Today was just one of "those" days that happens every once in a while. I woke up at 4:15am, showered and loaded up my car. (Yes, I said car. ) I arrived at the farm around 5am and got my gear unloaded. However I had a problem. Unknowingly I had left my ASAT 3D jacket and my Scent Lok pants at home. So I made the best of the situation and headed to my stand with ASAT 3D pants and my Scent Lok Savanna jacket. I began the short hike to my stand and quickly realized I had forgotten to grab my HSS safety vest. Went back to the car only to find that I had left that as home as well. Thankfully I had my trusty old backup harness that came with my treestand. I quickly untangled the mess and got myself into the harness. Finally I made my way to my stand location and was comfortably settled into my tree stand by 5:40am.

The woods were unusually quiet until daybreak then there were squirrels, chipmunks and turkeys all over the place. Around 8am I caught some movement about 60 yards to my left and what I could clearly see was the backside of a deer. I was about 15 yards off a well used trail and I knew that this deer would eventually pass by me so I stood up in my stand, grabbed my bow and prepared for the encounter.

Just as expected the deer continued working in my direction and ultimately ended up giving me a nice quartering away shot at 17 yards. My arrow hit it's mark and took out 1 lung and the heart before exiting in front of the opposite shoulder. The deer kicked up it's back legs and took off and ran about 20 yards then came to a stop, wobbled a little and fell to the ground. I was so excited I had to sit down and wait until my legs stopped shaking.

After about 10 minutes I stood up to start descending the tree when I again caught movement. This time a very nice mature doe came down the same trail and got my blood pumping again. But I relaxed and just watched her meander by. About 10 minutes after she passed I descended my tree and recovered my deer. This is when I found out it was actually a button buck. We were just talking about button bucks at work yesterday and I had told my co-workers that in all my 18 years of hunting I had never taken a button buck. Well, as of today that has officially changed.

Not only was I happy but so was the farmer. He's had so much housing built around his farm the deer have taken refuge on his land and are eating his crops. I told him I'd be back with half of whatever I got back from the butcher. And as I am typing this I just got the call from the butcher to let me know he's been processed and is ready for pickup.

Sorry, no photos from the field. Unfortunately that got left at home too. [&:] My wife took this one for me after I got home.