Oh, hello again! Are you ready for round 2 of my weekend recap? As you know, I had a successful hunt on Friday evening, bagging a nice doe and thus beginning to refill our freezer. All antsy & bothered by the desire to shoot a nice buck, I headed back to the stand early Saturday morning to give it another try. With the rut getting underway, it was my hope that a love-struck buck would let down his guard and follow a doe right to my field. I saw a deer sneak across the field just before it was light enough to really see, but I guess I will never know what it was… Maybe it was a ghost, or maybe my eyes were just playing tricks on me. Who knows?
It was a crisp, beautiful morning, with an unreal sunrise that crept through the trees in the woods behind my stand. It created this warm golden light that made everything look like it was glowing. I really wish the photo could do it justice, but I don’t think that’s something you can quite capture on camera. That’s when the previously silent woods started to wake up, and all the critters along with it. Aside from your usual birds & squirrels, it was an incredibly noisy morning. Between the largest woodpecker I have ever seen (literally thought it was a fox squirrel when I caught a glimpse of it before I spotted his red head), to an actual fox squirrel that decided to torment me for the next 2 hours, it was all I could do to concentrate on the task at hand – a buck.Once it was light enough to see across the field and into the woods a bit, I started to scan the trees and beyond for movement. Unfortunately, I was using my rangefinder to assist me, as I had forgotten my binoculars (forgetting to add those to my own essentials – shame on me!). Today, it really hindered me. The rangefinder helps, but is nothing like actual binocs. But, I hunted on. On one particular scan of the woods, a slight movement caught my eye. Actually, it was more of a sudden stop in movement. Through the lens of the rangefinder, I squinted to make sure I knew what I was looking at. A buck was standing about 10 yards into the woods & had just paused to scan the field. Although I couldn’t see a lot of detail, I could easily make out the large body, lighter hair inside his perked ears & under his chin/neck, and horns. It was pretty obvious – this was a niiiiiice buck. His antlers weren’t super light, but had more of a brown tone to them, leading me to think it was this guy:
OMG I KNOW. This photo was snapped by the same trail cam as those on Friday’s hunt super early in the season – a rare daytime shot of a mature buck. He’s since only been spotted on camera very late at night & the wee hours of the morning. As quietly and quickly as I could, without too much movement, I put down the rangefinder and raised my rifle to get a better look see if I could make a shot. By the time I’d done so, there was nothing but a gap in the trees where he’d been standing. Bottom line – I am not sure if it was this buck, but if it wasn’t, there’s another shooter lurking in the woods out there. Aaaand – cue the heart pounding.
The rest of my hunt was fairly uneventful, even though I sat until a little after 11 am. I did, however, hear 2 bucks sparring in the woods over my right shoulder. Even though I never saw them, it was very entertaining to listen to their little tussle. The photo below was snapped on Sunday morning. No idea if these are the same guys I heard on Saturday, but boys will be boys, huh?
My last bit of entertainment came from my turkey friends returning to the field for their breakfast. (Or brunch? Do turkeys brunch? Or is that a ridiculous question? Don’t answer that.) They hung out for about 45 minutes before heading back into the woods, leaving me with my thoughts for the remainder of my hunt.
I sat again Saturday afternoon with no success either, and decided to sleep through my alarm Sunday morning. Per the trail cam, there was no evidence of any deer coming in to feed that morning once it was light outside – the last photo we have was at 5:36 am. I guess I’ll never know, though, if Mr. Shooter Buck snuck in on the edge, though!
I can’t wait to do it again soon… Happy hunting!