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This Sat. marked 1 year to the day that I killed my best buck ever, A nice 8pt. I havent hunted the stand I took him out of since that day and decided awhile back that I was going to hunt there this Sat morning and see if I could make it 2 in 2 years. Well things got off to a bad start as I was in the woods well before daylight and could not find my loc-on. I came in on an old logging road and the stand was at the end of the road then about 30 yards into the woods on the right. After searching for it for several minutes I began to get frustrated and started to sweat. I decided to back out and wait until daybreak to come back. Well I waited for about 30 minutes and as the sun started to rise I rentered the woods and finally found my stand. I was about 20 yards off from it when I was looking earlier. Well, I get settled and all was calm until about 8:00. I had a hen roosted behind me and she flew down and startled me pretty good. It was in the mid-thirties Sat morning and even though I had dressed for it, I was still pretty chilly. At around 9:30 I was sitting there with my hands in my pocket thinking about thet buck that I had killed last year and how cold I was. I came out of my daydream and looked to my right and there not even 15 yards away stood a deer. As he turned I saw that it was a buck, a very nice buck! I never heard anything and it was like he just appeared. Needless to say he caught me off gaurd and all I could think about was standing up and getting my bow. I got stood up with no problem and if I would have just waited for him to make his next move I probably would have been ok. Instead I immediatley went for my bow and as I looked around the tree he was starring right at me. He didnt wait around to see what was going on. He turned tail and was gone right back where he came from. I was heart broken. I know I made some rookie mistakes but hind site is 20\20. My question is how and when should I hunt this buck now? I have never hunted 1 particuler buck before but I have set my mind on taking him. The area he is in is about 50 acres with about 10 of that being a thick cutover that is his bedding area. I am the only 1 that hunts this 50 acres but the ajoining land is hunted pretty hard by rifle hunters. What would your next move be to try to harvest this buck? After this coming weekend I will be in Ohio for the next 2 weekends and wont be able to hunt this area again until the weekend of Nov 11th.
I apologize for the lengthy post but I am really excited to have seen a buck of this caliber and to have the opportunity to hunt him, even though I blew it and have educated him a little.[/align]__________________
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