Halloween Buck!

[trex]

Hunted yesterday in Lilred's neck of the woods. Good ole Cumberland county that is. Had to make a sales call out that way so after I finished up I headed on out to our piece of land out there. Haven''t hunted there in recent years like I used to. Anyways, we,ve got this one piece of property of about 16 acres that is bordered on two sides by right of way roads that lead all the way down to the Willis River. We've got this one old coot that lives next to us on one side that whenever he ses us getting ready to hunt he decides to ride his 4 wheeler up and down the road just to p!$$ us off. So I slipped on down to the other road and parked. It was kind of where I wanted to hunt anyways because there's a little piece of land on the other side of the road that was cleared about 3 or 4 years ago because the beetles were getting into the pines. It's grown up nice and thick and last year when i hunted I saw a couple of does head out of there the first day of gun season. Theres an old tree stand there that we put up YEARS ago that I was hoping I'd be able to get into. I wanted to make sure that was where I wanted to be so I just walked the road all the way down looking for sign until I got to the river. Sure enough, I was seeing more sign up towards the old treestand and cutover so up I went into it. I sat there for a good long time until it got towards that magic time, You know, that hour before it gets dark when you really "get the feeling". I had been standing for about 30 minutes kind of getting frustrated with the wind swirling around when I heard a deer snorting on the other side of the cutover. it snorted and snorted, but it was kind of coming towards me. So I got ready not knowing what to expect. A minute or so after the snorting stopped I heard something coming towards me through the cutover. My heart went ta beating! I finally could see it come out and move along a thin thick line of brush about 40 yds out. I thought it was a smallish doe. I kept looking and looking and lo and behold it was a bobcat! A stud of a bobcat too! I've seen several in my day and this one was by far the biggest one I've ever seen! But it was just a little too far for me to try him. So I watched him walk tickled just to see a beautiful cat of that size. Well, not 2 or 3 minutes later I heard some stomping and moving around in about the same place the cat came out. I was excited, but I was worried that it was because the deer could smell me. Hoping it was just because it smelled where the cat came through I just stood there statue still. I stood there for probably 5 minutes before I didn't hear anything else. Still not wanting to move I just watched. About 15 minutes before it was too dark I heard a deer steady coming out of the thicket. He came out just a bit higher than where I heard the deer or saw the cat, and he was parallelling me up high. Perfect because even though the wind had been swirling a bit it was tending to blow more from his way to me then anything else. So I came to full draw. I tried to grunt and stop him, but he didn't pay any attention. So I tried again. No good. He got to the last clearing that I had and knowing this would be it I whistled. He stopped. I figured him to be about 35 yards out so I held a little high and let one fly. THAWACK. Sound of music. He hauled butt, straight and then made a sharp turn. I watched him run about 50 yds in all. Stop. Hind quarters hit the dirt. Do one complete cicle and fall stone dead. I didn't want to rush over there just in case so I went back up to the truck and got rid of my bow and grabbed the flashlight. Went on down there and found my arrow. Cremson red baby!!! Needed practice on my tracking skills so I tracked the blood straight up to him. Ended up being a decent 8 pointer! About 15" wide and rather tall. I tell you. There was a few times yesterday when the wind was swirling around that I figured I was just wasting my time. I could've gotten down and headed on home early, but I decided to hang out and just enjoy being out there. It is never over until its over thats for sure! Gonna get back out there tomorrow hopefully. Hunting the same place where I messed up on the big one the other week. As long as I dont get too tied up in the office

[fabsroman]

Great story. Sometimes, I debate taking a camera with me into the field because seeing a bobcat would require the taking of some pictures to remember the day.

[Lilred]

Trex...
I was out yesterday mornin goin to work and this mornin thinkin bout what beautiful days they are to hunt...and you lucky rascal....good job. There is just one problem...we need pics! lol

Ya know...the bucks are full swing now. I been seein a ton of em...all with their nose to the ground and chasin does. It got me wound up so that I was originally gonna take next wed, thurs & fri off to hunt and I switched my days to mon, tues & wed...
I think i'll hunt around the house here..and i might head off to prospect to hunt a couple farms over there.
Loader season comes in Saturday and I am plum wound up. I caint wait!
By the way..I saw 2 nice cats this year too...there are more cats round here than most people want to admit. Got a couple bear round here..and I hear there is 4 or 5 hauntin the Willis in various places. Might pay ya to hunt them few bear days we got.
At any rate..congrats!

[trex]

Thanks feelas. Prospect is a great area to hunt too! I've hunted quite a bit around the Madisonville area and there's some nice farms, and bucks to go along with them. Thats not far at all from Prospect. Good luck to you Lilred. Saturday is looking to be too good to be true as far as weather goes. Lets hope it stays that way. I'll be in a tree this afternoon. Hopefully have a story to post

[trex]

Went out behind the office this afternoon. Got into the tree around 3 hoping to catch one creeping around early being the rut and all. No dice. Did see two does around 5:15 or so. Momma got a wiff of the Buck bomb I had set off and gave one good snort. I've been against using any type of tarsal/estrous...etc scent for a while. Every now and then I decide to give it a shot. I've heard that a doe will head away from another doe in heat alot of times. That would make sense about this one tonight. I myself would rather have the scent of a real deer mozying by my stand than take the chance of putting some type of bottled stuff out. Tonight just reinforced that. Maybe I didn't miss out on anything, but just maybe I did. I wont be trying anything else this year. How about everyone else? What are your experiences?