Well yesterday my hunting season came to a close. The final curtain was awesome and fires me up for next year which is about 255 days away. I hunted for the first year with a longbow, a homemade one I call "sliverslinger". I've usually used recurves for traditional hunting. I hunted especially hard the late season knowing the clock was ticking and the fact that I had two buck tags as well as two doe tags in my pocket. I'd gotten the buck tags from having taken does earlier during the general gun season.
Also I always thought it would be great to hunt hard the season and take a whitetail on the very last day. I've taken a few late in December but never on the last day.
I've seen very few deer during this late season, as gun hunting was open in my area up until the end as well and deer were remaining spooked.
Dec. 30. I had a P&Y 140-150 class whitetail walk by just out of range. He was 80-90 yards out. My muzzleloader would've dropped the curtain on him but my accuracy goes south with the longbow after 30 yards. But it fired me up for the final days of the season.
Yesterday afternoon I *****footed into the corner of a 10-15 acre mature maple timber, very open with little understory. I set up my lone wolf climber and quietly went up 18 feet. This climber is awesome, I just bought it early in December. It amazes be how quiet and rock solid it is. Its the fifth climber I've had in my 30 years of bowhunting and nothing else has came close to comparing to this stand.
It was a quiet peaceful afternoon, though dark with overcast. Just before quitting time as a flock of turkeys were taking roost a 100 yards away, I heard the leaves ruslting.
Here came the deer.
Three does walked past at 35 yards headed to feed in a picked soybean field. Just out of range. Every several minutes a couple more deer came (eight total) and I'd be hoping they would be a bit closer. But they all walked the same path. They seemed to be coming in waves. The last five deer were all bucks. The first four bucks were smaller bucks. The last one was a good five to seven minutes behind the wave in front of it, it had a bigger body and looked like a lot of white on his head, but it was getting to dark to see good by then. Actually the season was over after the second set of two bucks came by.
As I walk back to my vehicle I thought what a great way to end a season, having the whitetails parade past. What a memory to hold on to until next season. And the memories are the greatest trophies of all!
Happy Hunting
Dan