Youth hunt-awesome experience

wtnhunt · October 31, 2005

In 13 years of hunting I have never seen anthing quite like this:

Saturday afternoon I took my daughter to the blind we built last season that overlooks a lab lab plus plot and the hamann farms clover trefoil grower plot. About 4 a doe came out of the brush pile near the front of the lab lab plot about 110 yards straight out in front of us. I told Christina the deer was looking back that another deer was going to come out, and a few minutes later another doe came out. Christina wanted to try and take one of the does, I told her there had to be another deer back there probably a buck. The other doe got under an oak tree and chewed on a limb at a scrape. She kept looking down the hill back towards the north into the pile. They eventually got into the other side of the lab lab plot and we could not see them anymore. A few minutes later another deer quickly came up the hill and came across the middle of the lab lab plot and went towards the does. I knew it was a buck, but did not get a good look at it, I was putting my parka on when it came across the plot. Did not see any deer after that for a little while, I grunted a series of grunts and called with the can call, in a sequence to imitate a buck chasing a doe.

A few minutes later we heard crashing through the trees back behind us. About 10 minutes later we saw a buck coming out. He was a young weird antlered deer. Had a long spike on one side with a nub on the other, he was in the lab lab, about to get into the grassy field. Christina wanted to try to shoot him, but I told her it was still early, there was still a lot of light left, lets see what else might come out. Then a few minutes later I heard clicking and looked and we saw antlers down the hill at the end of the lab lab plot. There were what looked like 2 different bucks and they were pushing each other around. Then we could here them fighting, and could barely see them over the top of the sorghum in the plot as they were pushing back and forth. This was about 5 or so. We thought we were hearing another fight just down the hill to the right in the heavy brush, and could see 3 bucks at that time. I tried grunting and the young buck started heading towards the grower plot in front of us, but the other two were heavy into fighting. One of the two bucks fighting eventually stuck his head up a few times and then after a couple more grunts with the old black grunt call he started towards the scrape where the doe had been earlier. He raked his antlers violently on the limbs of the oak tree. They eventually made their way out into the open field and the biggest of the three an 8 pointer out to his ears was pushing the other two as they would try to circle around him to avoid fighting.

By this time they had made their way out to the middle of the grass just past the edge of the grower plot. This was about 85-90 yards out. Then we had another buck ran out on the field and we saw a more intense fight take place about 70 yards out in front of us. It was about 5:40 before the bucks got close enough where I thought I would let Christina take a shot. They were about 70 yards out. The obvious dominant buck had pushed this other buck that had run out down to the ground and was driving him backwards as the other buck was trying to get his front feet back to the ground, the fight was very intense. I grunted a few more times and they broke up and the bigger buck started pushing the others again. They would circle around and every so often Christina would have a good shot opportunity broadside where the deer would stop, just briefly. I told her to take him when she was ready. After several attempts to stop him, she finally took a shot with the .243 at about 5:55, and I thought she might have hit the deer, as he ran off hard, as did the other 3 bucks.

Dont know who was shaking harder after she shot. We waited about 20 minutes and went and looked and found no blood. Went back the next morning after hunting and looked more found no blood anywhere. With all the excitement before the shot, think she might have had the shakes. Guess she pulled it and missed him clean, but she has an experience to take with her from that hunt that she will never forget.

drkillemquick · October 31, 2005