White Water State Park 1st timer

After hunting at Big Oaks for a few years I finally decided to put in for a hunt at a state park. These hunts are free tags if you are drawn and everyone seems to have a good time at them so I thought it would be fun. I had no idea what to expect but everyone always says stay in your stand all day at a park hunt so that was the original plan. We went to White Water three weeks before the hunt, we were in the Cabin area so we tried to scope out a few places we could climb a tree. My hunting buddy went back to scout a second time and found a different area and he found a tree for me as well. So I was a little worried about going to a totally new area but figured it would work out. When we pulled in at 5:30 on Monday morning someone was already parked there and they left tracks in the snow heading to the area he had found, so back to our original plan. Mother nature thought it would be fun to dump about 4" of snow on the ground so we took off down a hiking trail that no one else had been on. I was planning to head back to the same area I had looked at a few weeks prior and I felt better about that knowing I had an idea where I was going. What I wasn't expecting was that all those small trees look a lot more like a briar patch when they have a bunch of snow on them!! After banging and clanging thru the woods I finally determined I wasn't sure where the heck I was at and rather than jack up everyone's hunt around me I just climbed a tree and set in my sweat soaked clothes until it got light. There were no shots that I heard after it got light and I was shocked by this, but I was very happy when I looked over my left shoulder and saw a buck walking thru a fallen tree. I stood up and swung around and when he came out of the fallen tree 80 yards away I let the Mossburg hammer down on a Hornaday slug for the first shot of the 2014 White Water State park Hunt. He dropped in his tracks! I had no idea what it was just knew it was a decent buck. After a little more chasing than I was hoping for we were able to locate this 10 point buck and a few guys from Greensburg where gracious enough to give us a ride back to our truck because we had tracked him to the other side of the zone we were in. To those guys THANK YOU for being goods sports! It was cold we were sweating and a long way from our vehicle but very happy with the end result! I will do more of these hunts and look forward to trying to fill my state tag!

Congrats on a good buck

Good job man!

Congrats! Make sure to post the score above in the contest thread!

Congrats. The snow pictures are great.

10 points with a 19" inside spread, so I guess that makes us 24 points for Team 1

I will get the pic posted in thread above for our score. Thanks again for doing that for everyone!

29 or 24?

Congratulations on a dandy!
Love the pic!

Sorry about the weedhopper my fingers were going faster than my mind, it's 24.

Nice park buck! h.h.

Congrats I heard your shot then... My buddy and I were parked at the Horseman's parking lot...

I did too. Looked at my watch and sure enough a legal shot.

Great buck.

Gotcha! Thanks and congrats again!

I really was shocked we hadn't heard more shooting before that! I didn't realize how many people didn't show up for the hunt till we left. We didn't go back today but I drove by the park this morning before day light and it didn't look like many people had been in or out of there yet at 6:00am. I be the turn out was really low today!

I'm not surprised by the low turnout and lack of shooting... The weather was bad so most deer were probably bedded down... The only ones moving were probably the ones that got pushed by hunters...

Funny thing is the guy who was sat up where I wanted to go would have stayed put he would have had a doe... She bedded down right were he was in a stand..lol

nice

Nice buck Congrats..... good luck on your state tag..

14 people showed up yesterday and my buddy and I killed 4. It was a great day to be out

Good deal Kyle! Glad a few people were able to make good of yesterday, it was bitter cold out that's for sure.

Good work.

Thanks for sharing with the story and picture.

yes it was