The Hunt

This was a new place entirely for me to hunt. I had been hunting a handful of days and trying to get the lay of the land with activity. The property is an 12 acre plot surrounded by farm ground. It once was part of a bigger 200 acre farm that had been previously sold off – I hunted the day it became legitimately a new parcel. I had been seeing a lot of activity here. I had been hunting the ridge side of the corn field down below (west side of property) which worked well on several occasions but it was time to move, I didn’t want to burn that spot up. I really wanted to try some decoys during the rut. I had been seeing people post about them on social media and it seemed like it could be a cool experience, if it worked. Unfortunately I didn’t really get good footage of the actual setup..

The top of the hill, and the center of the property, had some decent activity but more importantly for me it was visible from lots of directions. I decided to setup a stand that was a bit downhill from the top and at the top of a small ravine. The center of the shooting area was about 25 yards from my stand. I setup the decoys so that they were facing the East corn field (away from me slightly angled). I really had no idea what I was doing here except that the idea was for them to be visible from a distance and hopefully lure bucks closer. I went with a small buck (The Freshman) and a doe (Trixie). Since it was the Rut, I wanted the doe there and the small buck for those other bucks that would potentially want to fight. So in one afternoon, in about 2 hours time, I setup a new stand and setup some decoys. It was about 65deg Fahrenheit and I was sweating. I had multiple trips up and down the stand to “adjust” the decoys. I thought for sure this was just going to be a practice sit.

I had a couple of small buck come in the decoys and hang around. They would aproach the decoys and then spook off once they got close enough to realize the decoy was 2d and disappeared. They would spook and run off about 15 yards or so, then stand there looking around, then approach, then spook etc. I thought this was it, they were going to make sure there was no other deer that would come in haha. Well they left, then maybe 10 minutes later, probably 30 minutes of light left, this 8 point sneaks around a pile of down trees and brush right into the decoys. Quiet as a mouse and ears pinned back. He stopped about 18 yards in front of me broadside. I couldn’t really ask for more. It was now or never. So I took the shot.

It had been a tough tracking season so far so I wanted my dog to have a nice easy win. I went and grabbed the dog and had her track this buck, even though it only ran maybe 50yds. She had no problem and ran me right to him. It was great.