bigbendmarine
5 year old buck +
Made my first harvest of the season late Wednesday afternoon... few forum members might recall he was one of the deer that I questioned putting on the hit list in '17 but ended up letting walk around the house on the closing day of last year's season after I fillled a self-imposed 2 buck limit.
I named him "Chief Osceola" in '17 as when I first saw him he had a rather flattened spear-like G2 point not to mention brow tines that also looked somewhat blade-like. For reference sake here are a couple of photo captures from '17. One immediately below is one of the first camera captures I got of him.
Took this picture of him walking around the house on closing day... he's the buck on the left... sadly, never saw the one on the right I named "MeLikey" again.
Fast forward to this year and Chief Osceola was one of the very first bucks I spotted in velvet, as he was drawn to cherries dropping from a wild black cherry tree like a moth to a flame. However, once the cherries stopped dropping in late July with the exception of a random sighting or two he went almost entirely AWOL until late October.
So on to the tale of the harvest...
While I've had two tempting jr. bucks walking out on me nearly every sit, Chief Osceola proved a more challenging foe. He actually walked out on me opening night but did so AFTER legal light as I scoped the area with a night monocular waiting for the coast to clear so I could leave my stand. Waited him out before getting down and felt good I hadn't spooked him.
About a week ago I saw him again, and this time in daylight, but he never gave me a shot I felt comfortable taking. I had three spikes half-heartedly chasing does between feeding and playful sparring matches when all of a sudden I saw his notably larger frame enter the very back edge of my plot. Only had time to ID him through glass before he exited the stage, hot on the scent trail of does the spikes had run off. Actually had my wife text me to tell me she spotted him chasing does in our front yard as light was giving out... and THEN HE AGAIN crossed the plot AFTER legal light, making me wait for him to clear the area before getting down from my stand.
Which brings me to Wednesday. Cold day as North Florida goes. Morning temps were actually around 30 and we had our first real hard frost of the season. I wasn't able to hunt the morning but with highs only briefly hitting the 50s, I made it a point to be out in the evening as temps quickly started falling into the 40s. Does staged early, with a nanny doe and two fawns hanging out in my primary plot and two other does hanging further back in a connecting narrow clover plot that butts up against ancient live oak trees. Picture is actually from earlier hunt but deer positions were almost identical with the live oaks just to the right of the photo edge / can see Spanish moss hanging from the limbs of one of them.
The lack of spikes hanging around had me guardedly optimistic a mature buck might be around so I tried staying extra attentive and sure enough before waiting too long Chief came out of the woods near the does hanging around the distant live oaks... and instantly gave chase... AWAY from the plot.
THREE TIMES the does circled the live oaks with Chief on their heels and never slowing the least tiny bit for me to feel confident taking a shot... and with each circle I held my breath fearing that the group would run to the woods or to other plots than the one I was hunting... but after the 3rd circle, Chief paused and then diverted his attention to checking a scrape almost directly in front of my stand... and the deed was done. Begging forgiveness for the nerd level factor, Osceola's path looked something like this with brown star symbols representing orignal positions of does / fawns.
Hunting alone makes it a challenge to get good harvest photos, but these were the best of the bunch / hopefully show a bit of the unique character of his rack.
Finish by sharing that I shot him with my 6.5 creedmoor and never had a deer go down so quickly. He literally didn't take a single step / crumpled and instantly died in his tracks. Think I'm going to be taking a week or two break to turn my attention to more problematic matters... video below is from a SINGLE week of camera card pulls and captured right AFTER having just killed three sows out of the sounder. Make it to the 1:35 mark in the video and you'll appreciate the challenge at hand. Piglets can begin mating at about 6 months and sows can have 2 litters of 8 or so piglets twice a year.
I named him "Chief Osceola" in '17 as when I first saw him he had a rather flattened spear-like G2 point not to mention brow tines that also looked somewhat blade-like. For reference sake here are a couple of photo captures from '17. One immediately below is one of the first camera captures I got of him.
Took this picture of him walking around the house on closing day... he's the buck on the left... sadly, never saw the one on the right I named "MeLikey" again.
Fast forward to this year and Chief Osceola was one of the very first bucks I spotted in velvet, as he was drawn to cherries dropping from a wild black cherry tree like a moth to a flame. However, once the cherries stopped dropping in late July with the exception of a random sighting or two he went almost entirely AWOL until late October.
So on to the tale of the harvest...
While I've had two tempting jr. bucks walking out on me nearly every sit, Chief Osceola proved a more challenging foe. He actually walked out on me opening night but did so AFTER legal light as I scoped the area with a night monocular waiting for the coast to clear so I could leave my stand. Waited him out before getting down and felt good I hadn't spooked him.
About a week ago I saw him again, and this time in daylight, but he never gave me a shot I felt comfortable taking. I had three spikes half-heartedly chasing does between feeding and playful sparring matches when all of a sudden I saw his notably larger frame enter the very back edge of my plot. Only had time to ID him through glass before he exited the stage, hot on the scent trail of does the spikes had run off. Actually had my wife text me to tell me she spotted him chasing does in our front yard as light was giving out... and THEN HE AGAIN crossed the plot AFTER legal light, making me wait for him to clear the area before getting down from my stand.
Which brings me to Wednesday. Cold day as North Florida goes. Morning temps were actually around 30 and we had our first real hard frost of the season. I wasn't able to hunt the morning but with highs only briefly hitting the 50s, I made it a point to be out in the evening as temps quickly started falling into the 40s. Does staged early, with a nanny doe and two fawns hanging out in my primary plot and two other does hanging further back in a connecting narrow clover plot that butts up against ancient live oak trees. Picture is actually from earlier hunt but deer positions were almost identical with the live oaks just to the right of the photo edge / can see Spanish moss hanging from the limbs of one of them.
The lack of spikes hanging around had me guardedly optimistic a mature buck might be around so I tried staying extra attentive and sure enough before waiting too long Chief came out of the woods near the does hanging around the distant live oaks... and instantly gave chase... AWAY from the plot.
THREE TIMES the does circled the live oaks with Chief on their heels and never slowing the least tiny bit for me to feel confident taking a shot... and with each circle I held my breath fearing that the group would run to the woods or to other plots than the one I was hunting... but after the 3rd circle, Chief paused and then diverted his attention to checking a scrape almost directly in front of my stand... and the deed was done. Begging forgiveness for the nerd level factor, Osceola's path looked something like this with brown star symbols representing orignal positions of does / fawns.
Hunting alone makes it a challenge to get good harvest photos, but these were the best of the bunch / hopefully show a bit of the unique character of his rack.
Finish by sharing that I shot him with my 6.5 creedmoor and never had a deer go down so quickly. He literally didn't take a single step / crumpled and instantly died in his tracks. Think I'm going to be taking a week or two break to turn my attention to more problematic matters... video below is from a SINGLE week of camera card pulls and captured right AFTER having just killed three sows out of the sounder. Make it to the 1:35 mark in the video and you'll appreciate the challenge at hand. Piglets can begin mating at about 6 months and sows can have 2 litters of 8 or so piglets twice a year.