Sunday evening found me back at the
Swivel Limb on Hi-Line road. I still had hopes of
seeing the big boy that my brother and I were unable to
get last season. Again, I went out early for a
long afternoon sit. While hunting this stand, I've
had deer approach from every conceivable direction, and
while the east-northeast wind was not perfect to
hunt the stand, the primary trails were not in the path
of my scent, but any shift in the wind could change that
in a hurry. It was some time before I finally had
a deer approach from behind me. A lone doe was
cautiously looking toward the decoy that was still set
up from the previous morning. She seemed much more
skittish than the deer I had seen previously, and she
remained behind me, just out of the shooting lane for
quite some time. I decided that if she entered the
shooting lane at which my Sony Digital camcorder was
pointed, I would attempt the shot, but I knew it would
be tricky due to her nervousness. Several times,
she poked her head into the lane to eat, but each time
she retreated, obviously "feeling" something
was not right. I'm not sure if it was the decoy or
a trickle of my scent, but something had her wired.
After a half hour or better of hide and
seek, I heard a ruckus coming from in front of me, just
across the fence toward the feeder. It was
hogs. They quickly came in and vacuumed up the
corn from under the feeder. The large boar crossed
the fence and walked behind me, while several sows and
smaller hogs fed on the corn that I had scattered in the
gate opening, which offered a great funnel. I had
a perfect shot opportunity to the gate at about 12
yards, but due to the position of the camera, and a limb
blocking it's view to the opening, I could not take the
shot on film. I figured that the hogs would
continue to feed until they entered the second lane to
the left, and focused the camera on that position.
One of the little piglets broke off from the group and
walked directly under the limb on which I was positioned!
About that same time, I heard the big boar growling and
making a ruckus like he'd been hit with a hammer.
I noticed the breeze was blowing right toward him, and
he obviously didn't appreciate my smell! All of
the pigs panicked and vacated the area.
I had hoped to avoid having an animal
walk downwind, but as much as the deer and hogs moved
around, I knew that it was impossible to prevent
it. Things settled back down, and about 45
minutes later, I heard movement across the fence to my
right. My heart raced when I could see an
approaching buck, catching glimpses of his heavy, dark
antlers as he made his way through the brush and limbs
between us. I focused the camera on him as he
walked toward the opening in the gate. I grabbed
my bow from the hook above. "This could be
the one" I thought as I prepared the camera and bow
for the shot. I could tell that he had a lot of
mass, and looked to have good tine length and a little
character in the curl of his antlers. Click on the
image below for a video clip of the deer's approach,
just as I saw it.
Finally, he
stepped into plain view, and I noticed that he was only
an eight pointer, and more importantly, had a broken
left G3 and right brow tine. Still, he was a beautiful buck. He
made his way through the gate and into my shooting lane
in direct view of the camera, but knew that I would be
disappointed had I settled for him. He turned away
from me to take a look at the decoy, which was
apparently unsettling for him as he bolted away for
good.
Later in the evening, I again had a trio
of does that came in but were extremely cautious.
They fed on some corn in the road, but were reluctant to
enter the shooting lane. They didn't appear to
know I was around, but apparently knew something wasn't
quite right. Just when it looked like they were
settling down, I heard that familiar, obnoxious sound of
hogs approaching to the feeder. Again, what looked
to be the same group of hogs as before, entered the
picture and cleaned the newly thrown corn from under the
feeder. Again, I readied for them to come through
the gate and into my filming/shooting window. They
came back into the gate opening, offering a great shot
opportunity, but I deferred until they fed into a good
camera angle. Like all of the animals on this
evening, however, the hogs seemed more on edge than
normal, and again left without me getting a
shot.
For whatever reason, there are days when
the animals seem almost tame, and other days when the
animals, almost in unison, seem to sense danger.
This evening was definitely the latter. I could have
taken a shot at the eight pointer with the broken tines,
but chose not to. However, I had hoped to get a
shot at a doe and at least one hog this evening so as
not to come down to the last hunt without having
something in the cooler.
Check back soon for Monday morning's
exciting update. |