**I apologize for the long read**
What an amazing few days of hunting up here on our little 160 acres in Houston County! I am so glad that I took Monday-Wednesday off to come up here and hunt.
BACKSTORY:
My target since late summer has been a 6.5 yr old that I named "Neckshot" due to him surviving a shot to the neck from my Bro-n-Law 2 years ago. He has been a regular at the protein feeder every night single for a month with only one day time pic of him in my area. Like clockwork, he shows up between 8-9pm and returns every few hours until about 5:30am to eat sweet feed. That is until he disappeared from camera starting last Friday night. The nighttime only pics were frustrating but not surprising for a buck of his age on a small property. Three adjacent properties to ours is hunted so he got to be 6.5 by being smart.
I just had to figure out where he was during daylight because there is no such thing as a nocturnal deer. They're SOMEWHERE during the day and still eating and doing their thing. They may not move far from their bedding area but they will still move. After pondering the behavior and patterns of some of the other bigger older bucks that have been taken over the years on our place, I formed a theory on where this big boy was bedding and moving during daylight hours. The area I suspected was a good 6-800 yards from my area at the far Southwestern corner of our property. It was a 20 acre section of the place that was clear cut about 3 years ago and is so thick now that it's ridiculous. The southern edge of the thicket drops off into a hardwood bottom with a lot of oaks, good elevation change, a seasonal creek, and plenty of youpon scattered for good cover. This creek runs East and West and connects my area to this area. This spot (the gulley stand) sees very little hunting pressure and has no feeder, no box stand... nothing but a cheap Academy ladder stand in an oak that I put there about 14 years ago.
THE PLAN:
I knew that I would be off for a few days during the mild cool front. I hunted my area on Friday evening and Saturday but slipped into "The Gulley Stand" on Saturday and hung a camera on a heavily used game trail that fed out of the suspected bedroom of Neckshot. I would wait until the wind was right after the front and slip in and see what happened. I was saving this spot for the first cool morning on Tuesday with a good Northeast wind.
THE HUNT BEGINS:
Sunday night was uneventful and anticipation was setting in for the Monday morning hunt. The rain was coming through when I woke up at 5:20am on Monday. Checking the radar, it looked like it was going to quit right at daylight. I headed out to my area in a very light rain and was up in my tree at about 6:20am. It was cool, damp and overcast and you could tell it was a way different feel than the previous 90 degree weather. I prayed and praised God as I got to sit in that tree and marvel at his creation. I love to spend time alone with God in prayer as I am in the quiet of the woods and this was no exception. At 9:30am my eye caught a flicker of movement about 35 yards from me just beyond the edge of the woods behind the protein feeder. It was slow and careful in its movements and would pause like a statue as it scanned the small opening that I was hunting. It skirted the edge of the wood line and I could tell immediately that this buck was TALL and heavy. It stopped to work a scrape with a youpon between me and him. He then turned to slowly cross an opening about 15 yards across. As soon as he stepped into full view I knew that I had never seen this buck before. He was so tall it was ridiculous and looked to be plenty mature. He had my heart pounding, and though he wasn't my target, I fell in love with his rack and knew if he gave the opportunity I was going to take it. As he was about to be out of view, he gave me a broadside shot at 37 yards. This is a distance I am very comfortable with so I tried to calm my excitement over this new buck, drew back, and settled my pin on the money spot. At some point during the draw and focusing on pin placement I didn't notice his alertness must have changed. As I squeezed the trigger, the whole shot played out in slow motion and this buck reenacted a scene from the Matrix and he dropped about a foot in a blink of an eye. I watched my arrow sail 2" over his back and my heart sank. The "shakes" set in... not due to the fact that it was cool and I was still wet from the walk in, but because of an adrenaline dump over what had just happened. That feeling never gets old and it reminded me of why I love bowhunting. Though it was extremely disappointing, I praised God for the opportunity and gave him thanks that the deer was not hit and wounded.
That evening, I returned to my area trying to forget what had went down earlier in the day. A group of pigs worked their way in at one point, but approached from the one direction that I knew would get me busted. They stopped at 20 yds behind me and did a u-turn as they got my scent. The rest of the evening was quiet and the deer started to move right as I was getting ready to climb down. I knew I was done in that area for that trip and the remainder would be spent on the other side of the property.
THE GULLEY STAND:
Tuesday morning arrived and it was a comfortable 54 degrees with a Northwest wind. I made the anticipated 1/2 mile walk to the Gulley Stand. I climbed 15ft up into the old single man ladder stand and got ready to see what happened. The solunar chart had the major feeding period from 8:30am-11:30am so I expected late movement as the chart is usually pretty accurate on our place. Nothing moved until a few minutes before 9am and then the woods came alive like someone flipped a switch. I lost count but I saw at least 10 deer which is a great morning of hunting in East Texas. I had 5 bucks and one doe in bow range and various other deer moving in cover about 40 yds behind me. A nice 2.5 year old 8pt came in and ate on one of the BB2 piles that I had placed around the area for a few minutes but seemed a little unnerved. At 9am I heard a familiar crunch coming up out of the creek bottom to my right and could tell another deer was approaching. The young 8pt wasn't liking it so he turned to back away as the foot steps approached. At about 25 yds passing through some youpon cover I could see that it was the tall and heavy buck that I had missed the day before. I couldn't believe 800yds away, I was potentially going to get another opportunity at this deer. He worked his way out of the bottom and stepped into an opening facing me. He stopped to nibble on some vegetation and worked his way straight toward me closing the distance and stopping at 10 yds. As he walked downwind of the BB2, he paused and took a right turn to head to the pile and stopped broadside to eat after taking 3-4 steps. At this point I realized that I had made a big mistake on the location of that particular pile. It was supposed to be behind a 18" diameter oak to block the view of me but still leave vitals exposed. When I placed the pile in the dark that morning I put it a foot too far to the right leaving a deer's line of sight open to me. I knew I had to be patient and hope that he would turn. He would eat for 10-20 seconds and the pick his head up to look away from me periodically. I patterned him doing this several times and knew that the second he did it again, I would draw my bow. As thought, after 10-20 seconds, he turned and I started to draw. I didn't draw fast enough. As I was about to reach my break over point in the draw cycle he put his head back down to eat and caught my movement out of the corner of his eye. I paused...but I was stuck. I either let the string back down or finish my draw, either way I'm busted. I ease the string back the final 2" and he trots off out to 45yds at the edge of the woods and stands there staring back for a good 30 seconds trying to figure out what I was. I had no shot where he was and another opportunity was blown. I could not believe it. It reminded me why bowhunting isn't for everyone and how hard it is to harvest a mature buck with a bow. So many things have to go right and one small mistake can end a hunt quickly. I had blown it two days in a row and it was hard not to be really bummed out. Again, despite the frustration, I praised God for the opportunity and the excitement of the morning. I ended up hunting until noon because of the steady activity and then climbed down to pull the card from the camera I had hung Saturday and head back to camp.
Once back at the cabin, I got my laptop and started going through the pics and several nice bucks had been through that trail the last couple of nights. Then I got to 10am on Monday morning and there he was...Neckshot! After having a camera out for 2 months in my area I only had one daytime pic of him. After only 3 days of taking pics at the gulley stand, I catch him on camera coming from his bedroom area to feed. I couldn't believe it, my theory was right. This helped to quench the disappointment of my two blown opportunities. I knew that my plan seemed solid.
I got to the stand at 3:30pm on Tuesday and decided to remedy my mistake of misplacing the BB2 pile from earlier. I carefully placed a large pile directly behind the oak and broke off a branch of a beauty berry bush that could have hindered a clean shot. I spent 3.5 hours in the tree without any movement around me at all. About 7:20pm, I knew that light was fading fast and I was down to my last few minutes. I paused to pray... "Lord, I know that I don't deserve anything. I am thankful for the hunts you have given me the last few days. God I know that you are gracious and bless me when I don't deserve it all the time. I know that you are the creator of everything that moves in these woods and you could tell a deer to walk right in front of me right now and they would listen. Lord if you choose to be so kind as allow that to happen I'm going to give you all the glory for it and tell people how amazing you are to give gifts to your children". I promise you that I no sooner finished this prayer in my heart that I heard a deer approaching out of the creek bottom. I thought, WOW! It was a small buck and he immediately went to the BB2 pile behind the oak. As soon as he put his head down I heard more crunches of footsteps coming from in front of me... from the bedding area. The little buck could see what it was and I couldn't due to bushes. The young buck did not like it and gave the familiar body language of a youngster when a more dominate buck is approaching.The bigger buck came into view and I instantly knew he was big. He turned to give me a view of his rack and I thought "wow it's him". He circled around the young buck posturing to let him know that that was his pile and he better move. He approached just like the buck that had busted me earlier, but this time he put his had down and it was directly behind the tree at 10 yards. It was almost dark and I glanced down at my watch.... 7:26pm, literally the last couple minutes of legal shooting light. I drew my bow and settled my 20 yard pin and squeezed the trigger. The hit was good! Both bucks crashed through the woods sounding like a heard of elephants heading straight back to the 20 acre thicket where big boy was bedding. I sat there, not believing what just just happened. So thankful for what God had just allowed to happen, I gathered myself and grabbed my bow and slowly climbed down to walk back to the cabin to give the buck some time.
THE TRACK:
I called my wife to let her know I just shot a big one and that I was about to go try to find it. At 8:30pm, I head back out, returning to the place the buck was standing. No arrow to be found, no blood.... a little nervousness set in. I told myself the shot was good, there has to be sign. I slowly, methodically worked my way in the dark toward the direction both deer headed. Getting to the point where several turns could have been made I searched hard for any sign...no blood, no arrow, and the nervousness grew. I continued down each possible route that he could have taken, returning to the point of impact and starting fresh every time. I searched by myself until about 10pm and was starting to lose hope and thinking I should have just called for a dog before I spread my scent all through the woods. I was about to call it quits for the night and return in the morning to continue the search. It was just so dark and there was zero sign and so many possibilities on where he could be. All the while continuing to pray, I decided to start over one more time. About 10 yds into the woods I saw a tiny speck of blood. Finally! Getting down to almost hands and knees I slowly searched for another speck and there it was. I could finally see the turn he had made and continued to find a random drop every few feet establishing a general direction he was headed. The blood became sparse and then just stopped as I reached a major intersection of trails. I went left, right, straight... nothing. My excitement of finding blood soon faded as I had lost all sign. At 10:30pm I had about decided to just wait until morning so I slowly headed down the trail back to camp still scanning the ground just in case. About 20 yards down the trail I spot a good sized drop of blood and then didn't find another one for another 20 yards. I walked another 100 yds down that trail searching diligently for just a speck but found nothing. I returned to the last blood and stood there scanning the dense thicket on both sides of me. There were no visible game trails but I noticed one place a little less dense than its surroundings so I squeezed through it. It looked like a bedding area once I broke through the thick youpon and brush. I stood there surveying through the thick vegetation around me looking for a white belly. Turning to my right, I couldn't believe it. 10ft from me, not 3-4 yards off of the trail, there he was! My surprise and gratefulness at that point was overwhelming and I couldn't stop praising God. An eventful few days had ended in an roller coaster evening/night.
He isn't a trophy by some's standards but I had hunted this deer hard. We don't get many opportunities at 6.5+ year old deer on our little property. The deer I had missed scored more but this buck wasn't about score for me. It was about the uniqueness of his horns and the challenge of trying to outsmart old Neckshot.
Sorry for the extremely long read. Pics to follow!
What an amazing few days of hunting up here on our little 160 acres in Houston County! I am so glad that I took Monday-Wednesday off to come up here and hunt.
BACKSTORY:
My target since late summer has been a 6.5 yr old that I named "Neckshot" due to him surviving a shot to the neck from my Bro-n-Law 2 years ago. He has been a regular at the protein feeder every night single for a month with only one day time pic of him in my area. Like clockwork, he shows up between 8-9pm and returns every few hours until about 5:30am to eat sweet feed. That is until he disappeared from camera starting last Friday night. The nighttime only pics were frustrating but not surprising for a buck of his age on a small property. Three adjacent properties to ours is hunted so he got to be 6.5 by being smart.
I just had to figure out where he was during daylight because there is no such thing as a nocturnal deer. They're SOMEWHERE during the day and still eating and doing their thing. They may not move far from their bedding area but they will still move. After pondering the behavior and patterns of some of the other bigger older bucks that have been taken over the years on our place, I formed a theory on where this big boy was bedding and moving during daylight hours. The area I suspected was a good 6-800 yards from my area at the far Southwestern corner of our property. It was a 20 acre section of the place that was clear cut about 3 years ago and is so thick now that it's ridiculous. The southern edge of the thicket drops off into a hardwood bottom with a lot of oaks, good elevation change, a seasonal creek, and plenty of youpon scattered for good cover. This creek runs East and West and connects my area to this area. This spot (the gulley stand) sees very little hunting pressure and has no feeder, no box stand... nothing but a cheap Academy ladder stand in an oak that I put there about 14 years ago.
THE PLAN:
I knew that I would be off for a few days during the mild cool front. I hunted my area on Friday evening and Saturday but slipped into "The Gulley Stand" on Saturday and hung a camera on a heavily used game trail that fed out of the suspected bedroom of Neckshot. I would wait until the wind was right after the front and slip in and see what happened. I was saving this spot for the first cool morning on Tuesday with a good Northeast wind.
THE HUNT BEGINS:
Sunday night was uneventful and anticipation was setting in for the Monday morning hunt. The rain was coming through when I woke up at 5:20am on Monday. Checking the radar, it looked like it was going to quit right at daylight. I headed out to my area in a very light rain and was up in my tree at about 6:20am. It was cool, damp and overcast and you could tell it was a way different feel than the previous 90 degree weather. I prayed and praised God as I got to sit in that tree and marvel at his creation. I love to spend time alone with God in prayer as I am in the quiet of the woods and this was no exception. At 9:30am my eye caught a flicker of movement about 35 yards from me just beyond the edge of the woods behind the protein feeder. It was slow and careful in its movements and would pause like a statue as it scanned the small opening that I was hunting. It skirted the edge of the wood line and I could tell immediately that this buck was TALL and heavy. It stopped to work a scrape with a youpon between me and him. He then turned to slowly cross an opening about 15 yards across. As soon as he stepped into full view I knew that I had never seen this buck before. He was so tall it was ridiculous and looked to be plenty mature. He had my heart pounding, and though he wasn't my target, I fell in love with his rack and knew if he gave the opportunity I was going to take it. As he was about to be out of view, he gave me a broadside shot at 37 yards. This is a distance I am very comfortable with so I tried to calm my excitement over this new buck, drew back, and settled my pin on the money spot. At some point during the draw and focusing on pin placement I didn't notice his alertness must have changed. As I squeezed the trigger, the whole shot played out in slow motion and this buck reenacted a scene from the Matrix and he dropped about a foot in a blink of an eye. I watched my arrow sail 2" over his back and my heart sank. The "shakes" set in... not due to the fact that it was cool and I was still wet from the walk in, but because of an adrenaline dump over what had just happened. That feeling never gets old and it reminded me of why I love bowhunting. Though it was extremely disappointing, I praised God for the opportunity and gave him thanks that the deer was not hit and wounded.
That evening, I returned to my area trying to forget what had went down earlier in the day. A group of pigs worked their way in at one point, but approached from the one direction that I knew would get me busted. They stopped at 20 yds behind me and did a u-turn as they got my scent. The rest of the evening was quiet and the deer started to move right as I was getting ready to climb down. I knew I was done in that area for that trip and the remainder would be spent on the other side of the property.
THE GULLEY STAND:
Tuesday morning arrived and it was a comfortable 54 degrees with a Northwest wind. I made the anticipated 1/2 mile walk to the Gulley Stand. I climbed 15ft up into the old single man ladder stand and got ready to see what happened. The solunar chart had the major feeding period from 8:30am-11:30am so I expected late movement as the chart is usually pretty accurate on our place. Nothing moved until a few minutes before 9am and then the woods came alive like someone flipped a switch. I lost count but I saw at least 10 deer which is a great morning of hunting in East Texas. I had 5 bucks and one doe in bow range and various other deer moving in cover about 40 yds behind me. A nice 2.5 year old 8pt came in and ate on one of the BB2 piles that I had placed around the area for a few minutes but seemed a little unnerved. At 9am I heard a familiar crunch coming up out of the creek bottom to my right and could tell another deer was approaching. The young 8pt wasn't liking it so he turned to back away as the foot steps approached. At about 25 yds passing through some youpon cover I could see that it was the tall and heavy buck that I had missed the day before. I couldn't believe 800yds away, I was potentially going to get another opportunity at this deer. He worked his way out of the bottom and stepped into an opening facing me. He stopped to nibble on some vegetation and worked his way straight toward me closing the distance and stopping at 10 yds. As he walked downwind of the BB2, he paused and took a right turn to head to the pile and stopped broadside to eat after taking 3-4 steps. At this point I realized that I had made a big mistake on the location of that particular pile. It was supposed to be behind a 18" diameter oak to block the view of me but still leave vitals exposed. When I placed the pile in the dark that morning I put it a foot too far to the right leaving a deer's line of sight open to me. I knew I had to be patient and hope that he would turn. He would eat for 10-20 seconds and the pick his head up to look away from me periodically. I patterned him doing this several times and knew that the second he did it again, I would draw my bow. As thought, after 10-20 seconds, he turned and I started to draw. I didn't draw fast enough. As I was about to reach my break over point in the draw cycle he put his head back down to eat and caught my movement out of the corner of his eye. I paused...but I was stuck. I either let the string back down or finish my draw, either way I'm busted. I ease the string back the final 2" and he trots off out to 45yds at the edge of the woods and stands there staring back for a good 30 seconds trying to figure out what I was. I had no shot where he was and another opportunity was blown. I could not believe it. It reminded me why bowhunting isn't for everyone and how hard it is to harvest a mature buck with a bow. So many things have to go right and one small mistake can end a hunt quickly. I had blown it two days in a row and it was hard not to be really bummed out. Again, despite the frustration, I praised God for the opportunity and the excitement of the morning. I ended up hunting until noon because of the steady activity and then climbed down to pull the card from the camera I had hung Saturday and head back to camp.
Once back at the cabin, I got my laptop and started going through the pics and several nice bucks had been through that trail the last couple of nights. Then I got to 10am on Monday morning and there he was...Neckshot! After having a camera out for 2 months in my area I only had one daytime pic of him. After only 3 days of taking pics at the gulley stand, I catch him on camera coming from his bedroom area to feed. I couldn't believe it, my theory was right. This helped to quench the disappointment of my two blown opportunities. I knew that my plan seemed solid.
I got to the stand at 3:30pm on Tuesday and decided to remedy my mistake of misplacing the BB2 pile from earlier. I carefully placed a large pile directly behind the oak and broke off a branch of a beauty berry bush that could have hindered a clean shot. I spent 3.5 hours in the tree without any movement around me at all. About 7:20pm, I knew that light was fading fast and I was down to my last few minutes. I paused to pray... "Lord, I know that I don't deserve anything. I am thankful for the hunts you have given me the last few days. God I know that you are gracious and bless me when I don't deserve it all the time. I know that you are the creator of everything that moves in these woods and you could tell a deer to walk right in front of me right now and they would listen. Lord if you choose to be so kind as allow that to happen I'm going to give you all the glory for it and tell people how amazing you are to give gifts to your children". I promise you that I no sooner finished this prayer in my heart that I heard a deer approaching out of the creek bottom. I thought, WOW! It was a small buck and he immediately went to the BB2 pile behind the oak. As soon as he put his head down I heard more crunches of footsteps coming from in front of me... from the bedding area. The little buck could see what it was and I couldn't due to bushes. The young buck did not like it and gave the familiar body language of a youngster when a more dominate buck is approaching.The bigger buck came into view and I instantly knew he was big. He turned to give me a view of his rack and I thought "wow it's him". He circled around the young buck posturing to let him know that that was his pile and he better move. He approached just like the buck that had busted me earlier, but this time he put his had down and it was directly behind the tree at 10 yards. It was almost dark and I glanced down at my watch.... 7:26pm, literally the last couple minutes of legal shooting light. I drew my bow and settled my 20 yard pin and squeezed the trigger. The hit was good! Both bucks crashed through the woods sounding like a heard of elephants heading straight back to the 20 acre thicket where big boy was bedding. I sat there, not believing what just just happened. So thankful for what God had just allowed to happen, I gathered myself and grabbed my bow and slowly climbed down to walk back to the cabin to give the buck some time.
THE TRACK:
I called my wife to let her know I just shot a big one and that I was about to go try to find it. At 8:30pm, I head back out, returning to the place the buck was standing. No arrow to be found, no blood.... a little nervousness set in. I told myself the shot was good, there has to be sign. I slowly, methodically worked my way in the dark toward the direction both deer headed. Getting to the point where several turns could have been made I searched hard for any sign...no blood, no arrow, and the nervousness grew. I continued down each possible route that he could have taken, returning to the point of impact and starting fresh every time. I searched by myself until about 10pm and was starting to lose hope and thinking I should have just called for a dog before I spread my scent all through the woods. I was about to call it quits for the night and return in the morning to continue the search. It was just so dark and there was zero sign and so many possibilities on where he could be. All the while continuing to pray, I decided to start over one more time. About 10 yds into the woods I saw a tiny speck of blood. Finally! Getting down to almost hands and knees I slowly searched for another speck and there it was. I could finally see the turn he had made and continued to find a random drop every few feet establishing a general direction he was headed. The blood became sparse and then just stopped as I reached a major intersection of trails. I went left, right, straight... nothing. My excitement of finding blood soon faded as I had lost all sign. At 10:30pm I had about decided to just wait until morning so I slowly headed down the trail back to camp still scanning the ground just in case. About 20 yards down the trail I spot a good sized drop of blood and then didn't find another one for another 20 yards. I walked another 100 yds down that trail searching diligently for just a speck but found nothing. I returned to the last blood and stood there scanning the dense thicket on both sides of me. There were no visible game trails but I noticed one place a little less dense than its surroundings so I squeezed through it. It looked like a bedding area once I broke through the thick youpon and brush. I stood there surveying through the thick vegetation around me looking for a white belly. Turning to my right, I couldn't believe it. 10ft from me, not 3-4 yards off of the trail, there he was! My surprise and gratefulness at that point was overwhelming and I couldn't stop praising God. An eventful few days had ended in an roller coaster evening/night.
He isn't a trophy by some's standards but I had hunted this deer hard. We don't get many opportunities at 6.5+ year old deer on our little property. The deer I had missed scored more but this buck wasn't about score for me. It was about the uniqueness of his horns and the challenge of trying to outsmart old Neckshot.
Sorry for the extremely long read. Pics to follow!
In for the pics..
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