Just got back from my 2nd run at those tasty blacktails
It was reasonably quiet in the area when I left it last week and yes, it was nice bumpin into MD on the road out and sharing my success.
The weather this time around really sh!t the bed.
I left saturday , arriving late that night and crawling into the back of the jeep and slept like a stone.
Weather was decent sunday but a bit on the warmer side for dropping an animal and staying a couple or so days. I kind of scouted around and checked out a few things. I also was dismayed at the number of people around. Motor bikes and side by sides and cars where people really shouldn't be taking their cars LOL then after chatting with a coupe that stopped in for a chat I discovered that all these people around my hunting area were mushroom pickers.......well that;s just great......
So the woods were filled with people spreading human scent all over the place. On monday, what deer i did see from the stand were so cagey and nervous I could tell things were gonna be slim pickins as the wary bucks were going to be moving at night, if at all. So Monday finished uneventfully and I saw 3 deer the whole day.... does. What it did do monday was rain, all fricken day and all night.
Today I woke at 5:30 to the sound of rain..... and more rain.... just miserable out with a mist in the air. Wet to say the least. I made my morning coffee and filled two thermos mugs for the treestand , donned my headlamp and started my hike up the steep slope to my tree stand. My glasses were so fogged up I took them off , it was hopeless trying to hike in the rain with them on.
I arrived at my stand and settled in and about an hour or so after shooting light a large group of does and fawns, 9 altogether, began slowly.... too slowly , moving down and past my stand. Then after they had been gone down the mountain 10 minutes or so, they all came creeping back up the way they came and disappeared...... Well that never happens unless there are some other hunters below me somewhere that spooked them. Then nothing..... no big bucks are coming after a group of does that large gets the spook into them. The bucks que off the does I figure.
At 11:05 I caught movement on the right side trail and slowly swung right so I would have a good shot. As the rain pounded down I was hoping for a buck .... of any kind to end the hunt an head for home. To my fortune the lone deer sneaking thru my right side shooting lane was a nice sized spike buck, probably a few pounds heavier than the 2 pt I got last week. He did not stop to afford me a head shot so he took the 160gr nosler partition to the boiler room instead. Was a good shot and he dropped 10 feet from where he was hit. I got lucky again in the right hand shooting lane as it is the high spot and makes dragging the deer out a bit easier.
I'll post up some pics tomorrow. Been home about an hour and I have to go and get that buck out of the cherokee and hanging in the shop.
Did MD post pics of his monster yet??? falls into the top 4 so far for antlers alone..... I'd be mounting that one on the wall there MD.
