Mid Oct-doe-ber Recap

More rewarding days afield in the 'big woods' for the team. A review of trail cam pics showed a few decent bucks moving during the day which brought some hope to an otherwise planned Oct-doe-ber hunt. For the past few years, October 10-15 have brought one or two consecutive days of daytime buck movement. It appears we caught the tail end of it this weekend.


































Our first morning brought only a doe and fawn before light for Tim. That evening he sat another location where he passed on a doe that wandered through. She was watching down the trail, intently. Within a few minutes, Tim could see some other deer in the distance and finally could see a nice 8 pt buck about 80 yards down a trail. This buck had a huge body, but after getting some views of his rack, he looked to have the antlers of what one would expect on a 2.5 year old. We couldn't believe the body definition this likely young buck had. After reviewing the trail cam pics again, I believe he was the buck in the first picture above.

The does that the buck was working made their way to us. Tim took his eyes off the buck long enough to put an arrow through the lungs of the larger doe. The buck hung at about 50 yards for a few minutes then trotted off. I look forward to another sighting of this guy next year. Meanwhile, the doe Tim arrowed made it to a swamp before falling dead. Luckily, the swamp she picked was only 60 yards away. To quote Tim, "I think I got an extra 50 pounds passing that first doe."















The next morning Tim and I switched roles and sat a stand near the area in which the doe was killed the night before. We managed to see one doe within 100 yards that morning. I tried to lure her with some soft bleats. She closed about 10 yards of the distance, but soon lost interest. That afternoon, we were set by 3:15. At 4:00, two does crested a ridge which separates this stand from the edge of a marsh. They were about 60 yards out and made their way to us. I picked out what I thought was the larger of the two and relayed my choice to Tim, who was behind the camera in the adjacent tree. Tim gave me the go ahead when he had clear view in an opening. The shot was good. You'll have to trust me, though, as she managed to take one extra step behind the next tree which blocked the cameras view of her front half. We watched her fall and it was a short 35 yard walk to retrieve her.















Looking forward to the 'never-can-tell' excitement that is Sweet November.

Brian