10 point in Georgia
12-21-2005, 05:29 AM
#2
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Georgia
Posts: 93
RE: 10 point in Georgia
Here the story that goes with it..
The 10-point
The day started out like every other exciting morning during hunting season in November. Your eyes opening up around 0415 before the alarm goes off. The unsteady night of sleep in anticipation for a great hunting day that waited. I started to get ready for some of my hunting partners to wakeup and arrive at camp. The coffee pot was turned on to brew the morning cup of Chattahoochee mud.
Some discussion starts about yesterday’s hunting action and the wind that accompanied the hunt. The weather was still cold, but the wind had slowed down enough to build a small fire to huddle around before the morning adventure. The chatter of the other members about where everyone would hunt that morning would determine the outcome that was to reveal itself. As these discussions were taking place, my thoughts were about a deer rub line that was not used for about 12 days. But, just a day or 2 ago, I noticed that what size deer who knows, visited it. With the amount of deer that have been seen over the past week by other members of our club, your mind always wonders.
After the morning talk, everyone slowly made their way out to the woods by trucks, 4 wheelers and by foot. I myself had warmed my truck up about 30 minutes prior to my exit due to the ice that had formed on the windshield. Yes, like I said it was cold but at least the wind had calmed down some. As I drove to where my hunting day would start, which consisted of 2 entry ways about 100 yards apart, I drove past the first entrance making my way to the 2nd entrance. I had set into my mind prior to leaving camp, that I would try and out smart the deer by parking at the 2nd entrance and walk back to the first gate. This was done because of the amount of tracks that have been found close to where I would have parked my vehicle if using the first gate.
My vehicle slowed and then stopped at the place I was going to park. I slowly suited up with my equipment for the days hunt. I was already dressed with the clothes that the wife had bought me a few years back with a couple of assorted other things. I remembered that one of my friends loaned me a tri-pod stool to use instead of my strategically placed 5 gallon buckets already in the area. This way I would not make any unnecessary noise and unwanted movement adjusting the buckets. I wanted the area to look as it did while I had slept that morning. This way it might not arouse the suspicions of the deer. As I slung the stool over my back and proceeded to my adventure, I started to walk towards today’s destiny that waited.
This brought back great memories of one of the finest men I know ”My dad”. He always, that I can remember, took me on many hunting trips over to Grandpa’s or my 2nd oldest brothers house. We, also while growing up, did a lot of camping with Ma, my younger brother and along time ago with my sister, which I enjoyed so much. This also brought to memory of my other brother and wishing we could be hunting together today. There are always times that jolt ones memories about the fun we always had as a family. I believed today would be one of them but it would be alone. The yearning that a family member would be along would be missed. None of us has hunted with each other for quite sometime. The last hunting trip with a family member came was when brother Bob was along. We used to sit together a lot because the stories we would revisit while waiting on action to take place. These small whispers made hunting very enjoyable. During these times with my brother, he would love to hunt with his radio. This consisted of a small Budweiser can radio. This used to make other hunters think on how you could listen to a radio and hunt. But we did it anyway. We actually got lucky and harvested a doe one time during a hunt. But that is another story.
I approached the first gate and went in. The only noise that I was going to let these deer know was the sound of me loading my Remington 308 742 semi-auto that my father had given me. I place the clip into the gun, pulled back the receiver bolt and click click, it was ready. I said quietly to myself, here I come for a great day and all you deer better keep your heads down. It is always nice to reassure oneself when hunting. This makes you enjoy all of the things that happen while you’re in the woods and not to just worry about deer. My movements moved me toward the trail line created by these fine creatures and admire so much. After only a short distance and I placed myself on the 3 legged stool. I kept my blue and yellow school backpack on that my daughter had giving me. I wanted to be sure that not to much noise would come about. I made a note of the time and it was 0630.
As the moon was going down and the sun was already starting to rise, I could see my breath form little clouds. My nose was trying to freeze up and knew soon the woods would be alive in a matter of a few minutes. As I looked towards the deer rubs that were on a small cedar tree followed in line by a small pine, I spied some movement. This turned out to be a bird stretching its wings for its morning song. Everyone hunter knows the crow song. The sun slowly rose and the shadows of the trees danced smaller but the cold weather was still here.
The time now had reached 0815 and my feet seemed a little cold, so I moved my toes inside my hunting boots. This seemed to help some but they were still cold. I thought to myself that maybe I might need to sit on the other side of the deer line of rubbed trees. So I lifted myself up from the stool and slowly slung it back onto my backpack. My movements were at a snails pace to cross over the path towards the other side. Approaching to where I thought I might place myself, I decided within a second to continue down the trail towards one of my box stands.
I slowly came up to my box stand that is probably about 75yards from my original attack zone I decided on that morning. My feet seemed to be warming up with the sneak like walk that I had used during my movement. Now that I was at the box blind I decided to not go into the box but to stand next to it. This way no extra noise would come about with movement inside of the blind. I had looked down at the time again and it was now 0840.
Feeling a bit dumb for moving and a little depressed due to no movement of deer being seen, I made another decision. A lot of thoughts do cross ones mind while out hunting so you do things that are not really advised. But hunting is hunting as long as I’m in the woods. I was going to move a small tree that blocked an old path that made its way down a hill towards on of my friend’s fathers blind. Once this tree was moved out of the path, and I might say I moved it very quietly, I was determined to go back to my original spot. Having a bad habit of smoking, I lit a smoke and slowed down to almost a stop while puffing on it. I looked at my watch and it was 0900. I hot boxed the rest of the cig, put it out and place the cig butt in my pocket. As I slowly went back passed the box blind, my thoughts reminded me of a time when I was hunting on the move at another hunting club. I had a pager with me and it went off while walking and hunting. It made a deer jump up, run a little way from me and turn. That was all he would see ever again.
During this thought that had raced thru my mind I was interrupted by another noise, the grunt of a deer. I was almost back to where I had started to hunt that morning. I heard another grunt then some crashing of branches and the sound of a deer running away. Yes the depression set in. Why couldn’t I have waited to have that smoke or to move? So I stood there, still, for about 5 minutes. Then I heard the running of a deer coming towards me. A small 4-point buck popped up over a little embankment and stopped in front of me. He was only about 5 yards and staring right at me trying to determine what I was.
This is when the excitement begins. As this deer was eye to eye with me almost, another grunt was heard. This did not come out of the little deer in front of me but over the little hill. The 4-point turned his head and ran toward the grunt noise. As soon as the deer went out of sight I slowly but quickly made my way right behind the deer toward the embankment. I stopped short of going over the hill.
As I approached this spot I started to witness something that I had never seen before. The 4-point was making a huge sweeping turn thru the thick under brush to the right about 20 –25 yards or so. He gracefully kept his head high above the under growth so he would not be caught in any of it to slow his pace. Then I heard another grunt. I scanned the area to see what was grunting and only could make out a large brown patch, which I determined to be a deer. I could not see exactly what or how big at this time the animal that stood there. I brought my attention back to the 4-point that now was running at the brown patch. As the smaller deer was almost on top of the brown patch, it moved. My eyes became wide with excitement due to seeing a large rack now above the brown image. As the bigger deer moved, it lowered its head and hoisted the 4 point into the air and threw him about 10 yards. The smaller deer landed with a large thud and the air within this animal rushed out like hearing a big ouch like noise. I was amazed at this action before my eyes. I quickly had put my scope onto the bigger animal but the thickness of the brush made this deer impossible to see. I swung my rifle back onto the 4 point that was slowly getting up and noticed another amazing thing, a 6-point buck standing behind the smaller deer taking in all this action. This had me shaking my head saying, “ I can’t believe this”. The smaller deer headed towards me again and came to a stop to my left 5 yards from me again. Now this was exciting and very depressing at the same time. The excitement was for what I had just seen and the depression of what might happen of all the deer running away. I slowly swung my gun towards where that brown patch horned deer was. It now started to move towards the 6 point that had stood watching so proudly. There was no rush and the 6-point started towards the big brown patch. Finally the brown patch came clear and I could see that this deer was a fine specimen. It was still in heavy cover so I could not take a shot at this animal. The 6-point and this graceful deer locked horns for only a few seconds, which produced the 6-point running away from him. He now turned his attention back to the 4-point and slowly turned towards me. This was the moment I had been waiting for. Although he was walking right towards me I had full view of this animal. I was very confident that I could make this shot on this deer moving towards me. He was 20 yards away and then he stopped. He looked right at me lifted his head slightly to get a sniff. I had held my gun steady and peered thru my scope at his heart. The time now was 0920.
The deer and I have understandings on life and death. This deer was so graceful at what he did I almost didn’t shoot. This is what I was out in the woods hunting for to begin with. I will always have his prideful horns and will always treasure these for as long as I live. The back n forth of emotions that day and what had happened will always be with me. These are some of things that happen while hunting and making things so enjoyable to me.
11-18-2005
The 10-point
The day started out like every other exciting morning during hunting season in November. Your eyes opening up around 0415 before the alarm goes off. The unsteady night of sleep in anticipation for a great hunting day that waited. I started to get ready for some of my hunting partners to wakeup and arrive at camp. The coffee pot was turned on to brew the morning cup of Chattahoochee mud.
Some discussion starts about yesterday’s hunting action and the wind that accompanied the hunt. The weather was still cold, but the wind had slowed down enough to build a small fire to huddle around before the morning adventure. The chatter of the other members about where everyone would hunt that morning would determine the outcome that was to reveal itself. As these discussions were taking place, my thoughts were about a deer rub line that was not used for about 12 days. But, just a day or 2 ago, I noticed that what size deer who knows, visited it. With the amount of deer that have been seen over the past week by other members of our club, your mind always wonders.
After the morning talk, everyone slowly made their way out to the woods by trucks, 4 wheelers and by foot. I myself had warmed my truck up about 30 minutes prior to my exit due to the ice that had formed on the windshield. Yes, like I said it was cold but at least the wind had calmed down some. As I drove to where my hunting day would start, which consisted of 2 entry ways about 100 yards apart, I drove past the first entrance making my way to the 2nd entrance. I had set into my mind prior to leaving camp, that I would try and out smart the deer by parking at the 2nd entrance and walk back to the first gate. This was done because of the amount of tracks that have been found close to where I would have parked my vehicle if using the first gate.
My vehicle slowed and then stopped at the place I was going to park. I slowly suited up with my equipment for the days hunt. I was already dressed with the clothes that the wife had bought me a few years back with a couple of assorted other things. I remembered that one of my friends loaned me a tri-pod stool to use instead of my strategically placed 5 gallon buckets already in the area. This way I would not make any unnecessary noise and unwanted movement adjusting the buckets. I wanted the area to look as it did while I had slept that morning. This way it might not arouse the suspicions of the deer. As I slung the stool over my back and proceeded to my adventure, I started to walk towards today’s destiny that waited.
This brought back great memories of one of the finest men I know ”My dad”. He always, that I can remember, took me on many hunting trips over to Grandpa’s or my 2nd oldest brothers house. We, also while growing up, did a lot of camping with Ma, my younger brother and along time ago with my sister, which I enjoyed so much. This also brought to memory of my other brother and wishing we could be hunting together today. There are always times that jolt ones memories about the fun we always had as a family. I believed today would be one of them but it would be alone. The yearning that a family member would be along would be missed. None of us has hunted with each other for quite sometime. The last hunting trip with a family member came was when brother Bob was along. We used to sit together a lot because the stories we would revisit while waiting on action to take place. These small whispers made hunting very enjoyable. During these times with my brother, he would love to hunt with his radio. This consisted of a small Budweiser can radio. This used to make other hunters think on how you could listen to a radio and hunt. But we did it anyway. We actually got lucky and harvested a doe one time during a hunt. But that is another story.
I approached the first gate and went in. The only noise that I was going to let these deer know was the sound of me loading my Remington 308 742 semi-auto that my father had given me. I place the clip into the gun, pulled back the receiver bolt and click click, it was ready. I said quietly to myself, here I come for a great day and all you deer better keep your heads down. It is always nice to reassure oneself when hunting. This makes you enjoy all of the things that happen while you’re in the woods and not to just worry about deer. My movements moved me toward the trail line created by these fine creatures and admire so much. After only a short distance and I placed myself on the 3 legged stool. I kept my blue and yellow school backpack on that my daughter had giving me. I wanted to be sure that not to much noise would come about. I made a note of the time and it was 0630.
As the moon was going down and the sun was already starting to rise, I could see my breath form little clouds. My nose was trying to freeze up and knew soon the woods would be alive in a matter of a few minutes. As I looked towards the deer rubs that were on a small cedar tree followed in line by a small pine, I spied some movement. This turned out to be a bird stretching its wings for its morning song. Everyone hunter knows the crow song. The sun slowly rose and the shadows of the trees danced smaller but the cold weather was still here.
The time now had reached 0815 and my feet seemed a little cold, so I moved my toes inside my hunting boots. This seemed to help some but they were still cold. I thought to myself that maybe I might need to sit on the other side of the deer line of rubbed trees. So I lifted myself up from the stool and slowly slung it back onto my backpack. My movements were at a snails pace to cross over the path towards the other side. Approaching to where I thought I might place myself, I decided within a second to continue down the trail towards one of my box stands.
I slowly came up to my box stand that is probably about 75yards from my original attack zone I decided on that morning. My feet seemed to be warming up with the sneak like walk that I had used during my movement. Now that I was at the box blind I decided to not go into the box but to stand next to it. This way no extra noise would come about with movement inside of the blind. I had looked down at the time again and it was now 0840.
Feeling a bit dumb for moving and a little depressed due to no movement of deer being seen, I made another decision. A lot of thoughts do cross ones mind while out hunting so you do things that are not really advised. But hunting is hunting as long as I’m in the woods. I was going to move a small tree that blocked an old path that made its way down a hill towards on of my friend’s fathers blind. Once this tree was moved out of the path, and I might say I moved it very quietly, I was determined to go back to my original spot. Having a bad habit of smoking, I lit a smoke and slowed down to almost a stop while puffing on it. I looked at my watch and it was 0900. I hot boxed the rest of the cig, put it out and place the cig butt in my pocket. As I slowly went back passed the box blind, my thoughts reminded me of a time when I was hunting on the move at another hunting club. I had a pager with me and it went off while walking and hunting. It made a deer jump up, run a little way from me and turn. That was all he would see ever again.
During this thought that had raced thru my mind I was interrupted by another noise, the grunt of a deer. I was almost back to where I had started to hunt that morning. I heard another grunt then some crashing of branches and the sound of a deer running away. Yes the depression set in. Why couldn’t I have waited to have that smoke or to move? So I stood there, still, for about 5 minutes. Then I heard the running of a deer coming towards me. A small 4-point buck popped up over a little embankment and stopped in front of me. He was only about 5 yards and staring right at me trying to determine what I was.
This is when the excitement begins. As this deer was eye to eye with me almost, another grunt was heard. This did not come out of the little deer in front of me but over the little hill. The 4-point turned his head and ran toward the grunt noise. As soon as the deer went out of sight I slowly but quickly made my way right behind the deer toward the embankment. I stopped short of going over the hill.
As I approached this spot I started to witness something that I had never seen before. The 4-point was making a huge sweeping turn thru the thick under brush to the right about 20 –25 yards or so. He gracefully kept his head high above the under growth so he would not be caught in any of it to slow his pace. Then I heard another grunt. I scanned the area to see what was grunting and only could make out a large brown patch, which I determined to be a deer. I could not see exactly what or how big at this time the animal that stood there. I brought my attention back to the 4-point that now was running at the brown patch. As the smaller deer was almost on top of the brown patch, it moved. My eyes became wide with excitement due to seeing a large rack now above the brown image. As the bigger deer moved, it lowered its head and hoisted the 4 point into the air and threw him about 10 yards. The smaller deer landed with a large thud and the air within this animal rushed out like hearing a big ouch like noise. I was amazed at this action before my eyes. I quickly had put my scope onto the bigger animal but the thickness of the brush made this deer impossible to see. I swung my rifle back onto the 4 point that was slowly getting up and noticed another amazing thing, a 6-point buck standing behind the smaller deer taking in all this action. This had me shaking my head saying, “ I can’t believe this”. The smaller deer headed towards me again and came to a stop to my left 5 yards from me again. Now this was exciting and very depressing at the same time. The excitement was for what I had just seen and the depression of what might happen of all the deer running away. I slowly swung my gun towards where that brown patch horned deer was. It now started to move towards the 6 point that had stood watching so proudly. There was no rush and the 6-point started towards the big brown patch. Finally the brown patch came clear and I could see that this deer was a fine specimen. It was still in heavy cover so I could not take a shot at this animal. The 6-point and this graceful deer locked horns for only a few seconds, which produced the 6-point running away from him. He now turned his attention back to the 4-point and slowly turned towards me. This was the moment I had been waiting for. Although he was walking right towards me I had full view of this animal. I was very confident that I could make this shot on this deer moving towards me. He was 20 yards away and then he stopped. He looked right at me lifted his head slightly to get a sniff. I had held my gun steady and peered thru my scope at his heart. The time now was 0920.
The deer and I have understandings on life and death. This deer was so graceful at what he did I almost didn’t shoot. This is what I was out in the woods hunting for to begin with. I will always have his prideful horns and will always treasure these for as long as I live. The back n forth of emotions that day and what had happened will always be with me. These are some of things that happen while hunting and making things so enjoyable to me.
11-18-2005
my deerC:\Documents and Settings\matthew cartmill\My Documents\My Pictures\12_20_2005\DSC00689.JPG
