It seems every hunt is getting more eventful as the January rut heats up. The morning of January 4th was one of the more enjoyable hunts I’ve had in a long time. Action packed from the time the sun came up until after I had even climbed down at 10:00 a.m. from the stand.
About 25 minutes after I recorded my “hunt intro” video, I noticed some of the tall broomsedge shaking around only 25 yards from my stand. I had never hunted in this cutover and I assumed a deer’s head would at least be visible over the standing vegetation. I was ready for a fox or coyote to pop out but was shocked when it turned out to be a doe and 2 fawns.
I thought about letting them slip on by but as close as it was to the roadbed there wouldn’t be much of a drag. As I deciding what to do, I went to move my video camera tripod over to capture the shot on video but as I was doing so the nanny caught my scent and starting stomping her foot. I went into “all-business” mode and let her have it before she could take off running and alert the rest of the woods that danger lurked close by. By the time my gun echo had quieted, I think the danger factor was quite obvious but I had a 102 pound doe to brag about to.
Within 10 minutes of the gun shot, I glassed 2 does and a couple fawns over 400 yards away in the far corner of the cutover. While I was watching them, I heard a grunt about 75 yards in front of the stand where a little creek tributary spills out into the cutover. It’s really brushy there and I could see a buck weaving his way down the same trail that I presume the doe and 2 fawns from earlier had used.
He scent trailed them right to the identical spot where I shot the doe before turning and heading away. My best guess was a really solid yearling 5 point buck.
Not 20 minutes later, I heard branches breaking again in the exact same spot. Buck #2 of the morning was hot on the same scent trail. This time, the 2 year old half rack 8 point came in and spotted me moving the camera arm, but before he could spook out the entire cutover he ran into a doe and fawn and got pre-occupied chasing them around for the next 30 minutes.
At one point, they completely left the cutover and I thought the action for the morning was probably over, but just about the time I thought about getting down to drag out my doe, they crossed back over a creek and came back in going round and round in circles. By this time, it was 9:00 a.m. and I reasonably sure no other bucks were in the area and decided to try and double on does.
I failed to see the vine hanging in between myself and my intended target on the first shot and you can see the vine shake for about 10 seconds after the initial try. The second shot hit the mark though and she only went about 45 yards before piling up.
Just an action packed morning and I actually had another couple deer run off when I was getting down out of the stand. Didn’t get a look at them, but they were in a totally different direction from any of the other deer I had seen so far that morning.
The second doe weighed 106 pounds and I made a significant dent in my venison deficit for 2012.
