Love is in the Air

It's the time of year we bow hunters love. Crisp mornings. All-day marathon sits on stand. November is here, and after what I witnessed this past weekend, it appears that the rut is just beginning to heat up in this neck of the woods.

My Dad and I traveled 3 hours to his 70 acre property last Friday afternoon. We arrived around 3pm, promptly dressed and headed into the timber. This was going to be my first time hunting the property this fall, and after all the activity we'd been seeing on our trail cameras, our hopes were high.

The evening hunt did not disappoint. I had three different encounters with bucks, the best of which came with a younger buck nicknamed "Lefty."

We had velvet pictures of Lefty, but he disappeared from the lens in September and most of October, finally showing up on camera recently:

Lefty sauntered around checking nearby scrapes, even chased a doe back and forth over the neighboring fence line. I was loving every minute of it. After the sun set, I left the woods happy to have laid eyes on one of our "up-and-comers," and hoping to see one of our better bucks the next day.

We've been keeping our eyes on two bucks in particular. One is a 10 pointer nicknamed "Diablo" because we have several pictures of him looking directly into the camera with an almost evil look:

Although he won't score very high, Diablo's got a cool split on his left G3, and his body size as compared to other bucks we've been seeing makes be believe he's older than most.

The other brother who's got our attention is a buck we nicknamed "Bruce" after the shark from Finding Nemo. He's a mainframe 10 with kickers on his G2's. We've got plenty of pics of Bruce, and he just started showing up on camera during the daytime:

I headed back to the same stand Saturday morning, leaving a little early to "drag a rag" through my area. It was chilly as temps had dropped into the twenties that night. I hit the stand at 6:50 am, and by 7:00 heard a deer coming my way. The deer stopped at the fence where Lefty had been criss-crossing the evening before, and then hopped over it onto our ground. Even in the dim morning light, I knew it was Bruce. He was quartering to and stopped to look up at me 25 yards away. I saw the kickers on his G2's as he put his head back down and moved a few more strides to the spot I had begun dragging the estrous-soaked rag. Here he stopped again, and would come no further.

For some reason, he didn't like the scene unfolding before him. He turned to head back, and stopped briefly, now quartering away from me. I had my chance. Even though it was still pre-dawn, I could see my pins and had an opening to his vitals. I chose to pass. And after what began to unfold over the next 30 minutes, I'm glad I did.

Bruce hopped back over the fence and headed east inside the security of the neighbor's woods. After only 15 minutes, I glanced over my right shoulder into the CRP field behind me and caught the movement of a doe running right towards me. At 60 yards she halted and her nose shot up into the air. She had the wind and had me pegged, so I froze but kept glancing behind her. It was then I saw a dark shape emerging from the woods, up and out into the field, grunting loudly with steam barreling out of his mouth and nostrils like a locomotive. He looked like a dandy, but with the doe staring right in my direction, I dared not pull the binos up to get a better look.

Soon a decent, but smaller buck entered the field, closely following the first, and there was a brief showdown as they stopped 40 yards behind the doe. The bigger buck stomped and lowered his head to persuade the other not to move any closer. By then, the doe had enough and spun back toward the woods with the bigger buck in hot pursuit. The smaller buck stood in the CRP field, and it was only then that I was able to glass him to get a better look. The smaller buck was Bruce! The other buck had dwarfed him out in that field, and now I was really glad I elected to pass knowing there was a bigger one running around!

I remember uttering a thank you to God for allowing me to experience that moment as I watched Bruce exit the CRP field. It was 15 minutes later when I heard another deer coming up behind me. As I grabbed my bow, I slowly turned over my left shoulder to spot a heavy rack cruising down the fence line in my direction. It was THE BIG BUCK! He jumped the fence, walked straight to the base of my tree, stopped five yards away and looked up at me. I held my breath as he put his head down, took another step, and shot his head back up. Then, as quickly as he came, he spun and began walking straight away.

I don't know why, but disappointment rather than panic set in, as I assumed he'd walk straight back to the fence and hop back over onto the neighbor's side. Miraculously, once he got to the fence, he began walking parallel to it, back in my direction. I stopped him broadside at 22 yards, put the pin behind his front shoulder, and squeezed the release. The impact of the arrow pushed him back into the fence, and as he reeled and kicked, he finally toppled over after breaking the top strand of barbwire.

I watched him make his exit, stopping once sixty yards away, and then disappearing from sight. It was 7:45 am. I sat until 10:00, got down to find blood across the fence line and backed out. We called the neighbor to get permission to recover the deer, and my Dad and I returned about noon to take up the blood trail.

We found the deer had gone only 80 yards from where it was hit. He is my best buck to date, scoring 142 6/8 inches. I feel incredibly lucky and blessed to have harvested such a great animal, and want to thank my Dad for the opportunity to hunt his ground. We did not get a trail camera picture of this deer prior to me taking him, which leads us to believe his home range was on the neighbor's property. But if they ever decide to cross that fence, I certainly don't mind shooting the neighbor's deer!