H20fwler
5 year old buck +
This past weekend was our muzzle loader season, I've got a T/C Omega that is an OK rifle but it's nothing like my 45/70...I nick named the 45/70 "The Death Wand" the T/C I call the "Fence Post". I feel fine shooting the muzzle loader out to 150 yards or so, it is set up with a rear peep and a thin green fiber optic front blade that's the way it has been since I bought it used years ago. I've shot a couple does with it over the years...normally I am tagged out by now but I decided to only shoot a good sized buck this year and I have completely laid off the does and yearlings on our properties.
Saturday just before light a doe with fawn went under me about an hour later four came out along the river about four hundred yards away. Through the binos it was two basket bucks and two does heading away from me, an hour or so later a steady stream of deer starting loping by me fifty yards away...they all were single file. Our woods was logged around ten years ago and it has been getting thicker low growth every year. I kept looking for horns as the deer passed in and out of cover, finally after about the seventh one by a decent buck came through. I threw the gun to my shoulder and started looking for an open spot two more flat heads were right behind it and then a really nice buck that was well past his ears was bringing up the rear...so I shifted back to that one.
I looked ahead of it for a good opening that was semi clear found one but he went through to quick so I swung to the next open spot, he was slowing down by then and just poked his head and neck out from behind a large tree he was around sixty five yards right in the middle of the woods...he came out quartering away in a little bit of brush I figured the fifty could easily punch through so I gave it a shot. The T/C sounded like a cannon and there was a little smoke for a second, when it blew off he was still standing there...THEY ALL WERE! I though for sure they would all blow out like a covey of quail...but they didn't they all just stayed kind of milling around. I could see heads going up and down in the brush and tails flicking, some were eating on twigs? And the bigger of the two bucks just stepped back into the herd...about then I'm thinking I better reload this thing. First time ever reloading one up a tree and I was rattled by then with all this deer just staying there I pulled out a speed loader and tried to load the bullet in first figured out I was ass backwards flipped it around sent the two pellets in then started the bullet I finally got everything rammed down and then made a loud clinking noise putting the rod back in, the deer didn't mind...and I was down wind of the herd and that help a bunch.
I still had the primer to switch out so I drop the block and try to pull it out...it was stuck, I kept looking over at this buck and he was just milling around with the rest of them. Finally when I tilted the rifle the primer just fell out...I grabbed one out of my pocket closed the breach pulled hammer back threw gun to my shoulder and tried to find another clear shot of the buck he was in and out of cover just like all the rest of them..glimpses and lots of tail twitching head bobbing. It had been a couple of minutes since I had first shot.
I still could not believe they were all still sixty-ish yards away...this went on for a long time...my arms started to hurt from holding the rifle up trying to get another shot at the nicer buck. Finally I just slowly let the rifle down, after maybe ten minutes from initial shot they all start moving to the back corner of woods away from me..I could see some of them browsing as they went..still no shot at the buck.
They started getting even more fidgety and started filing out of the woods going straight south loping across an open bean stubble field crossing road and went into my neighbors woods five hundred yards away.
I stayed in the tree for an hour then climbed down went over to the spot where the buck was standing half expecting maybe he was laying there and I had been looking at the other buck in the cover...I didn't find anything, no blood no hair no nothing. I looked all over the direction the herd moved before they left nothing...I had flat out missed with the Fence Post. First shot I had taken at a deer all year and I whiffed it. In over forty years of deer hunting I had never seen a bunch of deer act like that after a shot.
I ran into my neighbor the next day at lunch and he said thirteen deer had come out of my woods and ran by a couple hundred yards from his house into his woods...I didn't even know there was that many there with the brush.
Sunday morning I hunted the little woods and had a deer come in behind me but it was to dark yet to tell what it was.
After it started getting light raccoons kept going by like a troop of baboons. There were raccoons going every direction looking for a tree to go up to sleep the day away, a couple were having quite a rent dispute over a den tree right behind me. There were at least a half dozen coon in sight at one time..then one decides he is coming up the tree I am in....I draw the line at sharing my stand with a big raccoon so I wave my hand at it to shoo it away, it dead eyes me like it was thinking about taking me on. Finally they all went wherever they go and things quieted down...way quiet didn't see anything else besides squirrels and birds.
Hunted yesterday and didn't see a deer, lots of turkey but no deer...first time in thirty sits this season. I had so many deer crazy close this year and passed on bucks I would have gladly shot a few years ago. My deer season is over it's tag soup for me.
As I was getting into my truck I noticed a cool cloud formation over the farm showing that the weather was changing.
The Indians would say that it was a sign.......
.....a sign that I shouldn't have passed on so many bucks!
Saturday just before light a doe with fawn went under me about an hour later four came out along the river about four hundred yards away. Through the binos it was two basket bucks and two does heading away from me, an hour or so later a steady stream of deer starting loping by me fifty yards away...they all were single file. Our woods was logged around ten years ago and it has been getting thicker low growth every year. I kept looking for horns as the deer passed in and out of cover, finally after about the seventh one by a decent buck came through. I threw the gun to my shoulder and started looking for an open spot two more flat heads were right behind it and then a really nice buck that was well past his ears was bringing up the rear...so I shifted back to that one.
I looked ahead of it for a good opening that was semi clear found one but he went through to quick so I swung to the next open spot, he was slowing down by then and just poked his head and neck out from behind a large tree he was around sixty five yards right in the middle of the woods...he came out quartering away in a little bit of brush I figured the fifty could easily punch through so I gave it a shot. The T/C sounded like a cannon and there was a little smoke for a second, when it blew off he was still standing there...THEY ALL WERE! I though for sure they would all blow out like a covey of quail...but they didn't they all just stayed kind of milling around. I could see heads going up and down in the brush and tails flicking, some were eating on twigs? And the bigger of the two bucks just stepped back into the herd...about then I'm thinking I better reload this thing. First time ever reloading one up a tree and I was rattled by then with all this deer just staying there I pulled out a speed loader and tried to load the bullet in first figured out I was ass backwards flipped it around sent the two pellets in then started the bullet I finally got everything rammed down and then made a loud clinking noise putting the rod back in, the deer didn't mind...and I was down wind of the herd and that help a bunch.
I still had the primer to switch out so I drop the block and try to pull it out...it was stuck, I kept looking over at this buck and he was just milling around with the rest of them. Finally when I tilted the rifle the primer just fell out...I grabbed one out of my pocket closed the breach pulled hammer back threw gun to my shoulder and tried to find another clear shot of the buck he was in and out of cover just like all the rest of them..glimpses and lots of tail twitching head bobbing. It had been a couple of minutes since I had first shot.
I still could not believe they were all still sixty-ish yards away...this went on for a long time...my arms started to hurt from holding the rifle up trying to get another shot at the nicer buck. Finally I just slowly let the rifle down, after maybe ten minutes from initial shot they all start moving to the back corner of woods away from me..I could see some of them browsing as they went..still no shot at the buck.
They started getting even more fidgety and started filing out of the woods going straight south loping across an open bean stubble field crossing road and went into my neighbors woods five hundred yards away.
I stayed in the tree for an hour then climbed down went over to the spot where the buck was standing half expecting maybe he was laying there and I had been looking at the other buck in the cover...I didn't find anything, no blood no hair no nothing. I looked all over the direction the herd moved before they left nothing...I had flat out missed with the Fence Post. First shot I had taken at a deer all year and I whiffed it. In over forty years of deer hunting I had never seen a bunch of deer act like that after a shot.
I ran into my neighbor the next day at lunch and he said thirteen deer had come out of my woods and ran by a couple hundred yards from his house into his woods...I didn't even know there was that many there with the brush.
Sunday morning I hunted the little woods and had a deer come in behind me but it was to dark yet to tell what it was.
After it started getting light raccoons kept going by like a troop of baboons. There were raccoons going every direction looking for a tree to go up to sleep the day away, a couple were having quite a rent dispute over a den tree right behind me. There were at least a half dozen coon in sight at one time..then one decides he is coming up the tree I am in....I draw the line at sharing my stand with a big raccoon so I wave my hand at it to shoo it away, it dead eyes me like it was thinking about taking me on. Finally they all went wherever they go and things quieted down...way quiet didn't see anything else besides squirrels and birds.
Hunted yesterday and didn't see a deer, lots of turkey but no deer...first time in thirty sits this season. I had so many deer crazy close this year and passed on bucks I would have gladly shot a few years ago. My deer season is over it's tag soup for me.
As I was getting into my truck I noticed a cool cloud formation over the farm showing that the weather was changing.
The Indians would say that it was a sign.......
.....a sign that I shouldn't have passed on so many bucks!
