a blind pig finds a nut! My deer hunting can best be described as "Choices, Decisions, Blown opportunities, and Disappointments. However, I wouldn't have it any other way. Last deer I killed was in 2010! I have hunted, and will continue to hunt with my recurve. . I hunted harder this year than I can ever remember. Up until this hunt, I had 36 sits and had seen at least one deer on 33 of them! In the last 10 years, I have often been days or weeks without seeing a deer. So, I was doing something right. But this season has not been without its disappointments. I had a beautiful 5 year old 10 that I had been hunting for two seasons. I have 100’s of pictures of him from the last three years. For a deer to get to that age around here is basically unheard of, and only happens about every five or six years. I blew my chance at him in the last week of the season on a very cold evening hunt last year. I ended up seeing him three times during the archery season, always out of bow range. I seen him again at 10:30 opening morning of firearms season, as he ran for cover out of the neighbors into our standing corn. I learned on that Monday that one of the Amish neighbors killed him at noon 2 miles North of where I seen him at!!!! Here is a picture of the 10:


I hunted only one other day of firearms season, which was the Tuesday after the opener. That was only because I had left my binoculars in the tree. . I spent the rest of firearms season getting some work done in the shop, and pouting over the nice ten getting killed. During that time, I purchased a new muzzle loader, as I really NEEDED to kill a deer this season. Weedy came over to shoot and helped me get set up. I didn’t have a thing for muzzle loading as I gave it all away with the gun three years ago. (THANKS WEEDY!) I hunted every single evening of the ML season, and was seeing the best action I have seen EVER. There were several yearling does around, and the buck action was the best its ever been.
It was a 6 day chess match that I was loosing badly. Every time I'd pick a good spot for the wind, I'd see the deer at another stand or blind location. On Wednesday night, I seen 7 bucks go into an overgrown paster from the open fields. I couldn't stand it! I got out of the blind and crawled the 400 yards to get there. I ran out of grass waterway as cover, and laid in the mud of the picked bean field. I could hear what sounded like two bulldozers in the pasture, but due to the head high weeds, couldn’t see a thing. I glanced over to the east edge, and there standing in a swale in the corn, was the 7 smaller bucks, and two mature does. They would NOT go in there. ! I had a feeling what two bucks were in there, fighting, growling, and making vocalizations that I have never heard before. I laid there till dark to sneak out. They had beat me AGAIN!
Thursday night, wind was horrible for where I thought I needed to be. I almost just went back home after I got the feeding done. As I stood there in the barn lot, looking back across the picked corn to the pasture……..I thought maybe……just maybe…..I could crawl out there from barn lot, and if I could get to a little ridge in the field before the deer got up and moving, it could work. As long as the deer were bedded in the weeds, and crawled reeeaaally quiet, they wouldn’t see me. I got dressed, grabbed a seed bag to lay on, and took off up a slight swale that would lead me to where I thought I needed to be. It would keep me a little lower till I got to top. As luck would have it, it still was soaking wet, with standing water in a lot of it. Also, I had to go across the rows, and every time I went over the row, it made a lot of racket. I ended up pulling stalks up, and setting them out of the way as I went. It took me 45 minutes to go 150 yards. I glanced back, and had to laugh….it looked like a beaver slide through the corn field!!! I got settled, and laid my pack out in front……like it was going to hide me!!! I about fell asleep. If it wasn’t for my phone buzzing from Weedy trying to call me, I would have. I text him to “knock it off, I’m hunting” and stuck it back in my pack. My hat kept sliding down over my face, and I reached up and slid it up. When I did, I was looking at a doe staring at me from 80 yards. I didn’t twitch, blink, or breath for what seemed like 5 minutes. She never did totally settle down, but crossed out of the pasture into the corn, and started feeding. But, every time she looked up, she was looking at me. Then I noticed that familiar white “patch” in the golden rod, and horseweeds. I knew it was a buck, but didn’t know what buck it was. I was afraid to move, as he was staring at her, and every time she looked at me, so did he. He turned back into the weeds, and I figured it was over. She put her head down, and I grabbed the binoculars. The buck reappeared about 120 yards south, but coming out to the edge of the pasture. I got just enough look at him to know I needed to somehow get the gun without the doe seeing me. Just as I got the gun up, she looked at me, and went on high alert. She was only 40 yards from me at that time. Over the top of her back, I could see the buck was acting like he was going to leave the county. One more check to be sure it was one of the two I wanted, and next thing I know, there was white smoke. I have no history with this deer other than seeing him 4 times this week, and some trail cam pictures this week. He had moved in from the pressure I assume. There were plenty of yearlings to keep his attention.







I know I'm getting too damned old to be crawling around in the mud after these things…… :rolleyes: I'm still wore out from the 6 straight days of hunting, and the mile I've crawled around this week! Maybe, in another four years, I'll have another deer story to post…….