Vanish and FireTiger's 2018 Hunt Journal - Season 8

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As many deer as I saw, I felt like that was an evening spot, so Thursday morning I headed to a lake finger I've hunted once before. Sure enough, there was an obvious trail there.

Before I could get in position, a familiar noise caught my attention, but it was severely out of place! There was a small herd of elk a couple hundred yards from me. I know there are elk in Nebraska but didn't think there were any here.

There was some area I wanted to explore so after 90 minutes of no deer I went scouting. I ended up seeing 5 bucks and 5 does but nothing I wanted to pursue. There was a nice funnel I decided to save for the next morning.

We put up a treestand over the trail leading to the winter wheat as the field itself is private. FireTiger sat in it that evening as I was sure she would have lots of action.

I put up a stand on staging area near a different winter wheat field a couple miles away. Several ridges with trails converged and there were 3 scrapes within 50 yards.

None of us saw deer until the last 10 minutes, with no bucks.

 

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By the way, no im not at home, but since im not hunting, i can post ��. Having trouble with photos though, and i cant figure out how to decrease their resolution on this phone.

 

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Friday morning, I headed to where I had left off the day before. I'd be sitting on a cliff overlooking a creek bottom. It was 45 yards to the creek, with a 50 yard strip and then a large pond. Seemed like an awesome funnel. Sadly, i had two deer blowing at me as I arrived in the dark.

It wasn't until 945 when a doe finally appeared. She came to the creek to drink and went back to bed. Ten minutes later I caught a 4x4 slipping past near the pond. He was barely visible in the brush, and as far from me as possible.

That was it for the morning. Dad saw some does and Firetiger got blanked.

 

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We headed back out around 2pm. It was a nice day and I wanted to sit in my treestand for the last couple of hours, but I didn't think it was in a great spot to have a cruising buck walk by, so I headed toward a lake finger to sit for a couple of hours. It took awhile to slip around putting the wind where I wanted it, but I was able to slip up the finger using the exposed mud for a silent approach.

Right as I got to the end of the water where I wanted to set up, the wind did a 180. Ugh, terrible luck. And did my doe estrus scent spill on my backpack, too? The smell was so potent! I was just about to take my pack off to investigate when I heard the familiar swish swish of a deer moving through thick brush.

She was up above me about 15 yards, making the wi d switch a blessing. Sure enough, there was a forkhorn on her tail 30 yards behind. I couldn't shoot even had I wanted to as it was so thick.

I thought it unlikely but possible that she would be trailing more than one buck, but I eased up to the brush edge just im case. Shortly thereafter I heard more deliberate steps coming from the same direction, but not on her trail. I couldn't quite make out if it was in the brush of down on the lke edge.

As is often the case, he appeared far closer than I expected. He was less than 10 yards away but with a stubborn tree that had refused to give up its leaves between us, and he was looking directly at me.

 

[dirtclod Az.]

sounds like fun,hurts like hell.

 

[BRoth82]

This is not good, I leave Friday night to hunt in Nebraska this weekend. I'm not going to be very productive this week, with checking for updates on your hunt.

 

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I knew I was going to shoot as soon as I saw him, if possible. There wasn't exactly a lot of time to look him over. He put his head down and started to mive and I drew. He passes by my leafy tree at about 12 feet, quartering down the ravine. I barely had to aim. It was an obvious kill shot, but when he stopped at 30 yards and looked back, I shot him again. He fell over immediately.

I had my pack with me, so I just went straight for the gutless method. Not being that far from camp, and with plenty of time in the day, I made two trips to stay safe. There was some lovely brush to navigate, which would have been easier if i had remembered to remove the lower legs. Oh well, it made then easier to hang.





When there are no trees by camp, you have to get a little creative.

 

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That evening, Dad missed a buck similar to mine, TWICE. It was just inside legal shooting light, and the first shot hit a small branch he couldn't see and deflected down. The buck ran in a circle and went right back where he had been. Dad hit the same branch, but this time deflected over his back.

Firetiger had a forky come within 30 yards but did he was a bit too erratic for a shot.

The action has since slowed. I've been moving treestands trying to get Firetiger in the "right" spot, but no spot is right when the deer stay bedded most of the day. Dad gad a shot at a half rack but decided to pass.

I've also been doing a bunch of scouting for the future as well as wishing I brought my shotgun. A lot of quail and ducks around, as well as a few other mammals.

 

[dirtclod Az.]

Sonds like plenty of action and critters to play with.

 

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Dad got blanked for the first time this morning. Firetiger had two does out of range. I saw one doe and jumped a mature buck high in the hills. We have one more night and morning left, so the bar has been lowered.

 

[TheBenHoyle]

Nice buck. Awesome encounter.

 

[Crossbowguy]

That is a dandy of a buck! I was hoping you were going to hit it right and punch the tag on a good one and you did! awesome hunt fella!

 

[Crumb]

Nice buck, congrats!

 

[vanish]

Sigh, back to the grind today. Dad and FireTiger spent the morning processing, and then he started on his long drive home. Here's the rest of the journal. I may put together some thoughts on the trip as a whole a little later.

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Monday night was fairly uneventful for Dad. I went to a high point to try glassing edges and turned up a young 3x3. For the last half hour, I hauled butt to get over the north side of the winter wheat. FireTiger was set up about 100 yards south of it in one of the few trees, 15 yards off a well used trail. I started seeing deer appearing almost immediately and was excited for her prospects. By dark, there were probably 20 deer in the field, including a young buck. Hmm, probably not a good sign for her having shot one! All the deer blew out right at dark. Oh?

We grouped up 15 minutes later and immediately I was asked if I spooked all the deer. No, I was just sitting under a tree! Just before the deer had spooked, the big 10 point had shown up on the opposing ridge. FireTiger tried the grunt tube and he started making a beeline toward her. She couldn't see into the bottom he had to cross, and he never showed up. She said it had been her best evening for deer sightings yet, seeing over 30 does and that young buck as well as the big guy, however only one fawn used the trail she was set up on. They all had taken the opposing trail this time.

Tuesday morning they headed out for a few hours while I pulled our two stands. It was a beautiful cold morning but there was sadly no deer movement. We found a fresh gut pile in the ravine next to FireTiger's stand, only about 100 yards away from where she had been the night before. Our best guess was that someone else had been dropped off in the area much like FireTiger, and had shot a deer on one of the other trails leading to the winter wheat.

Dad is already planning for next year.

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Its looking like I'll be heading to eastern CO with my bow again this weekend. If I could move the days around, I'd give myself a bit of a breather, but whitetail hunting on November 10+11 isn't something I am going to turn down, especially as the spot I am hunting is one heck of a rut funnel. I wish I could figure out something better for the drive/camping but eastern CO is just so limited.

I think FireTiger is going to take the weekend off. She has her Nebraska tag, but it will be the rifle opener and while you can archery hunt during rifle, its not exactly a relaxed hunt. She also has a 3rd rifle cow elk tag, but we don't need the meat and so she is going to just make it a donation to CPW.

 

[dirtclod Az.]

Good on her for donating,It's better than letting a tag go to waste.Someone needs the meat.

 

[Mudranger1]

Good on her for donating,It's better than letting a tag go to waste.Someone needs the meat.

Thinking he was talking the price of the tag donation to CPW

 

[dirtclod Az.]

I don't understand.If I have a tag in Az.I can turn it back in and keep my bonus points but I can't turn it in to cash to make a donation.

 

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I don't understand.If I have a tag in Az.I can turn it back in and keep my bonus points but I can't turn it in to cash to make a donation.

Mudranger was right. I was trying to say that by buying the tag off the reissue list but not getting out to hunt it, it was essentially a donation to CPW. There's a 30 day window here before the season for turning a tag back in and getting money back. At that time, she was still planning on hunting it. Its a 6 hour drive to the middle of nowhere, so not exactly a hunt one could just go do on a whim easily.

Its going to be cool this weekend with highs in the 30s. I'm excited for everything except the drive. I'll be honest, I'm getting burned out on the driving.

 

[vanish]

Wow!Very Nice Buck.Congratulations.

Bruiser! Congrats

Nice buck. Awesome encounter.

That is a dandy of a buck! I was hoping you were going to hit it right and punch the tag on a good one and you did! awesome hunt fella!

Nice buck, congrats!

Thanks everyone! The encounter was really awesome. I'll be honest, he looked enormous when he stepped into the ravine on the other side of my tree. I think because he was WAY closer than I was anticipating. I went into total kill mode and never looked at him again after making the decision to shoot (which happened in about a nanosecond), just focusing on my spot. I was honestly a bit surprised to find out he was only a 2.5 year old buck, but I wouldn't trade that encounter/shot for anything.