Finally got back to lease after a long week and a Saturday of kids soccer. Pulled into camp about dark unloaded the cart and made my rounds to gather cam cards. After looking at pics decided to hunt my north stand. Its an 8X8 10' tower stand on the north end of our lease. There have been 4 mature bucks showing rather consistantly that I had decided I would shoot if given the opportunity. Sunday morn proved to be slow with just a few young bucks and fawns. I spent the day filling some feeders and doing work around camp.
Got in the stand about 5 and got settled in for the PM hunt. I mixed some apple jello mix with some corn to see how he deer liked it. Feeder went off about 6 and some of my regular young bucks began to show. about 6:35 I noticed some movement on the opposite side of the feeder about 100yd out. It was a buck I had nicknamed "floppy" because of a sagging left ear. He was a 5.5 approx 16" 8 with a crab claw g3 on his rt side. This was one of my hit list management bucks. He proceeded to make a scape and then disappeared. About 5 min later he reappeared to my right and approched my apple jello hand corn. After sniffing the air for a minute he proceeded to start eating the sweet corn and I began to get the camera set.
I have major target panic so I practiced a few draws settling the pin where I wanted to shoot. After a while I began to double guess my age estimation and tried to talk myself out of shooting him as I have done many times in the past. Maybe he's not old enough....maybe the other buck I really want to shoot is walking in...maybe....what if....!! I finally decided this was the one and set to draw. I drew settled my pin and squeezed off. Arrow buried behind the shoulder and he took off. Shot looked good and my arrow was buried in one of my killing logs behind where he stood. I did not here a crash but after review of the video I knew this deer was dead. Got down found blood and waited for backup. After a short tracking job I found him about 90 yds from first impact.
As we drug him back to the cart we almost stepped on a 4' rattlebug. The guys call me a snake magnet as I am about the only one that ever runs into them, been that way all my life.
Even tho this is just a management buck he was special. It was the first buck I have shot in 3 yrs(second guessing and passing) and the first time I was able to beat the target panic in 3 yrs on a deer.
I have done live hunts the last 2 yrs with very little luck while on stand so I didn't want to jinx this hunt even tho I felt more confident about it than i have in 2 yrs. I am working on getting the video down loaded and will add once I do. Here are some pics of the hunt, before and after.
A little pregame swig!
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Got in the stand about 5 and got settled in for the PM hunt. I mixed some apple jello mix with some corn to see how he deer liked it. Feeder went off about 6 and some of my regular young bucks began to show. about 6:35 I noticed some movement on the opposite side of the feeder about 100yd out. It was a buck I had nicknamed "floppy" because of a sagging left ear. He was a 5.5 approx 16" 8 with a crab claw g3 on his rt side. This was one of my hit list management bucks. He proceeded to make a scape and then disappeared. About 5 min later he reappeared to my right and approched my apple jello hand corn. After sniffing the air for a minute he proceeded to start eating the sweet corn and I began to get the camera set.
I have major target panic so I practiced a few draws settling the pin where I wanted to shoot. After a while I began to double guess my age estimation and tried to talk myself out of shooting him as I have done many times in the past. Maybe he's not old enough....maybe the other buck I really want to shoot is walking in...maybe....what if....!! I finally decided this was the one and set to draw. I drew settled my pin and squeezed off. Arrow buried behind the shoulder and he took off. Shot looked good and my arrow was buried in one of my killing logs behind where he stood. I did not here a crash but after review of the video I knew this deer was dead. Got down found blood and waited for backup. After a short tracking job I found him about 90 yds from first impact.
As we drug him back to the cart we almost stepped on a 4' rattlebug. The guys call me a snake magnet as I am about the only one that ever runs into them, been that way all my life.
Even tho this is just a management buck he was special. It was the first buck I have shot in 3 yrs(second guessing and passing) and the first time I was able to beat the target panic in 3 yrs on a deer.
I have done live hunts the last 2 yrs with very little luck while on stand so I didn't want to jinx this hunt even tho I felt more confident about it than i have in 2 yrs. I am working on getting the video down loaded and will add once I do. Here are some pics of the hunt, before and after.
A little pregame swig!
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Nice one Killer Congrats
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