O
Obsessed35
Guest
This year came with a lot of anticipation after a dissapointing season in 2008. I had an opportunity last year, but the hunting was a lot tougher. This year we had decided to check out an area we weren't super familiar with early in the scouting season. My friends Joe Stewart and Jason Monsen went with me on our scouting trip and we covered a lot of ground and did a lot of glassing. We found an area that we decided to hang a couple of tree stands. The deer were moving around a side hill and over a small ridgeline on a pretty consistent pattern. I haven't had a ton of success out of stands in the past but thought it was necessary to hunt this particular spot. Opening weekend came and went fast with no luck only smaller bucks and does. On the second week I spent the first morning making a stock on a nice, tall, heavy-horned buck, but couldn't quite close the gap. He stayed just past 100 yards for 3 hours and then headed the opposite direction of me! It was a frustrating morning because he had a spike and a little 2x2 that were his look outs and they are the only reason he lived that morning.
The next morning (Friday) I decided to get into the tree stand and give it another try. What a morning it was! I had 3 shooter bucks come around the ridge to where I was, but again they were just not taking the right path to get within bow range. All of them were over 100 yards away. My brother saw the buck I had hunted the previous morning and decided to see if he could push it around to me because it wasn't heading towards me at that time. I was very anxious to see if our plan would work when I saw my brother appear and I thought the plan had failed. I called my brother and told him that he should wait there and that I would be getting down and coming up to meet him. Out of the corner of my eye I caught movement and I saw the big 4x4 with his little buddies from the day before. Luckily the little guys were in front and they gave me a chance to range the distance and cut the yardage. It was a 35 degree slope so I had to cut 13 yards off the shot. He came through following the same path and I shot when I shouldn't have and missed high. I re-nocked an arrow and had one more window to shoot through. This time I held true and he only went 30 yards and expired. This was my first time using the G5 Striker and I was impressed. The exit hole was bigger than I had expected.
I owe a lot of credit to my brother Brad for moving this deer towards my stand. I want to thank him and Jason for helping me get the buck off of the mountain. The best part about the hunt is that my dad and brother were with me for the first time in a number of years. I also had a number of my good friends on the mountain with me. Getting the deer was great, but I will always remember the fun hunt we had and the good guys that were in my camp. I would like to hear your guesses on the width and score. I will post the answers in a week or so. Good luck to everyone as I know that a little luck is usually needed to put the big ones down.
