Saturday, September 26, 2009

almost but no cigar

I had the most awesome encounter this morning. After talking to my neighbor last night, and finding out that there was a decent doe feeding every morning in our front field, I decided to sit in a stand that I set up last year in the late season for gun hunting. Just about every time I sat in the stand last year I saw a deer. It is a SHORT ladder stand at only 10 ft high but sits embedded in a pine tree giving it great cover. Sitting off a main trail from bedding to feeding it is an awesome morning or evening location. The trail comes out of an oak bottom onto a 20 acre field with some hedge rows that the deer use to bed in. The stand sits about 40 yards from the woods along a stand of pines behind a pine tree that allows enough time to either draw my bow or raise my rifle for a shot without spooking the deer. Well, it works great unless you are not paying attention to the opening of the trail and a doe walks out and the first time you see her is when she comes under the draw tree at 10 yards. After spotting her just on the other side of the tree and hoping she would go to my left giving me a perfect broadside shot, she decides to come right at me while grazing. She ends up coming within 5 yards of my stand (downwind) and across where I walked in. This is the closest I have been to a deer and was so pumped about the encounter, even though I didn't get a chance at the shot.

The entire encounter lasted for what seemed like forever, but was probably 2 minutes. I had no chance of getting an ethical shot off, but next time will be ready for her and my venison skewer will find its mark.

2 comments:

Editor said...

good story!

Scott Redding said...

Man I know the feeling they have done everything but crawl in the truck and laydown.