Southeast Iowa Live..Come along for the season

[myway]

Very cool! In for pics.
I wish all blood trails looked like that.

[Humper]

Congrats Mike

[JSAPP]

Congrats!!!!

[Pstraw]

Congratulations!

[sbushee]

Bada bing bada boom

[Arrowsmith]

Well..... if anyone thinks hunting in Iowa is easy they are wrong.

This was my 31st sit since October 19th. I started not to go out this morning because I was pretty much exhausted from hiking some pretty rough terrain, climbing into tree stands and all it takes to get your equipment up and down and stay safe almost twice a day since the middle of October.

Since November 7,8,9,10 are historically the very most prime days for deer movement and particularly buck movement in Iowa I couldn't sleep in. I got up at 4:45 which is a little late. I decided to go to a stand that is about 200 to 300 yards from the house. At about 6:45 I was glassing a small food plot that I planted with rye and Imperial Whitetail Clover. The food plot is about 300 yards from the tree stand I was in. I caught a glimpse of movement and saw a buck moving down the tree line next to the food plot. I looked thru the binos and could see what I consider a shooter. I grabbed my horns and cracked them together as hard as I could and rattled for about 15 seconds. The buck looked my way but started running away down the tree line. I cracked the horns hard again and rattled again and followed up with a couple of long grunts. I had lost sight of the buck and when I saw him again he had jumped a cross fence and was heading my way on a dead run. I got my bow off the hanger got my release clipped on my loop and got ready. I use an HHA Optimizer single pin adjustable sight. I had it set at 27 yards which will cover most any shot from dead close to a little over 30 depending on where you put your pin on the animal. Well...he stopped at around 30-35 yards looking for the fight. I quickly bumped my sight up to 32 yards and then he comes right on into one of my shooting lanes at 18 yards pretty much head on which happens a lot when a buck responds to rattling. I knew it was now or never as a mature buck is not going to stick around long.

When I drew he saw me and turned slightly to his left I held fairly low on his right front shoulder and fired. He wheeled around and ran hard back across the field in front of me. I could see me white fletchings and a portion of the arrow stick out which worried me for a few seconds. As he made a turn I saw my arrow fly up into the air. It had actually broke off. When got about halfway across the field he started to wobble and break down in the front. I saw him go down and flipped up in the air when his head and horns dug in. The whole death run took maybe 5-10 seconds. I was pretty sure he was down for good but gave him 20-30 minutes.

As soon as I got down and found the piece of the arrow I started finding a lot of blood as you can see by the blood trail pics. The Slick Trick Grizz Trick angled down cutting a wicked hole thru both lungs and broke a rib on the off side. There was about 12" of the arrow and the broad head in him.

I a super pumped to get my first Iowa buck. The good news is that this was my farm tag archery buck. I still have my state wide archery tag in my pocket. I will get him skinned and quartered this evening and I will be after another one tomorrow morning.

And....yes that is our house in the back ground in the 3rd picture.[emoji846]

Sent from my SM-G935R4 using Tapatalk

[Bone Thug]

Nice buck!!! Congrats, Mike.

[Statton48]

Congrats to you sir. Awesome deer

[DZM]

Congrats on the toad!

[SFAbowhunter]

He’s a dandy! Congratulations!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Dakota7493]

Great Buck!

[rut-ro]

Nicely done sir. Congrats

[gemini2759]

Beautiful buck. Congrats.

[Texas Grown]

Awesome first 2019 Iowa deer Mike! Well deserved! And a big congrats to you too!

[Big O]

Congratulations thanks for taking us along. Great write up.