable to find the squirrel or the arrow.  I truly think it will turn up in the near future as more leaves and vegetation disappear.

Nonetheless it was an exciting hunt.  Hopefully this weekend will provide even more excitement in the form of 2 dead deer by the hands of my wife and her muzzleloader!  Stay tuned........