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I was excited about the prospects of this morning's
hunt. After all the deer activity the previous
evening, I was certain that this morning was going to be
productive at the ICE Blind/Straight Shooter
setup. I anticipated hunting all day, so I
packed in food, drinks, a Bowhunter magazine, a Louis
L'Amour novel and even my laptop.
After sitting for an hour waiting for daylight, and
another hour or more for the feeder to go off, I hunkered
down to wait for the action to begin. By 9:00, I had
seen nothing, when a yearling doe came in. It was so
still and quiet that when I reached up to turn on the
camera, the deer heard the soft brush of my coat and
became nervous, leaving before I could get a picture.
I started reading the paperback I had brought, when
right about the beginning of Chapter 4 I looked up to see
a large, mature buck! He had a great looking rack,
except for a broken tine on his left beam.
I took a practice draw on this buck, as well. If
his rack would have been complete, I would have squeezed
off the trigger! As is, we'll see if we can get him
whole next season!
He hung around for several minutes, then unexplainably,
looked right at me in the blind, snorted and took
off! That was the last animal I saw except for a
small javelina that munched corn while I finished up my
Louis L'Amour book! Great read!
I hunted until about 12:30, then decided that I should
check on the hog that was hanging on the rack. It
was still cool outside, and the sun was behind the clouds,
but I knew if the sun came out I'd need to get him down
quickly. I was also not satisfied with my
setup. I felt like I did a poor job of brushing in
my ICE Blind, and decided to spend the afternoon back at
my chain on stand.
I went back to the cabin, ate a bite, and then headed
back out at around 2:30. I sat on the cold, hard
steel of the chain on for two hours without seeing
anything. Finally, a couple of doe appeared from my
left.
Both doe focused their attention to the north, and I
strained to see what it was they were looking at.
They became skittish and ran back across in front of me,
and were soon followed by a large bodied, mature deer.
What a great looking buck, even with four broken beams,
including both brow tines. He was soon joined by
several smaller bucks and three or four doe, and they all
hung around feeding and chasing each other until
dark.
The air had chilled significantly by the time it was
ready to go, but I didn't want to spook the deer when I
got down. I waited until it was completely dark,
then threw my rattle bag away from where I was
sitting. When the bag hit, the deer scattered, as
planned!
When I returned to the cabin, a good looking eight
pointer was feeding in the back yard.
He might be tempting given the right circumstances in
the daylight!
As I sat watching the numerous bucks this evening, and as I
sit here and review the video from the last couple of
days, I'm reminded of just how fortunate I am to be able
to hunt, film and simply watch quality bucks and other
abundant game. I certainly recognize that without
being blessed with family land that has passed through
several generations, I would not be able to see bucks like
this in a lifetime, much less a weekend. At the same
time, I still recognize that any deer with a bow is a
trophy, and I really believe that. I'd be proud of
any of the bucks I've seen this week so far. In
fact, in the eight years I've bowhunted this ranch,
including this year, I've only taken one buck, a beautiful
nine pointer that's currently hanging on my fireplace at
home. And I've only taken one other buck in my life
besides that one. So I'd consider any buck an
accomplishment, and yet I don't want to take a buck just
to say I shot one. Maybe tomorrow I'll find the
right one!
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