Saturday night was a great night for my husbands hunt. On the tuesday prior, we had gone out to "clean up" around the stand. It was one we hadn't taken care of yet. Well it paid off. He had many nice shooting lanes to the left and in front of him, but only 1 to the right at 33 yards. I had mentioned to him that if the buck came in from the east, he had plenty of time to get a shot off, but if he came from the west.... no time. Wouldn't you know, the old boy came from the west. My husband heard him raking some branches and making a scrap for sometime.He stood in his stand to get ready for a possible shot. The buck stepped into the window and was going to step on out. My husband gave the old guy a grunt, he stopped looked toward the stand and the arrow flew. There was great blood, red blood and lots of it. When I asked him "how big" before we started tracking, all he said was, "it happened so fast, I didn't even seethe rack, but he looked big. We found him 60 yards away, he had died in a dry creek bed of sand. Explains why he never heard him fall. He ends up being roughly 11 pointer, but has a strange right side antler. Found out from the taxidermist that he at some point had a broken left leg and when that happens, the antler on the opposite side will grow deformed. He turned out to be 6-61/2 years old and about 220 lbs. I couldn't get over the size of his neck. The rut has started in Illinois. Have some great pics, but when I try to load them it says "file to large". If anyone has suggestions as to how to post the pics I would love to share them.
Kathy
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kathy
Take a child hunting, they are the future of our sport.
Another nice Illinois buck down
