Been blessed in the mountains

[Browning Slayer]

Heck yeah man! Great read too!!!

 

[bfriendly]

So glad your season came together. I agree, deer season starts way back during turkey season! That was a great read so Thanks for taking us with you!

 

[DSGB]

Congrats on your success! I enjoyed the story.

 

[Meriwether Mike]

My compliments on your two mountain trophy bucks.

 

[oppthepop]

The 2020 deer season actually started back in the spring for me. One morning during turkey season, I was scouting some new country and I came across a veritable superhighway of deer trails intersecting at a springhead in the head of a cove, just under a gap. It immediately struck me as a potential hotspot for mountain bucks, with its close proximity to steep, thick cover and with a careful selection of vantage points, a commanding view of quite a chunk of woods. I put a camera on the busiest intersection of trails and waited. When I checked it before bow season, I was very pleased. 9 different bucks were using the trails with a couple real shooters (a very wide, symmetrical 8pt and a tall narrow 9pt) and a pair of what looked like 2 1/2 year old twins with potential.

Theres a good mix of red and white oaks in the area, so even though the white oak acorn crop was a bust this year, reds were thick. I carried in a stand a couple weeks before bow season and selected a tree that presented a fairly close shot to the intersection of the trails. Opening day of bow season, I saw the two twins at 100 yards, but no closer. The following weekend, they both walked under me at 28 yards. One was an 8pt, the other, a 7pt never made a G3 on his left beam. Since I had video of the shooters traveling with the twins, I let them both walk. Of course, as it often turns out, the shooters never showed, and that's the last glimpse I saw of any of the bucks until gun season. I made several other trips into the area and found great feeding sign under some productive red oaks, but never saw anything I wanted to pull the trigger on.

Until last week.

The last week of November is usually prime time to be in the deer woods around here. Young bucks have been laying down a lot of sign. Fresh scrapes are everywhere and rubs (we all call them horned bushes) are starting to show up in all the likely places. I had found some great buck sign around the gap, but the only buck I had seen in 3 consecutive all day hunts was a spike and I knew he wasn't the one responsible for the sign I was seeing. The day before Thanksgiving was overcast and windy. Winds of 9-11mph were forecasted for the day and normally, I hate hunting in wind, but it's Thanksgiving week and I finally had the time to hunt.

With the wind blowing like it was, I knew I wouldn't hear a deer in the leaves unless it was close, so I kept my head on a swivel until 8:30, I saw movement coming through the gap. A lone doe slowly made her way to some red oak acorns across the gap from me. Only a couple minutes behind her, I saw a shape silhouetted in the gap and the first thing my binoculars found was a swollen neck. He had his head turned and I couldn't see it at first, but when he turned to look for the doe, I saw multiple forks and that was enough. I had to wait several minutes until he moved into a shooting lane, but I already had my rifle steadied in the wrist loop of one of my shooting sticks and I was in a solid shooting position in my hammock seat. When he stepped into the narrow lane 170 yards across the gap from me, I put his lights out.

He was one of the twins I had passed on during bow season.

Since I was 2 miles from the truck, I wasn't about to drag him that far, so I quartered him up and loaded him in my pack and carried him out on my back.


74lbs in a Badlands Vario 33 was quite manageable.

On my way to the truck, I dropped farther down the mountain than the path that I typically come in. Along the way, I began to see some horned bushes of a different caliber than I had seen back in the gap. While not huge, some were bigger around than my arm, and I have pretty big arms. I began to wonder if perhaps another buck was laying them down.

After hunting other places for a couple days with no success, I thought I better pay some attention to a place where I know a hot doe is frequenting. Monday brought some of our first real winter weather of the season. The high temp for the day came at 1:00am with temps steadily falling all day and snow flurries moving in mid afternoon. I decided that I better be in the woods that evening, so as soon as I got home, I donned some cold weather gear, picked up my pack and my rifle, and hit the woods for what I knew would only be about 45 minutes of daylight.

I sat on the edge of a green field as snow billowed and icicles began to form on the holly leaves swaying above my head. I've killed a passel of deer in this field at last light, so I always try to be aware of legal shooting hours. With only 3 minutes of legal light left, I saw a dark shape moving quickly across the field below me. I put the binoculars on him and could see a dark mass atop his head, but couldn't really tell details about his rack. But judging from the size and shape of his body, especially his neck, I judged him to be a mature buck and didn't really care the size of his rack. I decided to take him, but try as I might, I couldn't find him in my scope. With cloud cover, and blowing snow, I really struggled to find him. I would find him with my eyes, then pick up the binoculars and find him again, then try to find him in the scope but he was walking quickly, soon to be out of sight. Finally, I thought about grunting at him. I picked up my grunt tube and let him have a couple grunts, and I saw the tell-tale glow from his white throat patch looking my way. I found him in the binoculars again and marked his position in the field. I brought my gun to my shoulder and could just barely make out his dark silhouette. I held where I judged his vitals to be and squeezed off a shot. Fire flew from the barrel and I momentarily lost sight of him. When I saw him again, he was already 200 yards away and booking it. I watched him disappear with a sense of unease. Most of the deer I've ever shot have dropped in their tracks.

I gathered my things and went to look for blood. I figured with snow starting to lay, blood ought to be easy to spot. I went to where I thought he was standing and saw nothing. I swept my light from side to side, nothing. I walked down through the field in the direction I saw him run, hoping to cut across his track and see the red carpet, but there was nothing. I had missed.

I came home and told my wife I had missed. She looked at me in disbelief. "You don't miss," she said. I texted some of my mountain hunting buddies and told them what happened. @The mtn man wanted to come help me track. I told him there was no use. There was zero evidence that I had hit the deer. I laid in bed and dwelled on it and replayed the events in my head. As dark as it was, I was relatively sure I was holding right behind his shoulder when I shot. I decided I would get up in the morning and go search the area. I woke up at 4:00 thinking about it. I don't like missing and I sure don't like losing a deer.

My phone rang the next morning with sweet words, "I found your deer." He had run about 300 yards and piled up in the middle of the field. He was the tall, narrow 9pt that I had video of from back in August.

After seeing where I hit him, right in front of his back ham, I think I know what happened. He had been traveling from right to left, so I was assuming when I saw his dark shape that his head was down and he was still facing left. But I believe he had swapped ends and was now facing right (in response to my grunts) and instead of hitting him behind the front shoulder, I hit exactly where I was aiming... at the wrong end.

And so ends a memorable season for me. Between bow season and right now, I've put in a bunch of miles, many of them deer-less. The Lord has blessed me from the bounty of His table. I hope you've had a blessed season as well.

Wow brother - awesome story and memories for a lifetime!

 

[alwayslookin]

Well told and congrats.
Gives me extra motivation on my plan to go over a mile deep on some public this Saturday.

 

[JustUs4All]

Good work. Congratulations.

 

[northgeorgiasportsman]

Well told and congrats.
Gives me extra motivation on my plan to go over a mile deep on some public this Saturday.

It's my favorite way to hunt. Don't get me wrong, I love big bucks, but I don't have to kill a giant. If I can kill a deer hunting the way I like to hunt, I'm content.

 

[alwayslookin]

Yes sir. Like the old saying goes - you get out what you put in.

 

[NCHillbilly]

Congrats on a fine pair of bucks, Wes! And that was a great story, and well-written. I enjoyed reading it.

 

[Thunder Head]

Congrats on your season!

 

[whitetailfreak]

A blessed season for sure and those are some dandy bucks.

 

[Resica]

Nice job!! Congrats! What did they score?

 

[northgeorgiasportsman]

Nice job!! Congrats! What did they score?

They both scored a date with my cutting board.

 

[rugerfan]

Congrats on a couple of great bucks!

 

[Resica]

They both scored a date with my cutting board.

Love it. How old were they?

 

[northgeorgiasportsman]

Love it. How old were they?

I haven't looked at either jawbone, both skulls will be cleaned and Euro mounted. But I'd venture a guess that the first one is probably 2.5 and the second one 3.5 or perhaps older, based solely on body size and features. None of this is biologically accurate.

 

[Resica]

I haven't looked at either jawbone, both skulls will be cleaned and Euro mounted. But I'd venture a guess that the first one is probably 2.5 and the second one 3.5 or perhaps older, based solely on body size and features. None of this is biologically accurate.

Regardless, job well done, enjoy!!

 

[F.A.R.R.]

Good story. Congratulations on a couple nice mountain bucks

 

[sea trout]

Awesome pics and pack out!
I'll have to read the story beginning of next week, I bet it's great! Awesome pics!!!!