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Conquering the Wild, Wonderful, Wayne

bowhunter1023

Owner/Operator
Staff member
48,879
274
Appalachia
A few years back, my buddy Jimmy and I decided to spend opening day of gun season on a piece of local public. Not long after daylight, he missed a mid-130s 9 that had some age on him. The buck walked by me at 50 yards, but I'd filled my tag already. That hunt has been relived many times and was the first hunt in what's become a new opening day tradition. In 2020 and 2021, we added two more buddies to the mix and this year, we finally convinced our buddy Jackson to buy a deer tag and join us. We all agreed that hunting the Wayne would be a good time, so last Wednesday, my buddy Bryan and I ran up to scout some access points. We had 3 to choose from and put a plan together for our favorite, which included a 3AM wake up to ensure we locked down that access before anyone else. When we rolled around the last bend in the road to see an 18" white oak blown across the road, we knew we were the first ones there!

After some BS around the tailgate, we set off for our spots by 5:15. The plan was for Jimmy and Jessie to post up in a couple saddles on a long ridge that connects to some well managed private ground. My buddy Bryan was tasked with getting Jackson to a spot on a point overlooking what was expected to be an open bottom with several finger ridges dropping into it. (Turned out to be a briar choked hellhole.) Bryan would then push a mile back into a series of finger ridges in a giant bowl. My job was to make a 2+ mile loop to keep the deer moving.

My day started quickly when I stopped about 400 yards in and thought I saw a flashlight, then when I hit it with my light, I realized it was eyeballs. And upon further inspection, eyeballs of a big buck! I'm not sure how big, but I could put both fists between his bases! He never moved, so I continued on around the nose of the point and waited for daylight. At 7, I walked back over and he got up and headed right for Bryan. We never saw him again, but I was able to stay on his tracks for almost 300 yards.

I had 2 pins on my map I wanted to check along my route and I had to laugh when I got near both. The first was every bit as good as expected, but I wasn't the only one to realize that! So if you have a trail cam in the Marietta unit of WNF, that's me that pissed in the scrape.

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The second was better than expected. First, I found the craziest buck bed of all time...

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Matted down, big tracks all around, multiple scrapes and rubs, with a trail along the edge of a transition in habitat following the first flat down from the ridge. I'd followed a line of old rubs 300 yards long on the way there, and a line of fresh ones just as long on the way around the bowl and down the finger ridge. After trudging through some nasty brush, I hit an old skidder path that formed a break between oak/beech woods and a pine thicket. I stopped, looked around, and thought "this is one of the best big buck spots I've ever seen, but how in the hell do you hunt it without blowing everything out?!?" As I was contemplating that, I look over and see this...

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So if that's your stand, I'd have hung it higher, but it's in an absolute killer spot!

By noon, I'd made my loop and arrived at the truck to see Jimmy holding this 61" shed.

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As soon as he handed it to me, I saw the blood and he says "there's a buck laying 50 yards from where I found it". Hell yeah boys! The goal was to have fun and drag one out that had handles, and it was Jimmy's redemption on public land bucks that allowed that to happen!

So we load up and drive down the road to a different access point, then hoof it a mile back to retrieve his deer. I was in the lead and when I walked up on the gut pile, I immediately knew there was no deer anywhere near it. Sure as shit, his buck was gone. He'd had a few guys walk in on him, so we're running all the scenarios through our head for a few minutes before we backtracked the drag marks. After 50 yards, Jimmy looks up and sees a guy standing on the ridge, then we realize it's Jessie who wasn't at the trucks when we got back. Jimmy yells "you better 🤬 have my deer" and Jessie replied "it's not up here". Of course, it was and he was screwing with us and I'm hear to tell you, he had us going pretty good! As it turned out, his idea for the drag back was better than ours and he'd already done the hard work. It was all downhill from there!

It was 2:30 by that point, so we loaded up, went to Jimmy's for beers and to start the processing. As I said on the way home, that beats the pants off sitting in a tree for 12 hours staring at leaves and being pissed off because you aren't seeing any shooter bucks!

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When all was said and done, I walked 4.23 miles, gaining and losing over 1,200 feet in elevation throughout the course of my wanderings. I saw 2 deer (not counting the flashlight buck) and could have killed a big doe, so that day was a solid success! But damn am I whipped!!!
 
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Fletch

Senior Member
Supporting Member
6,078
118
Great Day.... Enjoy the day with your friends...Killing a deer is a bonus... When you get old and for one reason or another your hunting partners are gone, you'll find yourself with less and less enthusiasm to get out. Great story thanks for sharing ..
 

jagermeister

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
18,061
223
Ohio
This right here is what I wish more deer hunters would make the effort to experience. This is deer camp. This is camaraderie. This is fellowship. This is the pure enjoyment of the HUNT with good people.

Kudos to you guys, Jesse. Great write up, describing an even better day in the woods.