LOT tag filled

[jnrbronc]

As a farm owner, I get one anysex landowner tag. I get to choose the season I want to hunt with it and it has no impact on other licenses that are available to residents of the state. So potentially, I can harvest three bucks a year. I filled my state wide archery anysex license back on Oct. 25 and posted it here in a thread titled Something Different.

The peak of the rut is usually during the first two weeks of November, so I took some vacation time to try to harvest one of the bucks I had been getting on trailcams. Trailcams can be great and they can be a bane. They let you know what in the area, but they might make you set the bar a little too high. All the good bucks I was getting pictures of were tending to be nocturnal. It didn't help that we were having a warm wet fall which shifted breeding to the night. The wet weather is also causing a delayed harvest, lots of corn still standing in the field. We custom hire the neighbor for our crops, he started harvesting our corn last Monday night. So I sat many hours in early November with no sightings of the big boys.

They finished our corn last Wednesday and while at work Thursday (I work in a basement so there are no windows) someone came in and said it was spitting flurries outside. I wrapped up what I was doing and headed for the farm. As I walked to where I wanted to hunt, there were already deer feeding out into one of the cut corn fields. I decided to stand in a cluster of box elder trees in a brushy creek line that has grass strips on each side of it. I took the quiver off my bow as I didn't want the bright fletchings to alert a deer if I had to move. It was overcast, windy and snowing, perfect weather to get a deer on his feet early. I noticed movement and saw a buck cross the gravel road. He was coming out of the neighbor's CRP field to the south. As he entered our corn field, he starts eating waste corn. When his head was down, I took the opportunity to position myself and pick a shooting lane through the branches and weeds. He started walking towards the shooting lane and I "baa'd" to stop him for the 40 yard shot. He didn't react much to the shot, just walked on out into the corn field where he stood for a while. A truck on the road spooked him and he headed for the brushy creek bottom, disappearing over a slight rise in the corn field. I let him go, figuring he'd bed down in the grass close to water. The next morning found me out there at first light. I started to retrace the path he took. As I topped the rise in the corn field, I was relieved to see him piled up at the edge of the corn. He never made it to the grass. Coyotes hadn't found him, either. I snapped some pics as best I could since I was alone and then field dressed him.

He was one of my target bucks off of my trailcam pics.
He is my first archery antlered buck shot from the ground.
He is my first archery December buck (taken Dec. 4).
He is my highest scoring buck to date, a very symmetrical ten point.

After such a long story (sorry), here's what you really want to see, the pics:






The first shotgun season started last Saturday, December 6. I went out with my Savage ML10II and told myself that I would not shoot anything smaller than this buck. I'm headed out to try to fill that license with a doe tomorrow, so you can guess how that worked out for me. ;D

[whyohe]

good deal! nice buck.

[lwh723]

That's a pretty sweet deer. Nice mass.

[jims]

Very nice deer.

[ozark]

Good writeup about your hunting experiences. Never apologize for writing about how the hunt came off. I enjoy reading every bit as much as I do seeing a picture. Maybe more. Good hunting.

[larry]

:)Very nice deer and a good story to go with it.

[pposey]

Hard to take a deer from the ground with a bow, good job!

[sincyrman]

Nice Buck! Where did you hit him? It sounds like he didn't even acknowledge that he was hit.

Also, what type of braodhead did you use? Just curious.

[jnrbronc]

Dec 16, 2009 15:51:06 GMT -5 sincyrman said:

Nice Buck! Where did you hit him? It sounds like he didn't even acknowledge that he was hit.

Also, what type of braodhead did you use? Just curious.

I'm not proud of the shot; I hit too far back. I was extremely lucky that it severed a major artery. A) Since there wasn't much reaction to the shot, B) since I found the arrow and C) since the arrow smelled that it wasn't a great shot, I backed out. The deer was headed for cover where there was water and I figured for sure it would bed down if it made it that far. Again, not proud of the shot, being honest here.

The broadhead was a Wasp "The Boss". First year using them, shot three deer with them, two complete pass throughs. The one that didn't was a hard quartering away shot that tried to exit the brisket. It got far enough out for the front leg to snap off the arrow.