Iowa Buck Down


billygoat

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Well, after a long deer season, I was able to put a tag on another deer for the wall! Iowa proved to be home to another wonderful hunt, and the old faithful "three oaks" came through with another beautiful animal!

Credit must be given to Rosie and Marvin (my aunt and uncle) for opening their land and home, to my father and I. Although the start of the season was dismall at best (with over an inch of ice and rain), the season slowly shaped up, and I was able to start tagging deer!

Sunday morning brought a light drizzle, and changing things up a little, I place a decoy on a corn field edge. After a series of rattles, I looked behind me to see a "nice" 10 point, coming in for battle. Once he was near the decoy, I was able to place a sound shot. The buck travled about 75 yards into the field then fell over. It was a good start to the day. A special thanks to my cousin for providing his tag for that deer!

Monday started out as a challenge. Neither my father nor myself, had seen a large Iowa deer, to this point. We started making some small pushes, which produced no deer. We then decided that we would go cut up deer which we had taken over the previous two days. After cutting those deer up, we decided to make one more push, which again yielded zero deer.

It was at this point, that my Father says to me... "I think I will drive back to "3 oaks" and see if there are any deer back there?" I smiled, and cheered him on, hoping that he would find another monster bedded under one of the trees. ("3 Oaks" is a sset of trees in the middle of a corn field, on a 2 square mile piece of ground. It is where I have bumped numerous large buck, and took a 135 class, 2 years ago). As the conversation ended, dad looks back and says, "no, you go back there... I don't know the best way in there without bumping deer all over."

As dad headed off to sit in his stand, I didn't give it a second thought, I started off to "3 Oaks". As I pulled out of the driveway, onto the gravel road, I saw two doe, with a large buck behind them, getting ready to cross! They crossed the road right in front of me, but my gun was cased, and there was no way for me to get uncased, loaded, and into a good shooting spot, before they dissappeared. Long story short, I tried to get in front of that buck for over 2 miles, before I finally lost them on a stalk behind my Aunt and Uncle's House.

As day light was winding down, I thought I would try to make it back to "3 Oaks". I jumped on the four-wheeler and headed to the area. On arrival, I quickly made my way over the field. Finally, I crested the last "knole" which placed me about 100 yards from the oaks. As I crested the hill, I observed a deer, breaking acrossed a field about 1/2 mile away, however, I didn't notice any deer under the oaks. Previous encounters here, have taught me to "walk all three trees". So I continued on. As I approached the trees (at about 40 yards), two doe jumped up and began to break across the field. I quickly shouldered my gun and began to track the does in my scope, however, as I did, this buck jumped up from the same bed. My scope quickly relocated to his shoulder and I was able to take this deer, after several shots!

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I must say, this is one of my best deer to date. 20" ISS, 22"OSS, triple split brow tines, mass galore (official length to come), 14 scorable points, 21" main beams, and significant character. The Broken right G-3 is a break from a shot. I was able to account for all of my shots, so this deer had a previous brush with death... I think this deer could have scored quite well, had that tine not been broken... don't get me wrong, I'll still keep him!

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