My Biggest Buck

Scored my biggest buck ever on Friday December 2, 2011 around 5:00pm. First day had come and gone without any buck sightings. The warm weather seemed to stop much of the natural movement and other than a few does, it was fairly non-eventful. Moving through the week I didn't have much time at all to hunt and by Thursday was eager to get back into the woods, even for the short hour and a half after work. So Thursday afternoon I hurried out of work, got the gear together and took the 30.06 for a walk. Right as dark was near, two does busted over the ridgetop and ran within 5 yards of the tree I was leaning against. While they were acting nervous, the tree busted up my silouette and the wind was in my favor, so they just started feeding and walked away. The whole time they were near, the two of them kept looking back, like something else was coming and sure enough another deer started over the ridgeline. By the time I got good glass on him, he was only twenty yards away and I realized it was a half rack spike! Nose to the ground, he paid me little mind and was on about his chase. Friday dawned with a little more excitement, and throughout the day I was yearning to hit the woods. I hit the trail one half hour earlier than Thursday, and decided that if in fact the does from yesterday were putting some second rut stink out I'd better hunt the same area. I decided to sit closer to the bedding area I thought yesterday's action originated from and it paid off big time. Climbing the entire ridge in a hurry, I found a nice natural ground blind of fallen trees and sat down out of breath. After a quick drink of water, things happened quickly as two does moved toward me from above. Their path took them directly into my wind, but luckily they just turned and walked away without making a commotion. Thinking my night was over, but not wanting to waste the effort getting up to this spot, I decided to hang tight. A short time later I heard a deer exit the laurel directly in front of me, but I couldn't see anything yet. The next thing I saw was a big old set of horns, and this bruiser walked slowly to my right, setting up a perfect slow, walking shot. The crack of the .06 sounded and the deer hunched up and started for the jungle of grapevines and thick cover below me. A quick second blast anchored the old boy right before he hit the edge though. Trying not to trip over the log jam, I hurried to recover my kill, and was not disappointed to see this nice eight pointer piled up! He is only the second buck I've ever killed during rifle season, and the biggest buck I've scored on to date.