A few years ago I thought I'd give the decoy thing a try. I had a decent 8 pt, ram it that year, but no shooters saw the decoy on the days I chose to use it.
Last year I had tremendous success with it. I passed 5 bucks in the 115-125" class in a weeks time. They all were within feet of the decoy and two of them attacked it, blowing it apart into pieces. One of the attacks I got on video on my phone. It was a blast using it and I learned a lot.
This year I just haven't seen very many bucks on the cameras or on the hoof. Ag practices have changed around me and human traffic has increased dramatically in the off season. Neither have helped my situation I believe. The best deer I had on camera all summer had a long brow tine on one side. I was torn with wether or not I would shoot this deer given the chance. After the velvet fell off he disappeared until last week.
Last Wednesday AM I hit the woods before a big rain storm was due to come in at noon. Deer traffic was good but every buck was small. Then I see this buck coming through the corn, I put the binos on him and instantly see the tall brow tine. I grab my bow, still not knowing for sure if I will shoot him or not. He gets out of the field and sees my decoy and heads straight for it. In the process he goes directly down wind of me and starts to get a little nervous, but the curiosity was killn him. He paced back and forth and I decided that if he gave me a slam dunk chip shot I would take him. After a few minutes he goes to circle around the decoy and gives me a wide open broadside shot, I couldn't hold off. I punched the arrow clean through him at 28 yards and he ran 50 yards, stopped, looked back and crashed. Season over. Bitter sweet. See pic of arrow stuck in dirt with blood stained white fletching, decoy behind it and stand in oak tree behind that, all in a line)
The neighbors shot a 171" deer this year and now think we shouldn't shoot anything until it reaches that caliber of size. Wellll, I like shootn deer and so do my girls, so until they start buying our tags we will shoot what makes us happy at the moment and then enjoy it. Maybe next year I will hold off of these 3 year old deer, but maybe I wont
ps. I suck at computer stuff so pics are sideways.
Last year I had tremendous success with it. I passed 5 bucks in the 115-125" class in a weeks time. They all were within feet of the decoy and two of them attacked it, blowing it apart into pieces. One of the attacks I got on video on my phone. It was a blast using it and I learned a lot.
This year I just haven't seen very many bucks on the cameras or on the hoof. Ag practices have changed around me and human traffic has increased dramatically in the off season. Neither have helped my situation I believe. The best deer I had on camera all summer had a long brow tine on one side. I was torn with wether or not I would shoot this deer given the chance. After the velvet fell off he disappeared until last week.
Last Wednesday AM I hit the woods before a big rain storm was due to come in at noon. Deer traffic was good but every buck was small. Then I see this buck coming through the corn, I put the binos on him and instantly see the tall brow tine. I grab my bow, still not knowing for sure if I will shoot him or not. He gets out of the field and sees my decoy and heads straight for it. In the process he goes directly down wind of me and starts to get a little nervous, but the curiosity was killn him. He paced back and forth and I decided that if he gave me a slam dunk chip shot I would take him. After a few minutes he goes to circle around the decoy and gives me a wide open broadside shot, I couldn't hold off. I punched the arrow clean through him at 28 yards and he ran 50 yards, stopped, looked back and crashed. Season over. Bitter sweet. See pic of arrow stuck in dirt with blood stained white fletching, decoy behind it and stand in oak tree behind that, all in a line)
The neighbors shot a 171" deer this year and now think we shouldn't shoot anything until it reaches that caliber of size. Wellll, I like shootn deer and so do my girls, so until they start buying our tags we will shoot what makes us happy at the moment and then enjoy it. Maybe next year I will hold off of these 3 year old deer, but maybe I wont
ps. I suck at computer stuff so pics are sideways.
