You know, after spending just over 20 years sitting in a tree bowhunting, I heard something new last evening. So far this year I haven't hunted my "honey hole" tree so yesterday afternoon I hung the stand. I was all set up around 3:00 and settled in. My treeestand is in a white pine that overlooks a heavily overgrown CRP field that borders a cornfield. For those of you that have been on this site for a while, you've heard me refer to this treestand several times the last 6 or so years. I digress,

Around 4:20 I hear this "whhheww" or "sneeeeze" or whatever the heck it was about 6 continous times. A pause and then again for 2 times. Now this noise is only about 60 yards or so away in the CRP field but I can't see anything. It's not the noise of a deer blowing at you but more of the sound of a snort/wheeze without the /wheeze. Trust me, I've heard enough darn deer blow at me to know that sound. I sit and watch the area and don't see anything. I figure there is a deer bedded there and perahps it's sneezing. After several minutes I called, first buck grunts then a couple contact calls. It wasn't 10 minutes or so that I spot the shrubery moving and see antler tips.....The pulse rate quickens a bit. I grabbed the binos and identify a buck. A respectable 7 pt but not a shooter for me this year. As he worked across the CRP field through the underbrush I grunted to him again...this got his attention. He worked over to the cornfield, turned and came right to me. At 28 yards he pauses looking for me (the buck that grunted) and I drew, placed the 30 yard pin low on his heart and......whispered, "I win" and slowly let the bow down and hung it up. I glassed him for a while admiring the amazing animal that they are and he walks into the hedge row I'm sitting above....

At this point I hear him..."wheeze" or "sneeze" again for 2 consecutive times confirming it was him indeed that I had heard in the brush. Now in 20 years of bowhunting I assumed I heard every noise a deer could make....

Do you suppose he was simply clearing his nostrils like we would or a dog would. I don't think he was sneezing but it sounded more like he was just blowing his runny nose clear. Suppose that's right?

Again it was a snort/wheeze without the wheeze. I found it interesting.