opening morning success

wtnhunt

By wtnhunt
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wtnhunt Monster Buck

wtnhunt

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Figured it would be a good morning. Conditions were great, clear with a frost, cooler temps with the light breeze the wind chill was around 28. I wanted to get out a bit early and wanted to be settled into the stand at least 45 minutes before legal shooting light so just in case if I happened to bump anything there would be chance for things to settle down. Decided to hunt over a field where I thought I would have a good chance on some does and the potential for a buck following is always a possibility.

I walked on back and got into the stand fairly quietly without using any light, and after I was up in the stand realized I left my capper at home sitting on the railing on the deck. No problem, I just used the cap from one of my quick loaders and set that one aside, still had two more ready to go. I did end up fumbling around though to get the cap on and ended up using my mini mag light to get the cap on. Could not see very well, but I kind of scanned the field quickly with my binos and saw nothing moving. So I went on with my routine and within just minutes after getting up in the stand I said a prayer as I usually do. Kind of had my head bowed down below the rail. After finishing, and raising up and opening my eyes, I saw a deer standing out in the field in the cut grass about 45 yards out right out in the middle directly in front of me. The deer went down to my right and then I saw two more come down the same cut area, but they went to my left and were looking directly at me. They stayed looking at me, and I was kind of stuck, but was able to slowly raise my binos up and confirm as it was getting a little lighter that they were both does. Still well before legal shooting light. There was very little wind. Best I can figure, they must have seen the light from my flashlight when I was capping my gun. Don’t think I made much of any noise, and don’t think they winded me. They never spooked, but they were alert. They went on and fed some, but kept a pretty close watch on me and probably 10 minutes before legal shooting light they were at the edge of the woods, I turned and lowered my binos, and one started blowing. They were around 100 yards away at that point. They went on and went in the woods.

After it got light, I noticed movement directly in front of me at the very back of the field in my daughters plot we planted back in the spring. There were 4 or 5 does, they stayed back there though and that was about 225 yards out, a little farther than I wanted to try with the ml. I did grunt and they looked up, one seemed to have an interest, but then they went on back down the hill. Few minutes later I see more movement and more does, same place. Not sure if it was the same does or different ones, but they were moving good and it was about 7:12 by this time. The does went down the hill to the left and out of my sight also after feeding just a bit in the clipped grains and beans. About a minute later I see antlers on a deer at the left side and a young doe. I grunted again. The buck was working a scrape. The buck looked my way, and the doe started coming. I turned the camera on and started recording right after I grunted. The doe did not waste much time as she came down one of the strips I had cut just earlier that week. She got about 115 yards out and went through the tall uncut grass and got into the cut strip directly in front of me. It was coming together, the buck had left the scrape he was working and was following behind and was just cutting through as the doe started heading to my right. The buck cut through the tall grass just a bit further back than the doe. First thought the shot was only 120 yards out, but after getting down and looking at where I found the first blood and after watching the video back on full size screen, think it was a little further, probably closer to 140, but the TC black diamond with the 240 grain tc xtp mags pushed by 120 grains of loose pyro did the trick. The buck made it just out of sight on the video around the corner and was dead just out of my plain sight. My shot placement was right behind the shoulder, I squeezed as he cleared the tall grass did not hold high, hit right behind the shoulder, the deer went maybe 70 yards. After last year passing up a 7 pointer on the ml opener only to find out it later got shot up the road during the rifle season I just could not resist putting the scope on him and honestly I did not even think about it when I squeezed the trigger, and do not even remember squeezing the trigger. Not my biggest buck by any means, but he was a solid bodied 2.5 year old that probably dressed out around 125 to 130, for this area it was a pretty respectable buck.

For anyone interested here is a link to the video, my first time getting a kill on tape

th_2007mlopener.jpg

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