What a morning!
It started pouring down rain just before I arrived at the farm. I sat in the truck for 10 minutes wising I hadn't got out of bed, then the rain let up a little. I took off, made the 3/4 mile hike to my stand and climbed aboard. The rain came back, along with gusting winds that nearly put me out of the tree! I started thinking about how dumb I was... then I saw a deer coming and felt a little better about my predicament. Turned out to be a pretty decent buck. 125ish, 10 point. I snapped some pics, and let him stroll on. Sent one of the pics to KR so she could show Mason before he got on the bus. He was mad that I didn't shoot the buck as he thought it was plenty big enough.
About 830, I was texting my buddies in WI and TN when I looked up and saw a couple of deer. I quit texting, and after a few minutes one of the deer left the other and headed my way. As it came closer, I saw that is was a buck I wanted to kill. I recognize this deer (I think) from two years ago. He was an 8 with 13-14" G2s, now he's a ten! I'm certain he will go over 170!!!! He walked right down the fence row to me, but turned into the field instead of continuing down the line. I drew on him...44 yds. I was swaying around in the tree and felt pretty sure I couldn't make the shot, even though he was squarely in the middle of the opening I planned to shoot a deer in... just not with 30 mph wind gusts! I let down, and it killed me to watch that deer walk away from me.
After he was out of sight and into another woods, I climbed down and took off trying to get to another stand on the back side of that woods at a creek crossing. Shortly after getting settled, I saw a big buck cross the creek about 200 yards downstream from me, but I don't know if it was him or another big boy. My binoculars were stowed safely away due to the rain.
I plan to hunt this evening, which is something I rarely get to do. The intensity of the early rut may be winding down, but the big boys seem to be out looking, finally! GET IN A TREE!
BTW, my buddy in WI killed a dandy this morning, and my buddy in TN killed a nice one yesterday. Both following does!
This is the buck I passed this morning. I wish I had pics of the big one from this year, but I wasn't about to snap any when I thought I was gonna kill him!
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