Had a little cooler weather yesterday, relatively speaking, before a nice 80 deg warm spell is supposed to set in starting today and continue for the next few days......so I had to get out last night. Worked in my favor.
I have a treestand overlooking a river crossing where I routinely watch deer cross about 50 yds away and then they go East or West. I'm on the West trail. It was a pretty calm evening with the wind switching from North to East. About 6:00 I heard a stick break from across the river.
Being the time of night I knew it was a deer but I couldn't see anything. So, what's a guy to do? I broke out my can call and flipped it over 4 or 5 times and then got ready. Sure enough about a minute later I hear a deer walking off the river bank onto the dry rocks along the water. I can see a deer but can not tell what it is yet. As he takes a couple more steps and starts to wade across the water I can see antlers and know exactly which buck it is.
He wades across the stream like he is going to take the East trail so I get ready to give him another call. But, just as he is about to go up the river bank he turns and heads right at me. 35 yards. 30 yards. 25 yards and still headed right at me when he turns left and starts walking broadside. He gets to 23 yards and makes it into my shooting lane. I'm already drawn back and I give him a short mouth grunt to stop him and I let go.
IMPACT! He turns runs up the East trail briefly before deciding bail down the bank and run across the river, again. He stops at the bottom of the river bank at the trail that he came down originally and I can see blood spraying out of him. He stands there for maybe 10 seconds before crumpling to the ground. Buck down!
This buck I estimated based on tooth wear to be about 4.5 yrs old. Weight in at 189 lbs (so from this point forward 190
). Has a real nice 6 pt left side with a screwed up 4 pt right side.
I have a treestand overlooking a river crossing where I routinely watch deer cross about 50 yds away and then they go East or West. I'm on the West trail. It was a pretty calm evening with the wind switching from North to East. About 6:00 I heard a stick break from across the river.
Being the time of night I knew it was a deer but I couldn't see anything. So, what's a guy to do? I broke out my can call and flipped it over 4 or 5 times and then got ready. Sure enough about a minute later I hear a deer walking off the river bank onto the dry rocks along the water. I can see a deer but can not tell what it is yet. As he takes a couple more steps and starts to wade across the water I can see antlers and know exactly which buck it is.
He wades across the stream like he is going to take the East trail so I get ready to give him another call. But, just as he is about to go up the river bank he turns and heads right at me. 35 yards. 30 yards. 25 yards and still headed right at me when he turns left and starts walking broadside. He gets to 23 yards and makes it into my shooting lane. I'm already drawn back and I give him a short mouth grunt to stop him and I let go.
IMPACT! He turns runs up the East trail briefly before deciding bail down the bank and run across the river, again. He stops at the bottom of the river bank at the trail that he came down originally and I can see blood spraying out of him. He stands there for maybe 10 seconds before crumpling to the ground. Buck down!
This buck I estimated based on tooth wear to be about 4.5 yrs old. Weight in at 189 lbs (so from this point forward 190
). Has a real nice 6 pt left side with a screwed up 4 pt right side. 
