I was highly motivated and got alot accomplished.....not....so I couldnt take it any longer and wrapped things up about 6:15 pm and mentally checked out for the next 3 straight days!!!
I arrived to camp about 7:30 and we started our game plan for the morning and the weekend. It was fun and the anticipation for all of us to have 3 straight days of no work whatsoever was icing on the cake...So we stayed up late knowing we werent gonna sleep well anyways.
We were in our stands by 5:30 am. Lots of first time hunters, but the gameplan was to just observe the deer for Friday and holdout for one of the farms monsters.
Me n Dad were in the center tower, Mom and Dave in the North Tower, Allen in the cemetary stand, Chad in North River Stand, Jared was in the East CRP stand, and Justin was in the Boot.
We sat in our stands until 11 am and saw 63 deer that morning! We had a couple glimpses at shooter bucks, but no good shots on them. Here are some pics from the morning:
Deer started showing up as seen as we could see and dad had a glimpse of a shooter buck out about 60 yards, but it was a bit too early for his comfort level. Dad is a fisherman, and has only been deer hunting one other time! I think we got him hooked on deer hunting now that we have made it a family social event!!
This was the tower dad and I were sitting in:
So at 11 am we all grabbed the trail cam chips from the cameras close by and we headed in to the fairview cafe for lunch....that place was standing room only so we just headed back to our place for sandwiches and scoured the last 2 weeks of trail cam pics....
For the evening hunt I went to the clover stand up in the top 20 acres and had an awesome 150" class buck coming right in, the only problem was he never got to our property. He stayed 140 yards out in the neighbors cornfied and didnt cross our fenceline until he was about 500 yards away.....But just 5 minutes later and here comes a badly wounded 130" class buck from behind me.
This buck had a busted front leg and was making lots of noise dragging it as it came closer and closer, but there was so much brush behind me I couldnt really see it. Just had a glimpse of him when he was in the field about 200 yards out, but now he was only 25 yards behind my stand in the thicket......thats when he stopped.....for like 5 minutes.....at first I figured he went into the thicket to bed down, but then all of a sudden he starts trotting to my right.
He was making alot of noise as he crashed through the timber so I could pinpoint him even without seeing him and there was a small clearing coming up in his path. I had all of like 5 seconds to lift my gun left handed, find the clearing in my scope and pull the trigger as he trotted through the opening...
After the smoke from Thompson Center cleared there was a buck laying motionless about 40 yards away at the end of that little clearing....I patted myself on the back for taking this guy out of his misery and then out of the blue he jumps straight up and just runs down the hill......You have got to be kidding me.....
So I sit in my stand and it gets dark as deer start pouring into the clover field...It took forever for all the guys to get over to come pick me up and start tracking this deer. We found good blood at first and tracked him for about an hour before we completely lost his trail at the edge of the timber and the road.....What was really discouraging was the blood was getting less and less and eventually the deer was following a normal deer trail down the hill and not just crashing through....
That was a bummer for sure, but we planned on coming back once the sun came up to see things with fresh sets of eyes....I had never lost a deer before. I typically dont pull the trigger, but when I do its always a very conservative shot...This deer was different, he was on the move and through the thicket, we always take out badly injured deer and this guy couldnt use his front left leg....
Back at camp that night we gobbled down elk chili and ice cream! Our wives and kids showed up during the day and there was about 30 of us at camp retelling the days stories...Day two the plan was to get all the first timers their deer early in the am and try to find where the wounded buck crossed the road....
Here is a view from the stand dad and I were in opening morning....
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