This is my 5th season of my short bow hunting career and 4 seasons of tag soup and passing younger bucks finally paid off on the evening of Oct. 30th.
I pulled a cam card that had been over a hot scrape for 3 weeks as I climbed into the tree that night. To my surprise I had a great split G2 buck that I had never seen on the farm and he instantly made the Hit List. He looked to be a 4 and 1/2 year old at least and was a deer I couldn't pass. So we climbed up in the tree on the edge of a beanfield where the wind was blowing us over a deep ditch and had another ditch running SE/NW up to our tree. My brother and I were in the tree and set up with the camera around 3pm and tyring to determine what we would call this new buck on the farm while also trying to hold on to the tree. If you were hunting in Southern Iowa on Friday evening you know the wind was brutal and I was glad we were in a monster oak tree. Between scanning our surroundings and holding on to the tree we came up with SlingBlade as a name. He has a deep split G2 that looked like a sling shot and the opposite G2 is heavily bladed, thus SlingBlade.
At about 4 o'clock we had 5 does enter the bean field 200 yards to the south of us, we were pumped to see early action. At about 4:15 we did a grunting/rattling sequence but with the wind I don't know that anything even heard. The does didn't even lift their heads from eating so we just continued to cling to the tree.
At 4:40 I turned to look over my shoulder and check out the direction that we least expected deer to come from....well wouldn't you know it this guy came in from the area least expected. When I saw him he was no more than 20 yards out and coming directly to our tree. At 14 yards he turned to the south giving me a quartering away shot with the wind in our favor. The shot hit the mark and lodged in the off-side shoulder. He went 50 yards and tipped over. I found it odd that the buck came in with the wind at his back.....I didn't figure a mature buck to do that. I guess this is my answer to "does a mature deer always travel with the wind to his nose?" from THA4's post the other day.
My brother got a short bit of footage prior to the shot and also got him going down on film. It was an amazing experience and to share it with my brother made it that much better. It is featured on on the Iowa page of Midwest Whitetail check it out if you get a chance,
http://www.midwestwhitetail.com/gall...s-go-time.html. I will be in the tree throughout the remainder of the rut trying to get my Brother on a mature whitetail on film. Good luck to you all the rest of the season!!!
Sling Blade goes down! On Film!
