Frustrating Day - Kinda Long
11-12-2007, 06:05 AM
#1
Nontypical Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Iowa (Heartland USA)
Posts: 3,249
Frustrating Day - Kinda Long
Yesterday, my son and I were cutting down trees off the dam when he spotted a HUGE buck chasing a deer 400 yards away. We quickly returned to the house and I put camo on while he watched the buck. The massive 10 pointer stood there on the hillside watching where the doe had entered the underbrush. Winds were right for me to approach from the Northeast. I made my way around to where the buck HAD been. He was gone, I looked back towards the house and my son was pointing to the Southwest of me. I hunkered down and started calling. After a little bit, he stuck his head out of the woods and then started strolling to the Southeast. I backed out and tried to parallel him in that direction. I have a stand in the Southeast corner of the property and was hoping something would slow him down a bit. I got about 40 yards from the stand and saw him standing out in the neighbor's bean field. I knelt down and gave him a doe bleat. He turned and started trotting my direction. He jumped the fence back onto my property and I lost sight of him so I started "ticking". All of a sudden there he was no more than 15 yards from me. He was in the cottontails and I had a clean shot from mid chest up. I drew back and let one rip. He kicked and then trotted off about 30 yards and started limping away. I remained kneeling down for another 10 minutes and then made my way to where he was when I took the shot. Another 20 minutes and I found the arrow in the shallows of the pond. There was fatty tissue on the arrow, but no blood (of course it was in water so I had to ponder whether or not it would have washed off when the arrow went into the water). I circled back around to the house and got my son. We waited a while and made our way back to the last spot I had seen the deer. We searched around the other ponds and nothing. My son went up to the hilltop and stopped dead in his tracks. He motioned for me to get up there. When I arrived, there was a buck chasing a small fork at full speed. The boy told me that the big buck was limping after a doe when the little buck showed up. It was no doubt the buck I had shot at. Disappointed, we started walking back towards the house when I smelled another deer. I told the boy to get down and I knelt next to a pine tree. I bleated a couple of times and a monster stuck his head up. I have seen this magnificant buck a couple of times from a long ways away and my heart started pounding. Tick-Tick-Bleat-Bleat-Bleat. I watched the big buck nonchalantly start our way. I am really getting excited. I hear some rustling in the weeds and think its the boy moving around. I turn my head to tell him to be quiet and what do I see.....There is my son laying face down in the weeds not moving a muscle and a young 6 pointer, who had come up from behind us, head down sniffing my son's leg. This young buck is no more than 8 feet from me and I am crapping my jeans at this point. Too scared to turn my head, I need to see where the monster is, but afraid if I turnmy head the little bugger will alert all the other deer in the area. Then there was a really loud snort and the small buck took off like a rocket and that big bugger was after him like the preverbial fly on ca-ca. My son told me after that he was really scared the buck was going to pounce on him. I tried to reassure him that the deer would not have pounced on him, but may have tried to mount him. (haha) After that didn't see another deer the rest of the evening. Heading back out now to try again.
11-13-2007, 06:18 AM
#8
Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Portage WI/Racine WI
Posts: 2,320
RE: Frustrating Day - Kinda Long
With the exception of the bad/missed shot on your part, I don't think that day could get much more fun. Have three different bucks, two of them monster bucks, within bow range while on the ground on a spur of the moment hunt. That would have to be a blast!
