As I climbed into my stand something startled me about 10 feet above my head. A large, chubby house cat blasted out of a squirrels nest and scampered up the tree trunk. As it jumped to the next branch I saw that it was actually a fox-sized fox squirrel. It was seriously the biggest damn squirrel I've ever seen. My heart rate slowed some as I watched the teenage mutant ninja squirrel make his way away from my stand. I got settled in and took in my surroundings.
At about 4:45 I watched 3 yearlings make their way out of the neighboring property. They jumped the fence, and walked past my stand and out to the cut corn field in front of me. A few minutes later I saw a big ol' mama doe cautiously approach the fence. She crossed and came towards my stand. She turned broadside at 40 yards and headed towards the cornfield and I could tell I wasn't getting a closer shot than that. I drew back my bow and got her stopped.
I settled my 3rd pin behind the shoulder and let 'er fly. I could easily see by my illuminated knock that the arrow had flown true and she bolted back across the fence. I saw her go down in a patch of weeds 100 yards away. Sweet! I can go get her drug back to my stand, gutted, and still have an hour and a half to keep hunting. I left everything in the stand but my knife and got on the blood trail. About 20 yards after I crossed the fence I looked up and saw this bad boy staring back at me:
This pic was from my trail cam near my stand and was taken that very day in the morning. As you can see he doesn't have the biggest rack but he was pretty puffed up. I could literally see slobber glistening in the sun light as it dripped from his mouth. He continued down the trail towards me, I didn't make a move. It was pretty neat but when a buck gets to be 20 yards from you on the ground and it's the rut and you have no weapon and his neck is wider than his ears, it's a little unnerving. He finally made me out at 15 yards and bugged out. I continued down the trail and found my doe.
After getting her taken care of I was back in the stand by 5:15. Approximately 20 minutes later I noticed another doe taking the same path the first one did so I readied my bow. It was a carbon copy of the first encounter. She crossed the same spot in the fence and I stopped her in the exact same spot 40 yards away. I thought my arrow flew true like the first but it was a bit forward. Luckily for me, the muzzy blew through both front shoulders and dropped her in her tracks.
Unfortunately, it was not a fatal shot so I got down and finished the job with my final arrow. I got her gutted and drug to the first one and went to get some help.
I sold my truck a week earlier to fund the finishing of our basement so I had to go borrow the farm truck. My dad took a break from hauling in corn to help me. We got them tagged, loaded, and hauled back to my house. After getting them washed out we hung them in the garage. Some of the best money I've ever spent was buying a 1000 lb rated chain hoist from Theissen's a few years ago. We hung up both of the deer on the gambrel and I lifted them out of the truck with one hand thanks to the easy operation of the chain hoist. It has saved my back on more than one occasion.
It turned out to be a great hunt and I look forward to concentrating on pursuing the elusive white tailed buck deer. Stay tuned to the blog, things are heating up in the whitetail woods!
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