RE: Hunting Battle of the Midwest (Trophy Room)
Wow, I finally got logged on !
Thanks Big Country for posting my photo and the score of my Illinois archery buck.
Here's how my story goes:
Up in a tree on a crisp November morning, it was just me and my Ol' Man. I was situated in a draw, next to a creek with large fields on either side. Hot doe, tail flagging high, up past just after first light. Calm for about a 1/2 hour or so, then it begins. A doe (assuming the same one) and a scrubby young buck come running down the field edge where the doe had disappeared earlier. I glass them both in disappointment, when into my sites he walks. He cuts off the young buck and stares down the doe as they stand at the edge of the woods 60-70 yards away. Something spokes the big buck, so he bounds down the bank and into the creek bed and stops; now 40 yards away (No shot). It seems like hours as I quietly ready my bow. The big buck starts forward, then hesitates as he lets out a snort-wheez that sends steam flowing from his nostrils and starts my adrenalin pumping. The doe starts prancing around and the big buck moves forward. I stop him with a doe bleat....THWACK........I watched as the big buck bounded back into the field and headed for a gully. He laid down within 50 yards for a minute or two, then back up and around the knoll out of site. Saw another buck while I waited in the tree. Then had another buck come in on me, when I was retreiving my arrow and marking the blood trail beginning. Went and got my buddies, came back and followed the trail and you see him as I found him laying beside a shrub and some trees in the gully of the field. What a RUSH !