Broke one of my major rules and it cost me

[hunting170]

Flashback to last Thursday evening...I didn`t have time to hunt so huntingATM, and I, drove out to check out some of the property we hunt. At 4:30 we pulled up to a 20 acre cut corn field that had 23 deer feeding in it. One was a giant of a 10 point, that somehow managed to live through the seven day firearms season. He was already in the middle of the field so we had no way of knowing where he entered it.

Same thing on Friday evening only this time we got there in time to see him in the southeast corner of the field. The cornfield has woods on the east side of it, cut beans on the south, a small woods and more cut corn across the county road to the north, and fescue and crp to the west. I have a stand in a small grove of big oak trees between the field the deer were in, and the fescue. It`s not the best stand for killing deer, but I can see any deer that moves in that section unless it is in the woods to the east. Before it got too dark to see, the buck I was watching was headed directly for some does that were feeding under my stand.

No deer showed up on Saturday evening, and I didn`t have time to check it on Sunday, or Monday. Yesterday morning I hunted a different area, and killed a small doe. Planning my evening hunt I thought I should take my climber in, and hunt the woods, near the southeast corner of the cut corn where I thought the big 10 would come from. Well I didn`t do that. Instead I chose to sit in the "observation" stand to see if the big 10 was still in the area. At around 3:30 six bucks step out of the woods, about 1/4 mile away, across the bean field to the south. The big 10 wasn`t with them, but the biggest six point buck I have ever seen was. It took them about an hour to feed their way into the woods on the east side of the cornfield I was watching. With 10-15 minutes of shooting light left the group of bucks entered the field, right where I thought about hanging my climber. I knew rattling would be pointless, so I just watched them until they cleared the field at dark:30.

I knew better than to do this. I have always told myself to hunt aggressively in the late season. Enough things, beyond your control, go wrong during the season. Making a stupid mental mistake like this hurts worse than all of them. Chances at bucks like these two are few and far between. I still have three weeks to see if I can get another chance.

[hunting170]

Went back to the same spot this evening, but I was in a stand where I should have been yesterday. Saw around 30 deer including a couple pretty good bucks. They stayed to the south tonight though. The two big boys never showed. I guess this will be my spot to hunt with a south, or southeast wind for the remainder of the season. I heard two rifle shots right around dark. I may be hunting one less big buck now.

[Triton X2]

This saga is beginning to take on the personna of PoisonSnake. What do your ears look like?

[hunting170]

I talked to my father-in-law this morning, and he said the second biggest buck he has ever seen came from the area described above, and ran past his ground blind yesterday evening. His blind is about 1/2 mile from there, and there is mostly just open fields between the two spots. Apparently it, and three smaller bucks were spooked by hunters. They covered that 1/2 mile, and kept running at least another 1/2 mile before they were out of his sight. Looks like I`ll have some incentive for shed hunting now.

He also said he killed a nice doe last week, that turned out to be a small buck that had already shed its antlers.

One more thing...that six point is bigger than anything I have ever seen you post hero pictures of SAMCRO.