DDD
Winter Weatherman
I have had permission to hunt a small track of property in Gwinnett now for 3 years. I have had a few good bucks on the camera but a lot of little guys especially with funky racks. I imagine with the smaller tracks of land and being somewhat "land locked" the genes can get funky. Anyways, 1 week ago to the day, almost the hour, I got this guy on my trail cam. It was the Monday after opening day. Of course I had planned to hunt on Tuesday.
I hunted Tuesday - Thursday of last week and saw a decent amount of deer but nothing the size of this guy. I gave the area a rest Friday - Sunday until Sunday afternoon.
Hunted yesterday afternoon, had a small buck come across the river behind me and continue on. Then had a couple of does come out below me and I got the feeling they smelled me. I was out of scent killer and was wishing I had gotten some. Right at dark I had a nice buck coming at me head on and it was like someone whispered in his ear to lake a left and get in the thick stuff and I never even got my gun up to look at him.
So last night I made a trip to Wal-Mart and got a bottle of Dead Down Wind. Not sure if that corrected my issue, but I don't think it hurt.
Got up this morning and wanted to get some seat time in before work. I got in the stand about 6:40. At 7AM with just barely enough light to see dark vs. light objects, I saw a deer move about 20 yards from my stand. Did I mention it was dark? LOL. So as I begged for the sun to come on up, I could see bodies of deer moving in the river bottom but that is all I could see, dark images moving around slowly. At about 7:15 I heard what I thought was a deer crossing in the water in the direction of the deer I had seen moving. A much, much larger bodied deer now moved right to left from my vantage point and was headed into some of my shooting lanes. It still was too dark to even make out antlers, just bodies. 7:30 now, I can see better but not perfect. All of a sudden deer start bouncing around, not running away just running in circles and zig zags... he's pushing them. He stops and just starts eating. They do the same. What has become crystal clear is that the deer with it's nose buried in acorns and corn kernels was hardly moving much at all, chowing down and was a buck... a big bodied buck.
7:35 and more daylight now... just need a little more to tell how big antler wise he is. Finally about 7:45 enough light had filtered in to the hard wood bottom and I could tell it was the guy I was looking for. Apparently he likes Mondays. It would be his last.
I had not even lifted my gun out of it's resting place. Those 2 does in there were nervous and so was I. I had at least 6 eyes looking around, might have been more to my right in the thick stuff. I had to be slow and careful. I was hunting in a 2 man ladder stand and had it propped up on the safety rail. I eased it back towards me. Picked it up with one hand, sat up on my boot toe. Rotated it real slowly, watching the does and him for any head snap, anything that told me to stop. I now have the gun facing the right way, I pull the butt up into my top leg, barrel pointed at the sky. His head shoots straight up. He's looking dead my direction. My heart is pounding. He does the sideways head slide, like he sees something... he just stands still for probably 30-45 seconds. The does heads go up. Crap.
Then, his tail wags and he puts his head back down to eat. The does look around and start back eating again. I need to hurry up. I shoulder the gun. It's now 7:50 He's got his head down and looking through the scope, I can make him out pretty good but I wait for him to pick his head up one more time so I can make sure I place the bullet right where I want it. I kick the safety off and squeeze the trigger of that Browning .270 .... he didn't take one step. He piled up like a sack of potatoes.
Widest buck I have killed to date at 17 3/8" inside spread. Processor had digital scales and he weighed 120 field dressed. Real, real happy to have harvested such a beautiful animal.
I hunted Tuesday - Thursday of last week and saw a decent amount of deer but nothing the size of this guy. I gave the area a rest Friday - Sunday until Sunday afternoon.
Hunted yesterday afternoon, had a small buck come across the river behind me and continue on. Then had a couple of does come out below me and I got the feeling they smelled me. I was out of scent killer and was wishing I had gotten some. Right at dark I had a nice buck coming at me head on and it was like someone whispered in his ear to lake a left and get in the thick stuff and I never even got my gun up to look at him.
So last night I made a trip to Wal-Mart and got a bottle of Dead Down Wind. Not sure if that corrected my issue, but I don't think it hurt.
Got up this morning and wanted to get some seat time in before work. I got in the stand about 6:40. At 7AM with just barely enough light to see dark vs. light objects, I saw a deer move about 20 yards from my stand. Did I mention it was dark? LOL. So as I begged for the sun to come on up, I could see bodies of deer moving in the river bottom but that is all I could see, dark images moving around slowly. At about 7:15 I heard what I thought was a deer crossing in the water in the direction of the deer I had seen moving. A much, much larger bodied deer now moved right to left from my vantage point and was headed into some of my shooting lanes. It still was too dark to even make out antlers, just bodies. 7:30 now, I can see better but not perfect. All of a sudden deer start bouncing around, not running away just running in circles and zig zags... he's pushing them. He stops and just starts eating. They do the same. What has become crystal clear is that the deer with it's nose buried in acorns and corn kernels was hardly moving much at all, chowing down and was a buck... a big bodied buck.
7:35 and more daylight now... just need a little more to tell how big antler wise he is. Finally about 7:45 enough light had filtered in to the hard wood bottom and I could tell it was the guy I was looking for. Apparently he likes Mondays. It would be his last.
I had not even lifted my gun out of it's resting place. Those 2 does in there were nervous and so was I. I had at least 6 eyes looking around, might have been more to my right in the thick stuff. I had to be slow and careful. I was hunting in a 2 man ladder stand and had it propped up on the safety rail. I eased it back towards me. Picked it up with one hand, sat up on my boot toe. Rotated it real slowly, watching the does and him for any head snap, anything that told me to stop. I now have the gun facing the right way, I pull the butt up into my top leg, barrel pointed at the sky. His head shoots straight up. He's looking dead my direction. My heart is pounding. He does the sideways head slide, like he sees something... he just stands still for probably 30-45 seconds. The does heads go up. Crap.
Then, his tail wags and he puts his head back down to eat. The does look around and start back eating again. I need to hurry up. I shoulder the gun. It's now 7:50 He's got his head down and looking through the scope, I can make him out pretty good but I wait for him to pick his head up one more time so I can make sure I place the bullet right where I want it. I kick the safety off and squeeze the trigger of that Browning .270 .... he didn't take one step. He piled up like a sack of potatoes.
Widest buck I have killed to date at 17 3/8" inside spread. Processor had digital scales and he weighed 120 field dressed. Real, real happy to have harvested such a beautiful animal.
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