My stand for the evening was overlooking a freshly picked cornfield. Between the field and I lay a half acre of grandpa rays frosty delight. My stand for the evening is called the drivers seat. Over the years the drivers seat had accounted for 3 of my biggest deer and 5 p/y class animals. Confidence is always high in the drivers seat. Tonight would be no different. By 530 does where rolling out into the field. I stopped counting at 20. I know there's a nice buck around. I saw him here a week earlier when I sat the passengers seat. A stand just 60 yards to the west. By 6 my man pops out. Just 283 yards away. I know he's a good deer. Not a giant but one that would definitely get an arrow in his direction if he passed close enough. It took an hour but everyone of those deer soon walked into my plot. And right at last light my buck presented a 16 yard shot. The shot happened so fast I barely saw the lighted nock pass through. The unmistakable sound of an arrow popping the chest cavity filled my ears. Deer exploded everywhere. My buck ran 65 yards as hard as he could then stopped. Hunched up a bit. Flickered his tail and SLOWLY almost painful walked into the 6 ft switch grass 20 yards to his East.
I eventually make it outta stand and slowly leave without a trace. The shot looked good. But the reaction didn't. It would prove to be a long night's wait. When I get back to my truck I receive a call from Chad. He too had hit a buck. He describes the shot. I tell him the buck is dead. He elects to wait until morning as well. By 8 am I receive a call that Chad's buck made it 60 yards. 1 down. 1 to go. My morning did not go so well. It took almost an hour just to find any blood. I couldn't even find blood up against the grass where he walked in. Things weren't looking good. Soon I started a small grid search in the 6 acres of 6 ft grass. He's gotta be here I keep telling myself. I SOMEHOW find 2 beds just 10 yards in the grass and only 3 ft apart. No other blood anywhere. Chad shows up after his deer is out of the woods. I show him the beds and chad says, hes going South. I'm pretty sure he's crazy at this point but we start the grid search South. Chad is positive he's within 100 yards. Chad was wrong. Pry more like 85. Our first trip South and I walked right into him. The shot was quartering to a bit more than I remember but an autopsy revealed for sure 1 lung and liver. At this point I couldn't care how big he was! Just so relieved to have found him. Took almost 3 hours and he was within 100 yards of the stand. 3 weeks of hunting that was preceded by 3 weeks of good plot prep, 3 weeks of hanging stands this spring and a month of shed hunting finally paid off. We both had a great Night! There was definitely something in the air! Chads buck was his best ever and mine adds to the list of p/y deer off that stand. Now it's time to sit back and live vicariously through my big brother (Cornfed77)
Mark
Rory, thank you for the kind words. I do love hunting them. Btw guys, Chads made the magical 150 mark the hard way. Over 40 inches of mass.
