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My bow was leaning against the fallen cottonwood beside me.

By the time I got in position to shoot, he was walking away, only presenting a TBM heart shot. Even though I have fourteen days left to hunt in November, I'd have shot him and been really happy.

That shook me.

Ten minutes later, I rattled-in another very nice buck, and the big buck followed right along behind him. This time I had my bow in hand, but only had a shot opportunity at the buck in front. They wandered off, and I spotted them hanging out a few hundred yards away an hour later.

The good news is that I have a lot of time to hunt, I know there's at least one bigger in the area, and I believe this is this buck's (the one I screwed up on) core area.

The bad news is I made a rookie mistake and assumed the one coming was the pest that had been bothering me, so instead of being ready to shoot, I was ready to shoot pics.

Oh well, lesson learned...

Had an awesome morning, but now I have a sore butt from kicking myself.

My rancher friend told me his buddy killed a 37" wide typical with a rifle last week, and that one's buddy was almost as big. Nobody shot him. He's hanging in the same drainage but I couldn't find him this weekend. When the rut starts going, he'll be more visible.

But I'd still shoot this guy if he gave me another 20 yard broadside shot! :-O

I also wore my worn Mossy Oak brush hoodie, which is pretty deer-colored.

Honestly didn't see any deer until I started rattling, then they started coming from both directions. Fun morning. Still kicking myself for being such an idiot, though.

I'll bet you get another whack at him. Kind of a curse you saw him so soon.... now what... LOL!

I'm gonna guess that event saved a certain buck or 3 this year...=D

Keep em coming! I've been waiting on this hunt all year...

DJ

Hope the rest of the hunt is as good!

You'll get another crack at him or a better one. Good luck Jaq!

That's a sweetheart of a buck there, I hope your paths meet again.

Best of luck, Jeff (Bowsite Sponsor)

I'm out here on the plains for most of the next 14 days or so, or until I kill a really good buck. I'll carry the camera and periodically post a few updates as we go along, if anything interesting happens.

Tonight I saw the giant buck the rancher mentioned. He was all by himself in the drainage I'm hunting, not far from the cottonwood blind where I rattled-in the bucks on Sunday. He's a serious buck, quite a bit bigger than the nice one I maybe should've shot above. Hope to get a photo of him soon - lying on his side...

Will have the dekes out tomorrow and I'm now in full-on predator mindset. The next 7 days are the very best days to kill a big buck here.

Back at you.

Bake

That said, I did decoy in the big buck from above on Saturday. He came in and did the classic "J-hook" around them. I had a good quartering-to shot at 30 yards but planned to let him walk past at 20 and shoot him quartering away. But he sniffed the doe lure I'd put on a wick on their tails and didn't like it. He took off, and I haven't seen him since. I've never had one do that before, but this is my first season using a synthetic lure. Not going to use it again.

Other than that, I've only had shooting opportunities at a couple forkies. Going to spend tonight and tomorrow glassing some new areas to try to find something to hunt. I hope your ND hunt was better than mine is going, so far (last Sunday excepted.. :-)).

I'm a little disappoined that your aren't doing the live hunt, but I do understand the time it takes to put together.

Love seeing all your pics. I'm betting that pretty soon one of those big bucks will mess up and give you a shot.

Still saving some malt for either direction of your hunt.

Paul

Good luck my friend.

Lets catch up soon at our fav watering hole when you get back

Those are great bucks you have seen so far.. I am almost scared to see the "big one" :).

Julius

My best, Paul

Ted, we couldn't get to the canyon because the rancher tilled up all the ground on the way, and we didn't figure that out until we got two miles (overland) in there. He'd neglected to tell us that. We got stopped about a mile and a half short and are trying to figure out a way in there without hiking over freshly-planted fields.

But the good news is that storms like this typically push deer into the river bottom areas where we can access and hunt correctly. I'll be back out tomorrow afternoon and will post an update if anything happens. Haven't posted any photos since there isn't much to photograph right now.

But they're out there somewhere, saw big bucks before the aliens abducted them. If things perk up I'll turn this into a semi-live thread with some photos for the last week.

On the bright side - before I left I spotted the really big buck with the sticker points hanging with a big gang of does, and they are moving back and forth from a property I can't hunt into the corner of a place I can hunt. He's a killer buck. I'll have four more days to hunt before the November season ends, Wednesday-Saturday.

I plan to forget about everything else and concentrate on trying to ambush or decoy him in that little corner.

Grabbing for the brass ring. Wish me luck.

Best of Luck, Jeff (Bowsite Sponsor)

Anyway, thanks for the update Lou! Goodluck and I'd hate to be that bigboy...Mike

I've had bucks so focused on the decoys that they stop 5-6 yards away from me and don't even notice me sitting there taking pictures, doing practice draws.

The biggest one I deked in last week walked right past them at 10 yards like he didn't even see them, then when he got downwind he did the circle-around. I'd made a couple mistakes with my setup and didn't take the quartering-to shot.

I put mine about 30 yards out and upwind, and since I'm hunting on the ground with a recurve, I try to plan the set so I can draw when he gets just past me, preferably with a tree he can walk past so I can draw.

With the doe hat they sometimes come right in, but more often circle downwind. Does will usually come right at it, so I'm very careful about when and where I use it.

Does during the rut can be strange critters, but generally avoid doe decoys. Depending on where I'm hunting, I may not put out dekes until 8:00, when bucks go cruising. But sometimes they cruise after dark and go back to find the does first thing in the am.

When they're glued to the groups of does, like the one I'm hunting now, I use the doe hat and a Heads-up decoy, or the doe hat and an Elk Mountain Slip with muley doe, and show it to him, then back it off, maybe calling a few times with a bite call. I've had them leave does and come investigate a number of times.

Sorry for the dissertation, but you asked... :-)

I'll post a sequence below of a classic circle-around where I had a great setup.

Rick M

Lord help me Stafford is coming out to hunt black tails next week!!

Good luck with the blacktails. That's on my bucket list, too!

Found the gang of does the big boy was with on Sunday, but he's out wandering. He knows where they are.

Also found a new bunch in my usual spot, with a nice buck. Not great, but a shooter with only a few days left, and they're in the same area where I ambushed the big buck last year. They're about three miles apart. What to do...what to do...?

I'll let you know what I decided tomorrow after the morning hunt. Hoping for an epiphany tonight.

Shoot straight bud, look forward to the pics.

This morning I stuck to my plan to try to decoy the monster buck with the stickers out of the neighboring property. Right after sunup I spotted him all alone, about 400 yards out. I had a great setup behind a little natural dike covered with plum bushes, with a path leading down the middle and a couple shooting lanes out in front.

At my rattling, he looked up and started coming, slowly. He jumped the fence 80 yards out and stopped at about 50 for a long time. I was wearing the doe hat and hiding behind a Heads Up doe, with the Elk Mountain Slip as a partial blind. I gave him some movement with the hat and the doe, and he came a little closer. At 30 I didn't have a lane.

He was going to walk up onto the dike and try to J-hook me, so I crawled a few feet up onto the dike behind the doe and got ready to shoot. He stepped out into the lane at 26 yards, broadside.

I drew, and the string slipped off my tab at about half draw and went under his armpit. I had a great line... :-(

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

The fingers on my draw hand had gotten completely numb during the 20 or so minutes that the standoff occurred, and I hadn't noticed. I had no feeling in them at all. I was wearing a light wool glove, which wasn't enough.

He didn't know what happened and stopped at about 40. I started actively deking with the hat and he walked back toward me, but no shot window. After another 10 minutes, he walked back the way he came, hopped over the fence, and walked up the creek.

I'm ready to vomit. I've never had that happen before, but I've never tried to shoot anything with numb fingers, either.

I don't think he was spooked, because he almost came back. He never knew what I was. I have three more mornings and four more evenings before I'm out of time.

I'm so sick right now I can't eat. He would've been my second biggest buck ever. Hope to have some better news for you tonight.

Shake it off, change up the setup a bit and kill him.

Good luck.

Rick M

I'll take consolation from that as I lick my wounds..

The "gadget malfunction" this morning was located at my fingertips and between my ears. I'm going to put a heat pad inside the wool glove on the back side of my hand to warm the blood flow now.

Maybe start a new thread titled "I'm not going to mess up today."

I'm not superstitious, but it's only weird if it doesn't work!

You will get him!!

Well, it didn't happen. I went back to the scene of yesterday's crime and took Rick M's advice to change the setup a bit, but saw no deer this morning. Cold again, but the heat packs inside my gloves on the back of my hands helped a ton.

Tonight I went on an adventure in the hills to ambush a bunch I'd been watching in the evenings. Haven't seen a good buck with them, but you never know this time of year. I had a great setup in a deep little depression in the yucca at the head of one of the travel routes.

Right off the bat, I decoyed this little guy right in.

Happy Thanksgiving

Rick M

This hunt always makes me shiver, every year.... it's 81 right now and I think I felt a lil' chill....

Lou, you still using that cover scent? I'm seriously pretty interested. Possibly it will overcome the cigar on the hunting clothes I keep in the scout...

Keep after him! You'll probably get another opportunity since he wasn't to concerned and never saw you.

Thanks to everyone for the encouragement.

My November season ended Saturday. On Friday and Saturday morning I tried to ambush a very nice buck in a spot I know how to hunt. I'd lost track of the big sticker buck so took the bird-in-hand approach. Figures, Each time I set up an ambush, he and his herd wandered in the other direction from where they'd gone the evening/morning before. With no real crop fields out here, they go wherever the lead doe decides to take them.

Friday night at dark I re-found the big sticker buck back in his normal haunts. It's an evening feeding and staging spot when he's with the does so I didn't bother in the morning since I don't have permission to hunt their morning area up in the hills. Plus, I thought I had a slam-dunk setup on the other nice four-point.

Saturday night - last try. I changed up my setup a little and went back to the scene of last week's crime. Spotted them working out of the hills and headed south, and I had my Slip blind positioned for a shot to that direction if I could get him to circle the decoys. He paid no attention to rattling, not surprising, so I gave out some frantic lost fawn calls with the bite call.

Nothing was happening and the herd continued working south, so I started glassing in that direction to try to get a visual on the buck before trying some different calling. Then out of my peripheral vision I spotted a doe coming across an open grass field to my side, with the big sticker buck following. The totally exposed side. She'd circled all the way back around in the creek bottom and was coming, but spotted me glassing and had stopped. I froze, but she got nervous and left, taking him with her.

So that was that. End of November season. I had a great hunt, had close calls with a couple very good bucks I should have shot, passed up a number of others, and learned some things in a tough year with not many deer.

Bowboy, I had hand warmers in my pockets, but my right hand was out for so long in the cold between working the Heads Up and while on the string, that I hadn't noticed that my fingers had lost all feeling. When the string slipped off the tab, my hand flew back and hit me in the face. I plan to work on something with a mitten with pull back end so I can keep my exposed hand covered until the last moment. But this has never happened before, and I hunt in the cold a lot, so maybe my circulation isn't what it used to be. When I said the shot went under "his armpit", I meant it hit the dirt under his armpit. I felt like an idiot.

I'm still not over it. But I have to put it behind me and move on. Had a great season so far, killed a 350" bull, should have killed a 190" buck, and still have some opportunities to hunt later in December if the weather isn't terrible.

Hope you all had a good holiday weekend, and congrats again, Bill!

I hope you can continue in December Lou!

Best Wishes, Jeff

I've got the TBM virus!!!

Best Wishes, Jeff

Is there a late season hunt in December that you might consider....or are you done for the Fall?