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......