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Sorry it took me a while to post this, but the last few weeks have been crazy.
Saturday, November 19, was the first morning of statewide season. I had gotten a button buck two weeks ago on some public land on the far side of the Cumberland Plateau, then last week I got an eight point on a managed hunt more in this part of the state. I still had not gotten to hunt the bench I have been preparing to hunt all season, so I decided to hit it this last Saturday morning. The following threads describe my scouting and preparation and the best buck sign I?d ever seen before:
First Report (identifying, exploring for, and discovering the bench, and finding a safe access route ? 9/3/05): http://www.tndeer.com/ubb/NonCGI/ultima ... 804#000000
Second Report (1st & 10th posts on the thread?scouting, finding scene of buck fight, carrying treestand up mountain, and picking tree ? 10/14/05):
http://www.tndeer.com/ubb/NonCGI/ultima ... 027#000000
Third Report (hanging treestand, marking sneak-in trail, identifying ridiculous amounts of buck sign ? 10/22/05):
http://www.tndeer.com/ubb/NonCGI/ultima ... 077#000000
Fourth Report below (11/19/05):
Since my treestand is roughly a mile back in and across a mountain on the far side of a creek, and I already had two deer in the freezer, there was no way that I was going to shoot a medium bodied deer and kill myself dragging it out. Does weren?t legal, so I could take a little, little doe that would be fairly easy to get out. So, I told my wife not to worry that I?d have yet another deer?I wasn?t shooting anything but a trophy, and I wasn?t counting on that happening! I thought about taking my bow, but I thought that if all I am going to shoot is a deer with a BIG rack, and I would be kicking myself if I missed a chance at a BIG buck because I was using a bow instead of a rifle, I would be kicking myself for weeks?or maybe all fall. So, I went with the Savage 10ML-II again.
Anyway, I overslept a half-hour, so I rushed all the way to my parking spot. Since this is public land, I always try to get out of sight as quickly as possible so that few people think to try hunting in this spot. Loaded the muzzleloader, put on waders, and crossed the creek, then put on my boots and started climbing the mountain. Temperature was in the mid twenties, but I just wore a pair of camo long johns and my boots, extra thermals and insulated outer clothes in my pack. As it was I still had to stop about every hundred feet of elevation to cool down so I didn?t sweat too much.
Bu the time I got to my tree, it was just a couple minutes before legal shooting light. I clipped my safety harness into the Prusick knot/safety line I had rigged four weeks before and started climbing the tree. By the time I got up the tree, got the pack strapped to the tree, pulled up my rifle, and got on my outer pants and jacket, it was about 7 am (approximately fifteen minutes ?til sunrise) and light enough to see the crosshairs through my scope. I settled in and started watching.
All I saw most of the morning was a few squirrels and dozens of chipmunks, and heard a few turkeys. I could see a couple of fresh rubs within thirty yards of my tree, but the mock scrap I had started a month ago was completely covered with leaves. I dozed a little, and then?
About 9, I found out why it is so important to tie the foot/platform section of your treestand to the seat/hand climber! I?m drowsy but looking around, shift my feet a little, and suddenly hear CLANG! CLUNK! and feel a jerk on my seat. When I fully recovered bladder control and decided that it was not a sasquatch climbing into the tree with me, I realized that I was twenty-three feet up a tree, perched in a small seat, and my foot platform was eight feet below me. I double checked my safety harness, then started tugging on the rope tied to the foot platform. When I would pull on the rope, the teeth on would bite into the bark, and I thought I would never get it up to me. I was really glad I had brought my cell phone! But, enough tugging and rotating it back and forth around the tree and I managed to get it back up within reach.
By this time, it?s 9:10 a.m. and after having made all that racket I doubt there are still any deer in the area and I consider climbing down and still hunting. But, I figure I can give it another hour, then use the deer calls a little, wait another hour, and head out if I still haven?t seen anything.
The decision to stay was a good one. I was sure nothing could sneak up on me, since I could hear chipmunks rustling in the leaves 60 yards away. But, about forty-five minutes later, straight in front of me, I see the front half of a deer. My first reaction was, ?Naw, that can?t be a deer?I would have heard it approaching!? It stepped into full view fifty yards away, and I realized it was a deer?and with a nice rack! I could tell very quickly that it was larger than the eight point I killed last Saturday.
The problem was, since I had been sure I would hear any deer coming, my hands were both stuck deep in my pockets and my gun was hanging two feet from them on a little sapling in front of my stand. I began to SO, SO, SO SLOWLY ease my hands out of my pockets and start inching my left hand toward the rifle. The worst part was that I knew even if I did make it to the rifle without blowing my cover, the sapling was so small that my ten pound gun caused it to lean over on the side where the gun hangs on it. I knew that when I lifted the gun off the hook, the tree was almost certain to sway and alert the buck. All I could think of was that if he made me, I?d never catch this deer again with me sitting in the same tree.
The deer meandered perpendicular to my line of sight until it got to the path I had taken to my tree. As soon as he started to cross the path I had taken, his nose hit the ground and I thought the show was over. I had worn rubber boots, but due to his obvious reaction, I was sure I had left my scent anyway. However, instead of going on alert and hightailing it out of there, he kept his nose to the ground and slowly started following my trail?straight toward my tree! At about thirty yards, he stopped and stared straight toward my tree, but did not look up to my height.
The whole time, I was easing toward my gun and then lifting it ever-so-slowly upward. Every time he would pause and look around, I would freeze and avert my eyes to look over his back or off to the side. (When you are fully camo?ed, your eyes are the only distinct body part that is not covered by the face mask or facenet, so I think most agree they are one of the worst give-aways. I am convinced that deer are much more likely to notice you if you make direct eye contact with them. Think about it: you can be in a crowd full of strangers, but if one of them is staring right at you, you are sure to notice them!) As soon as he would start walking again, I would start inching on again and watching for the slightest pause.
He followed my trail all the way to three yards from my tree, pretty much directly below my stand. By this time, I had my rifle lifted up off the strap on hook, but the sling was caught on it, and when I finally got it loose, the sapling started swaying back and forth. I slowly peeked over my arm, and sure enough, big boy was staring right up at me, his head craned almost straight upward. I didn?t move a muscle, and after about fifteen seconds of staring, he put his head down and started walking off to my left, such that my left arm blocked my view of the deer.
I slowly began bringing the stock up to my shoulder and the muzzle downward, and even though I couldn?t see the deer, I could hear him walking. Then I realized I didn?t hear any footsteps! I froze and peeked around my arm, and he was staring right at me again, only five yards away.
This time, he snorted and ran. I immediately snapped the gun to my shoulder and acquired him in the scope within two bounds. I had just gotten the crosshairs on his near shoulder and was going to pull the trigger as soon as he passed the trunk of a big black oak he was going to cross on the opposite side of. Suddenly, though, he wasn?t in the scope anymore! I immediately back-tracked, caught grayish fur in the scope and realized he had stopped about fifteen yards away, with the dead leaves of a beech tree between us. His head was behind the black oak, but from the way the front of his body and neck was curved toward me, I could tell he was staring back trying to figure out what he had seen. I?m pretty sure he was staring at my back pack strapped to the tree.
In the haste of the moment, I was acting on practice not conscious thought, and I think all my practice with the bow and McKenzie target took over. I settled the crosshairs right behind the point of his shoulder and just a little bit below it and squeezed the trigger.
BOOM!!!
He took off running and bounding over fallen trees and I was afraid I had missed, but at about thirty-five yards, his feet started brushing the vines and limbs when he bounded over stuff and he looked drunk was he ran. He reached the lip of the bench at about fifty yards and tried to turn hard to his left to run between two bolders. His feet slid out from under him and he landed on his left side, then jumped up and with one bound was below the crest and out of sight. But I couldn?t hear any more running, so?.
I stood and listened for about two minutes, then pulled a speed loader out, swabbed the barrel, lowered my gun to the ground, and tossed my pack down, too. I climbed slowly, listening to see if the racket of climbing down prompted a renewed spate of running.
I found a clump of white hairs at 13 yards from my tree and was afraid I had just clipped his belly. But then I saw a splash of frothy, bright red blood. I followed the trail fifty yards and found him laying against the side of a mountain boulder right where I saw him fall.
I drug him off about a hundred yards and field dressed him, then started the long task of getting him off the mountain. To make a long story short, it took three hours of dragging to get him down to the creek, then another hour-and-a-half (now with my brother helping) to get him across the creek and up to the car. All told, five and a half hours from the shot to the tailgate.
We checked him in, then my brother and I had to go back and climb the mountain again to get my pack and outer clothes that I left up there to drag the deer.
Some stats:
--8 points
--2.5 years old
--Weight unknown
--21.5? main beams with 4.7? circumference
--14.9? inside spread, approximately 17? outside spread
--Estimate right at 120" B&C typical
--245 grain Barnes Spitfire made a hole 4? wide and 2? high on the entrance (right side), broke two ribs and punched out an area about the size of my fist on the right/inside of the rib cage. Hit the lower lobe of the right lung, cut the heard in two, and jellified the left lung before make a 1.75? exit on the left side.
--He covered 54 yards from shot to flop
I can't help thinking that if he was this big at just 2.5 years old, what would he have looked like in another year or two? I'm hopeful that there is still another big one in the neighborhood, since one of the first signs I found there was the trampled area from a buck fight. I doubt that this one was the oldest buck in the area, but even if he was, I am confident that he will be replaced. I also have no problem passing on small bucks, since I think they stand a very good chance of not being shot by someone else in such a remote location.
Some pics:
Entrance wound (4? x 2?):
Entrance on inside of ribcage: (approximately 5 or 6 inch area blown open):
Exit wound (1.75?):
Saturday, November 19, was the first morning of statewide season. I had gotten a button buck two weeks ago on some public land on the far side of the Cumberland Plateau, then last week I got an eight point on a managed hunt more in this part of the state. I still had not gotten to hunt the bench I have been preparing to hunt all season, so I decided to hit it this last Saturday morning. The following threads describe my scouting and preparation and the best buck sign I?d ever seen before:
First Report (identifying, exploring for, and discovering the bench, and finding a safe access route ? 9/3/05): http://www.tndeer.com/ubb/NonCGI/ultima ... 804#000000
Second Report (1st & 10th posts on the thread?scouting, finding scene of buck fight, carrying treestand up mountain, and picking tree ? 10/14/05):
http://www.tndeer.com/ubb/NonCGI/ultima ... 027#000000
Third Report (hanging treestand, marking sneak-in trail, identifying ridiculous amounts of buck sign ? 10/22/05):
http://www.tndeer.com/ubb/NonCGI/ultima ... 077#000000
Fourth Report below (11/19/05):
Since my treestand is roughly a mile back in and across a mountain on the far side of a creek, and I already had two deer in the freezer, there was no way that I was going to shoot a medium bodied deer and kill myself dragging it out. Does weren?t legal, so I could take a little, little doe that would be fairly easy to get out. So, I told my wife not to worry that I?d have yet another deer?I wasn?t shooting anything but a trophy, and I wasn?t counting on that happening! I thought about taking my bow, but I thought that if all I am going to shoot is a deer with a BIG rack, and I would be kicking myself if I missed a chance at a BIG buck because I was using a bow instead of a rifle, I would be kicking myself for weeks?or maybe all fall. So, I went with the Savage 10ML-II again.
Anyway, I overslept a half-hour, so I rushed all the way to my parking spot. Since this is public land, I always try to get out of sight as quickly as possible so that few people think to try hunting in this spot. Loaded the muzzleloader, put on waders, and crossed the creek, then put on my boots and started climbing the mountain. Temperature was in the mid twenties, but I just wore a pair of camo long johns and my boots, extra thermals and insulated outer clothes in my pack. As it was I still had to stop about every hundred feet of elevation to cool down so I didn?t sweat too much.
Bu the time I got to my tree, it was just a couple minutes before legal shooting light. I clipped my safety harness into the Prusick knot/safety line I had rigged four weeks before and started climbing the tree. By the time I got up the tree, got the pack strapped to the tree, pulled up my rifle, and got on my outer pants and jacket, it was about 7 am (approximately fifteen minutes ?til sunrise) and light enough to see the crosshairs through my scope. I settled in and started watching.
All I saw most of the morning was a few squirrels and dozens of chipmunks, and heard a few turkeys. I could see a couple of fresh rubs within thirty yards of my tree, but the mock scrap I had started a month ago was completely covered with leaves. I dozed a little, and then?
About 9, I found out why it is so important to tie the foot/platform section of your treestand to the seat/hand climber! I?m drowsy but looking around, shift my feet a little, and suddenly hear CLANG! CLUNK! and feel a jerk on my seat. When I fully recovered bladder control and decided that it was not a sasquatch climbing into the tree with me, I realized that I was twenty-three feet up a tree, perched in a small seat, and my foot platform was eight feet below me. I double checked my safety harness, then started tugging on the rope tied to the foot platform. When I would pull on the rope, the teeth on would bite into the bark, and I thought I would never get it up to me. I was really glad I had brought my cell phone! But, enough tugging and rotating it back and forth around the tree and I managed to get it back up within reach.
By this time, it?s 9:10 a.m. and after having made all that racket I doubt there are still any deer in the area and I consider climbing down and still hunting. But, I figure I can give it another hour, then use the deer calls a little, wait another hour, and head out if I still haven?t seen anything.
The decision to stay was a good one. I was sure nothing could sneak up on me, since I could hear chipmunks rustling in the leaves 60 yards away. But, about forty-five minutes later, straight in front of me, I see the front half of a deer. My first reaction was, ?Naw, that can?t be a deer?I would have heard it approaching!? It stepped into full view fifty yards away, and I realized it was a deer?and with a nice rack! I could tell very quickly that it was larger than the eight point I killed last Saturday.
The problem was, since I had been sure I would hear any deer coming, my hands were both stuck deep in my pockets and my gun was hanging two feet from them on a little sapling in front of my stand. I began to SO, SO, SO SLOWLY ease my hands out of my pockets and start inching my left hand toward the rifle. The worst part was that I knew even if I did make it to the rifle without blowing my cover, the sapling was so small that my ten pound gun caused it to lean over on the side where the gun hangs on it. I knew that when I lifted the gun off the hook, the tree was almost certain to sway and alert the buck. All I could think of was that if he made me, I?d never catch this deer again with me sitting in the same tree.
The deer meandered perpendicular to my line of sight until it got to the path I had taken to my tree. As soon as he started to cross the path I had taken, his nose hit the ground and I thought the show was over. I had worn rubber boots, but due to his obvious reaction, I was sure I had left my scent anyway. However, instead of going on alert and hightailing it out of there, he kept his nose to the ground and slowly started following my trail?straight toward my tree! At about thirty yards, he stopped and stared straight toward my tree, but did not look up to my height.
The whole time, I was easing toward my gun and then lifting it ever-so-slowly upward. Every time he would pause and look around, I would freeze and avert my eyes to look over his back or off to the side. (When you are fully camo?ed, your eyes are the only distinct body part that is not covered by the face mask or facenet, so I think most agree they are one of the worst give-aways. I am convinced that deer are much more likely to notice you if you make direct eye contact with them. Think about it: you can be in a crowd full of strangers, but if one of them is staring right at you, you are sure to notice them!) As soon as he would start walking again, I would start inching on again and watching for the slightest pause.
He followed my trail all the way to three yards from my tree, pretty much directly below my stand. By this time, I had my rifle lifted up off the strap on hook, but the sling was caught on it, and when I finally got it loose, the sapling started swaying back and forth. I slowly peeked over my arm, and sure enough, big boy was staring right up at me, his head craned almost straight upward. I didn?t move a muscle, and after about fifteen seconds of staring, he put his head down and started walking off to my left, such that my left arm blocked my view of the deer.
I slowly began bringing the stock up to my shoulder and the muzzle downward, and even though I couldn?t see the deer, I could hear him walking. Then I realized I didn?t hear any footsteps! I froze and peeked around my arm, and he was staring right at me again, only five yards away.
This time, he snorted and ran. I immediately snapped the gun to my shoulder and acquired him in the scope within two bounds. I had just gotten the crosshairs on his near shoulder and was going to pull the trigger as soon as he passed the trunk of a big black oak he was going to cross on the opposite side of. Suddenly, though, he wasn?t in the scope anymore! I immediately back-tracked, caught grayish fur in the scope and realized he had stopped about fifteen yards away, with the dead leaves of a beech tree between us. His head was behind the black oak, but from the way the front of his body and neck was curved toward me, I could tell he was staring back trying to figure out what he had seen. I?m pretty sure he was staring at my back pack strapped to the tree.
In the haste of the moment, I was acting on practice not conscious thought, and I think all my practice with the bow and McKenzie target took over. I settled the crosshairs right behind the point of his shoulder and just a little bit below it and squeezed the trigger.
BOOM!!!
He took off running and bounding over fallen trees and I was afraid I had missed, but at about thirty-five yards, his feet started brushing the vines and limbs when he bounded over stuff and he looked drunk was he ran. He reached the lip of the bench at about fifty yards and tried to turn hard to his left to run between two bolders. His feet slid out from under him and he landed on his left side, then jumped up and with one bound was below the crest and out of sight. But I couldn?t hear any more running, so?.
I stood and listened for about two minutes, then pulled a speed loader out, swabbed the barrel, lowered my gun to the ground, and tossed my pack down, too. I climbed slowly, listening to see if the racket of climbing down prompted a renewed spate of running.
I found a clump of white hairs at 13 yards from my tree and was afraid I had just clipped his belly. But then I saw a splash of frothy, bright red blood. I followed the trail fifty yards and found him laying against the side of a mountain boulder right where I saw him fall.
I drug him off about a hundred yards and field dressed him, then started the long task of getting him off the mountain. To make a long story short, it took three hours of dragging to get him down to the creek, then another hour-and-a-half (now with my brother helping) to get him across the creek and up to the car. All told, five and a half hours from the shot to the tailgate.
We checked him in, then my brother and I had to go back and climb the mountain again to get my pack and outer clothes that I left up there to drag the deer.
Some stats:
--8 points
--2.5 years old
--Weight unknown
--21.5? main beams with 4.7? circumference
--14.9? inside spread, approximately 17? outside spread
--Estimate right at 120" B&C typical
--245 grain Barnes Spitfire made a hole 4? wide and 2? high on the entrance (right side), broke two ribs and punched out an area about the size of my fist on the right/inside of the rib cage. Hit the lower lobe of the right lung, cut the heard in two, and jellified the left lung before make a 1.75? exit on the left side.
--He covered 54 yards from shot to flop
I can't help thinking that if he was this big at just 2.5 years old, what would he have looked like in another year or two? I'm hopeful that there is still another big one in the neighborhood, since one of the first signs I found there was the trampled area from a buck fight. I doubt that this one was the oldest buck in the area, but even if he was, I am confident that he will be replaced. I also have no problem passing on small bucks, since I think they stand a very good chance of not being shot by someone else in such a remote location.
Some pics:
Entrance wound (4? x 2?):
Entrance on inside of ribcage: (approximately 5 or 6 inch area blown open):
Exit wound (1.75?):
