Hiall.Got one down Monday night. Ispotted this buck quite a few times last season and this spring Iwas fortunate to securepermission to hunt a small hayfield tract near his core area. Thought I'd try a quick hunt after work which would be more for scouting than anything. Got to the stand about 5:30p.m. A couple minutes went by and a doe came out of the adjacent timber. I let her clear out then I tried a subtle rattle/grunt sequence. Within a minute I had a decent 8 come over the ridge to investigate. He scanned the treeline/ditch I was in and slowlymoved in my way. After a couple minutes he suddenly flipped his head to my right looking behind me. Icarefully looked over my shoulder and saw this big buck coming infrom a notch in the woods around a fencline about 150 yards away with a smaller buck in tow. The two groups of bucks looked at each other from opposite sides of my ditch and seemed to believe that each other was the source of commotion. The big buck was heading right at me at a steady clip and was ready to cross the ditch within 10 yards of me. I drew back, found my anchor, and to my horror realized my peep was twisted! Ugghhh. I couldn't see a thing. I was stunned. I wasn't going to risk a guestimate shot, so I let down while he crossed under me. I didn't bother to mouth grunt as I didn't want him to pinpoint me. I quickly and carefully fixed my peep but by that time he was out of the ditch and on the other side of the brush and was posturing the smaller buck away. He began to head away from my stand and as he did, the two smaller bucks began to spar. He continued on his way.As he was about 50 yards out, I grunted to him a couple times. He stopped and looked but may have thought it was the smaller bucks and didn't seem interested. He began heading into the woods so I decided to give him an aggressivesnort wheeze and as I did, I could see him bristle up and turn back and begin walking stiff-leggedmy way. He stopped at a huge ground scrape 35 yards down the ditch from me and begin tearing up the dirt. I had a small opening, and as he lifted his head to the licking branch I let one fly and connected. He spun around and headed for the woods jumping the fence as the other deer scattered as well. I backed out for an hour and returned to find the back half of my arrow at the fence. I picked up a decent blood trail. He had stopped about 15 yards into the woods and the blood was pouring out. I found him down 30 yards later.
Mainframe 8 with 3 kickers off the G2's and 3's with 5 1/2" bases and a 21" spread. Big fat neck. I'm absolutely thrilled at having a chance at this guy after scouting him for over a year. Sorry I couldn't get any pics at the kill site, but it was a solo hunt on a work night, and by the time I got him dressed and loaded it was late, so the pics are from my house. Good luck to all you guys this year. The big boys are starting to move!
God Bless Iowa....again.
