2003 was not nearly as action packed as 2002 for me, but I did have an exciting experience.....it went like this;
I shot a 148", 14 point @ 7:15am. Hit him thru both lungs. Watched him run 40 yards and drop. Right afterwards I had a mature doe and a spike come by eating acorns. I sat patiently waiting for the deer to vacate the area before I made my decent.
Once the coast was clear, I climbed down and headed out the way I had came in earlier that morning. As soon as I topped the ridge I saw the tops of antlers coming my direction so I just laid down. I was hunting a private ranch and knew that other bowhunters in my camp would love to hunt this stand, as it was a HOT one and didn't want to alert every deer in the woods to it's location. At approx. 40 yards, I could tell that the buck was a respectable 100", 1 1/2 old. He slowly worked the direction of the trail I now inhabited. I decided that I would see how he would react to a grunt tube. Now lying on my side I blew on the grunt tube twice. The buck threw his head up and ran my direction within 20 yards, stopped and started pawing the ground. He had not pinpointed me at this time so I hit the grunt again. This time, he looked right at me grunted and took a couple of steps back and dropped his head. I rolled over on my stomach and slowly rose to all fours, snort wheezed and pawed at the ground. It was hilarious! He just looked at me like I was crazy. He stood there for about a minute turned and headed back the way he came. Little did I know that he just went for re-inforcements!! He came charging back within 20 yards but this time had a 140" 8 point with him. They both looked at me confused so I just remainded on all fours. I have to admit that I did become a little concerned! I didn't really know what I was going to do if they decided they wanted a piece of me. Finally, after a minute or two, I stood up and they hightailed it out of there. The good news was, even though they saw me, I was probably 100 yards from my stand and there were two more bucks killed out of that stand in the next two weeks. A 155" 12 point and a 160" 10 point.