Happy anniversary to you & your wife. My wife conned me into marrying her on Oct. 1st which is opening day of Illinois bow season. But thus far its worked to my advantage. We've made it a tradition to spend that day afield together every year.

Hey Honey, I took time off of work for our anniversary and the kids' Birthdays! Go ahead and sleep in...I'll just get a couple hours in the stand since I'm home anyways.

Went out this morning with the rifle and took an average buck. Might score around 125, i got a little too antsy. But it is back to rut hunting with a bow tomarrow, i would rather hunt with a bow anyway.

Congrats Marty! Way to go. Now tell us the story & show us the pics. 8)

Nice job sd! Lets hear the story.

What a disappointing afternoon sit. Went out about 2:30 and decided with the wind to try a different piece of the property that I've only walked on twice this year. So no disruption of that area that I know of. Found an evergreen tree, cut out an area on the ground, put the decoy out in the winter wheat and got settled in. Didn't see anything til about 6 o clock. Does started coming in the field acting real suspicious of the decoy. Then it all broke loose. Guessing 100 rounds of gunfire, screaming and hollering, 4 wheelers tearing around to the east of me. All the deer just took off on dead sprints. What the heck????? Put 2 and 2 together and realized that Nebraska must have won and the neighbors had 1 hell of a party. Driving out I seen I was correct. Alot of people out there. What a waste of an opportunity!!!

Ok heres the story, i pulled up to the end of the dirt road about an 1 hour before shooting light, another pickup pulls up and parks behind me about 5 minutes later. A 12 year old hunter and one of his dads buddies steps out. I guess this boy is the nephew of the landowner. There is two half sections to hunt in this particular spot, since he was an excited young man with antlers glowing in his eyes i told them they could have first pick and i would go the opposite way. As luck would have it they went right where i wanted to go. They only sat there about an hour and then walked back to the pickup and left. He got 2 shots off but i didnt see them drag anything back to the pickup so i slowly made my way to where they were. this spot is on the corner of the pasture and borders a unharvested sunflower field. i got to the fenceline that runs along a creek and has scattered timber and brome grass around it leading to the sunflower field where i seen tons of deer walk into several different mornings. At about 11:00 i heard a buck rubbing trees down in the creek bottom. At 11:30 i turned to see this buck coming out of the bottom, following the fencline to the sunflowers. I seen him about the time he seen me so i knew i didnt have much time. I seen he was fairly wide and looked good so i swung the 7mm rem. mag around, put the crosshairs on his heart and let the thunder roll. The buck sky rocketed in the air and hopped the fence and bit the dust about 20 yards later. After i walked up to him i noticed some severe ground shrinkage. I am still very proud of him but i need to learn to stop and observe a little bit more and not get so trigger happy.

Very nice Marty! Cool picture too. Youre one deer killin mofo.

went out with the bow this evening, the weatherman lied to me about the wind but i didnt spook any deer anyway. I did see one buck chasing a doe on top of the draw i was in. it was actually kinda fun to watch. He was trotting around with his nose to the ground and grunting with every step like he was tuff ****. He was a "decent buck" kinda like the one i got with the rifle, but i still wish big hoss would have showed up and proved who was king of the creek lol.

I got back from Ohio last night. I still haven't had any luck out there yet. My father took this buck on Friday evening. It scores 150 5/8", 10 point. It's his biggest buck to date. It was a hard quartering away shot. He hit the liver going in and broke the off shoulder. The Muzzy never came out.
He said he's never shot a deer that shot blood out of it instantly. He ran about 40 yards and piled up.