My final rifle hunt for the year was complete in about three hours. In the morning light there did not appear to be many deer out. Each day can be totally different, and we have a variety of terrain. Some days deer seem to be everywhere, some days they seem to disappear. Visibility is extremely limited along the creek directly east and west of us. North of the creek there are very few trees and visibility can be well over a mile. We have about 200 acres of flat land planted to crops on the north side of the creek, then rolling hills and draws north and east of the crop land. Deer feed in the crop land, which includes several large food plots. They usually start coming out of cover, almost by magic, around 3:00 pm and I like afternoons best for that reason. But this morning was to be my only morning hunt. I counted four deer in the big food plot about a mile to our north. My spotting scope showed one of them to be one of our largest buck, 20+ inch width and excellent tine height, both beams intact. To make the stalk easier, I abandoned the spotting scope and was able to move closer quite quickly because of no other intervening deer. One coyote slipped by. Good cover got me within about 500 yards of the deer. Getting closer would require extensive belly crawling as well as some luck. I would have to slowly cover some exposed area when the deer had their heads down grazing. Except one of the deer was lying down, making it almost impossible to monitor. And I am not a great fan of extensive belly crawling. A much more attractive option was to backtrack and take about a 1 ½ mile hike in a big circle that would take me up a large draw and give me cover. There was a chance to get very close by virtue of a smaller deep draw that was immediately north of where the deer were grazing. As I headed back toward the spotting scope, I saw another nice buck several hundred yards to my east. Analyzing the trophy quality from the side is quite difficult and he was in view less than half a minute as he headed towards the other deer. He had joined the group by the time I reached the spotting scope. By any reasonable standard, he was a good buck—better than any of those I already have on the wall. His rack was heavy and came up outside his ears. I thought I might witness a buck fight through the spotting scope. They apparently already knew who was boss, and the second buck did not challenge the bigger one. A few minutes later I was in the big draw, and a few minutes later a deer was watching me from about half a mile away. My spotting scope revealed two doe. They didn’t seem too threatened at this distance and soon grazed out of sight, allowing me to proceed. Next was a smaller buck, about 15 inches, that I also let graze out of sight. In climbing high enough to check on the food plot, I discovered a second smaller buck to my east; these two buck were with a group of seven doe and fawn. They were completely at ease as I watched and one of the buck bedded down right out in the open on flat ground at the top of the draw. There was no way that I could continue without moving through an area where I was completely visible to them. I didn’t have much choice but to move on; they let me get quite close before moving. Fortunately I was between them and the deer I was stalking, so when they moved out there was very little risk of spooking the wrong deer. As is often the case, the stalk continued to be made more complicated by the presence of other deer. A doe was grazing right in the mouth of the draw that I needed to go up. I moved farther to the north out of her sight and proceeded cautiously. The unfortunate part of the long stalk was I had too much time to think. About two hundred yards from my destination I set the spotting scope down on its tripod and very carefully unzipped my camera case. I edged up the final few feet of the draw with camera in the left hand and rifle in the right, keeping an eye out for the doe that had been at the mouth of the draw. I could very well be within archery range of the buck even though I was packing a 30.06. Fortunately the doe was no longer where I had seen here about fifteen minutes earlier. Unfortunately, as I started making a final climb to the top of the draw, I spotted the doe bedded down in the very bottom where the draw branched to the north. I didn’t think that she had spotted me as I backed quickly out of sight, but apparently she had because another deer came running out of the food plot, followed by two more, all headed in the direction the doe would have fled. No horns on any of these deer. The last deer cautiously turned around and went back, so I hadn’t panicked everything. In climbing the side of the draw again, I was again completely thwarted, this time by a doe that was bedded down just north of the food plot and on a slightly higher elevation. There was absolutely no way that I could view the field from the desired draw without spooking her. I had once again convinced myself that it was foolhardy to kill off the best genetics, but was unwilling to give up without getting into a position where I truly had the option of making that choice. Rather than the super close-up approach, I backed off about 100 yards and edged up the back side of a hill where I would have a good view of the food plot. Except now, nothing was there. Had the buck headed off in another direction when the doe fled? I continued to ease up the hill, and soon spotted three deer, including the buck. They had moved to higher elevation just to the north of the food plot. The doe that had limited my last approach was still bedded down comfortably overlooking the food plot. My close-up evaluation of the buck with the spotting scope was in complete agreement with my distant evaluation. This was a beautiful 4x4 buck (I hadn’t been able to count the tines at a distance) easily 20 inches wide with tall tine height except for his brow tines, which were not exceptional. The height and width are what I want in the herd. I don’t know whether the number of tines is genetically controlled, but this year almost every buck appears to be a 4x4 or smaller. I have seen only one 5x5, whereas in past years we have had a number of them. The 5x5 made that distinction by virtue of massively long double brow tines; I saw him about a month before the season and not at all during the season. I took one picture of today’s buck with my musical (oops) camera, and did not risk taking more because of the noise; it proved to not be a very good picture. The buck bedded down at about 150 yards before I backed off and walked away. I will definitely not pass if I get a chance with the bow. I know exactly where to put the blind; I just don’t know how to get into it during reasonable hours unless the deer start playing by the rules. They are supposed to bed down in a nearby draw where there is lots of good cover, from whence they approach the food plot. They are not supposed to bed down in or adjacent to the food plot, which is what they seem to have been doing.
Posted on: Mon, 02 Dec 2013 07:04:18 +0000
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