Grow the Hunt

Off To A Good Start

-By Rich Miller

So far this year my deer season has been as good as it gets. I was fortunate enough to get a good deer early and I have been seeing a lot of deer activity every time I go into the woods.

It has been a long time since I have seen this much food on the ground and the deer are really loving it. Usually when there is this much food it is a problem keeping up with them and trying to figure out where they are feeding. When deer don’t have to move very far to find food it makes it hard to intercept them between bedding and feeding.

Luckily that hasn’t been a problem for me this year and I have been covered up with deer everywhere I have been. In the different hardwoods I have been hunting I have seen a lot of fresh signs from where deer have been bedding there. I haven’t jumped any deer going in to hunt but I have been worried that they will be there before I get there.

I normally take the opportunity this time of year to do some doe management but so far I have been really slack. I went down to my hunting club last weekend with the intent to take out some does and just have some fun with my bow. My hunts went as planned but when I had the opportunity to shoot I got lazy and started thinking I didn’t wasn’t to mess with cleaning a deer that night and never shot anything.

Another reason I didn’t shoot a doe was the amount of buck sign that I found when I arrived at the club. It had been a couple of weeks since I had been down there and there was almost no buck sign then. Man was I in for a shock when I stepped into the woods on Thursday afternoon. There were scrapes and rubs everywhere as I walked to the spot that I intended to hunt.

I had seen two really nice bucks in this area last fall and I was hopeful that they had made it through the season. With all of the sign I saw while setting up, all I could do was picture one of those bucks walking out and checking the fresh scrapes in front of me. I know the odds of seeing one of these mature bucks during daylight hours this time of year are not very good, but I still couldn’t make myself shoot a doe.

As the days get shorter and the temperature gets colder the hunting will just get better every day. It seems like someone is calling me to tell me about the big buck that they had seen or had the chance to harvest on a daily basis.

This is the time of year that we have been waiting months on so if you haven’t gotten out in the woods yet I think it is a perfect time to get off of the couch and get out there.

Good luck when you do!

The Changing Phase

-By Brandon Wikman

Welcome to the month of October. It’s a time when the nights becomes cooler, and the days become increasingly shorter. More importantly, it’s a time when whitetails make a sudden juke on our scheming hunting blitz.

I embellish the vitality of seeking brutes on brisk November mornings, but I’m usually lucky enough to have my opponent in the freezer by then. You’ve heard it said by TV hosts, outdoor writers, and seminar speakers over and over, “focus on main food sources that arouse the whitetail’s craving”. Soybeans, corn, alfalfa, and acorns are a popular choice of groceries in the Midwest. Deer indulge on farmers’ painstaking long hours of hard work in the fields, but there’s one problem.

Once the velvet vanishes, so too the handsome racked bucks from the harvested fields. It’s an ongoing cycle that happens every year about this time. People are dumbfounded by the process and truly believe high classed whitetail have a calendar memory chip deep inside their brain focused on the day of deer season. “They just disappear,” is a common quote I often hear.

Deer patterns change, food sources deplete, and human disturbance rises, which lead deer to flee. Unless you have whitetail on the Atkins diet, the animal has got to eat! Nutrition is a vital role in the life of a whitetail. Many of my friends are clueless to this ritualistic evolution of deer vanishing theory. It is often my same friends who don’t think outside the box. They never dig into the real meaning of why deer move or relocate during this time. Mature bucks would rather yawn in their beds and take a load off until the fresh dusk aerates the forest. They sit tight and in no hurry, while the hunter watches their optic fibers fade with the sunset.

To resolve this issue we must quit hunting field edges and get back into the forage. Once deep within the forest, look for acorn ridges, clover patches, or any scrumptious treat for deer to eat for an appetizer. Bucks and does alike will bypass time in these staging areas where they feel safe. Until the sun sleeps and the tree frogs socialize, then deer will sneak to their dinner in stealth mode.

Opening day of last year I participated in a management archery hunt. I tracked the field edge, found a trail that was trampled and followed it back until I found acorn heaven. I placed a stand and the same day I blew threw a hefty doe. The doe was simply eating appetizers before the main course of voluptuous alfalfa. Sometimes the forgotten spots are just under our feet.

Don’t be afraid to slip into the woods a hundred yards. There is more opportunity of spotting a buck in a staging area tucked inside the woods than having him flaunt his antlers in the middle of an alfalfa field. With that said, venturing too far inside his safe haven will hurt your odds of ever seeing him again. I always use the expression, “knock at his door, but never walk into his room.” You want to be smack-dab in the middle of things. Assume your position in the woods between the two hottest places in a buck’s mind during October.

Mother Nature Wins Again

-By Rich Miller

With all of the different things whitetails can throw at you, hunting them can be a frustrating endeavor. Throw in the challenges that Mother Nature adds and it is a wonder we even bother.

The drought has hurt us over the past couple of years and now the rains that we have been getting are washing everything away. I did get lucky last week and it was dry enough for me to plow and get everything ready to plant. After getting all of that done I got around five acres of food plots planted Friday afternoon. That worked out perfect because we got over 1 ½ inches of rain Saturday night. It was a lot of rain to get in a short period of time and it did wash out in several places in the plots but the timing couldn’t have been better.

With my food plots finally in and off to a great start it isn’t looking like the deer will be in them for a while. Every year it seems like it is feast or famine around here when it come to the mast crops. This year it seems that we are in the famine mode. Every acorn and persimmon tree in the woods seems to be loaded this year. In the past few days it seems like every one of these trees decided to unload their fruit and it sounds like it was raining acorns in the hardwoods. The drawback to this is that it makes it hard to pattern the deer because there is too much food. Don’t get me wrong this is a great thing for our deer but it doesn’t help us hunters out very much.

This past weekend I had something happen to me that has never happened to me before. I got in the woods bright and early Saturday morning and climbed up a tree in a place that I haven’t hunted in a couple of years. I was in a creek bottom that is usually loaded with acorns and it funnels down into a perfect ambush point for a bow hunter. I had been in the tree for about an hour and it was good daylight.

It was the perfect time for me to start seeing some deer. That is when I noticed what I thought was a horsefly buzzing around my head. Shortly after noticing him he was joined by a few friends. I got curious to the commotion they were making and stood up to check them out. What I though t was a few horseflies turned out to be hornets and they immediately started dive bombing me.

I just grabbed my bow and started chunking my stand down the tree as fast as I could. The whole time the hornets were stinging me as much as they possibly could. When I got to the bottom of the tree I don’t remember how I got out of the tree I just remember I was just on the ground running. After I got finished slapping those stinging devils off of me I tried to figure out where they came from. There was a hornet’s nest in another tree about ten yards in front of me. I had gone in there early and never noticed the nest. I guess when it warmed up and they came out of their nest they recognized me and were not going to tolerate me being there.

I don’t know what I could have done any differently that would have kept them from attacking me. I would like to think that the next time I climb into a stand in the early season I will look for hornet’s nest after it gets light. There is one thing for sure the next time I hear what I think is a horsefly buzzing me I will probably start down the tree.

Early Season Success

-By Brandon Wikman

The forest’s canopy is choked with heavy green foliage wrapping around limbs, while the floor’s scattered with gold nuggets of prized acorns. There’s no better time to be hunting Buffalo County, Wisconsin than right now!

The Wisconsin archery season is underway. The weather has been unseasonably warm, which burns much opportunity of spotting a giant during daylight. As I prepped for my weekend adventure with Bluff Bucks Outfitters, I couldn’t help but notice the forecast. A heat index flirting in the 80-degree mark scorched my hopes of slaying a true trophy. So I thought.

Butch Fox, the owner of Bluff Bucks Outfitters, pinpointed a picture-perfect stand site, which would drown the worries of scorching heat. We decided that our best bet would be overlooking a small manmade drinking hole. I strongly agreed that our only chance of spotting a heat-exhausted whitetail was with its head sunk into a refreshing pond of water.

Fox has several stand sites built with a mindset of early season hunting. He explained that hunting small ponds during the early season and rut are a huge splash in his successful outfitting business. A 20-foot stand overlooked a small staging area, which led into a blooming food plot. A mixture of soybeans, sunflowers, forage peas, and much more! The staging area was tucked-in from the food source about sixty yards and sported a thirst-quenching pond with a congestion of deer trails wrapping everywhere.

My cameraman, who was Dick Gunther, owner of Dick’s Whitetail Taxidermy, was just as stoked as I was to share a tree and hopefully slay a Buffalo County brute! We both scaled the bluff covered terrain as the sweat began oozing. Our setup was deep in the hills along a blanket of agriculture fields. As we approached the stand, we both sprayed down in scent-eliminating spray. It not only worked for terminating our scent, but also acted as a natural coolant!

As I approach a stand site, I’ll always toss down a scent trail no matter what time of season. I’ll simply cater the correct aroma to the time of year.

I sent Gunther up the tree first with a Hooyman handsaw so he’d be able to clear any branches for video. I anxiously waited at the base of the tree as chips of wood debris rained. After settling in, I tossed the rangefinder up and knocked out an array of distances as Gunther prepped the camera. It was obvious that the water hole was a popular destination after seeing a cluster of wildlife tracks smudged into the muddy outer walls. Times passed with each glitter of sunlight fading into the backside of a towering hilltop. Darkness began enveloping the forest floor. It was just starting to get prime.

My eyes snatched a glimpse of red fur atop the ridge ahead. I motioned to Gunther that we had a deer walking toward us. The slinky whitetail edged his way into the open after hiding himself in the thick underbrush. Rattling scrub bushes and waving weeds unveiled an outstanding whitetail buck. His tall tines and chocolate frame swayed as he dipped his mouth into the pond. I readied myself and closed my eyes to concentrate. My respiration jacked into overdrive as I huffed air inside my carbon-lined mask.

My bow rattled in my hands as Gunther documented each moment of big buck history. I cranked back my bow as soon as the buck turned to walk away. With the “okay” from Gunther, an arrow tore into the vitals. History was made.

I followed a steady trail of blood, which led me to my very first early season buck. The buck’s red coat glistened and short hair accentuated his muscle tone. It will not only make a beautiful mount, but also etched an incredible memory that neither Gunther nor I will ever forget.

Hanging high during the early season has proved to be a success. It was a head-to-head battle with relentless weather conditions. Luckily, the hunter came out the winner thanks to a great game plan. I’d like to thank Butch and Marc Fox of Bluff Bucks Outfitters for guiding me to an early season dream!

Rainy Season Opener

-By Rich Miller

For the past couple of years we have been in a drought where I live in the South, but for the last week it has done nothing but rain. I don’t know if Mother Nature wasn’t ready for everyone to hit the woods on the 15th but she did a good job on making it hard to hunt. Last Tuesday when our archery season opened it rained pretty much all day. We had a lot of pictures of some really nice bucks using our food plot on a regular basis and had planned on getting one of these deer on film.

We hung out under the barn waiting on the rain to break until about four o’clock and decided we better go ahead and get in the stands in case the deer moved a little early that afternoon. The rain did eventually quit shortly after we were settled in our stands but as hunting goes we never saw a deer that afternoon.

With work and family obligations I didn’t have a chance to get back into the woods until Friday afternoon and yes you guessed it, it was raining again. I didn’t care if it was raining or not I had decided that I was going anyway. Plus I had checked the radar and it looked like it was going to clear up within an hour or so. The good thing about the rain was it made it really quiet getting to the stand. I got my climber up the tree and settled in and after pulling my bow up I turned around and noticed a deer standing about sixty yards down the ridge. These two spotted fawns stayed in the area for about twenty minutes before they fed back into the thicket where they came from.

Shortly after the two fawns left the rain stopped and the sun started to stick its head out. It was good to see the sun out but at least I had seen deer when it was raining. I wasn’t seeing anything so I just sat back in the stand and enjoyed being in a deer stand full of anticipation and excitement. It had been months since I had that feeling.

As I was soaking in all of Mother Nature’s sights and sounds my evenings hunt was quickly coming to an end. I don’t know where my mind was at the time but I looked up and I noticed a color behind a dead bush that hadn’t been there previously. As I stared at it I saw an ear move and then put the shape together - it was a big bodied deer. The deer was already in range so I just stood up and carefully reached for my bow. I still hadn’t seen the deer’s head gear but I just wanted to be ready because the body of the deer was so big. Eventually the deer moved its head out from behind the bush and I got a good look at his rack and knew immediately he was a shooter.

When I did get a good look at his rack I knew why I couldn’t see them when he was behind that bush, his antlers were so dark they were almost black. Fortunately for me the buck was on a trail that was going to lead him within 15-yards of the tree I was in. When the buck’s head passed behind a tree that was between us I stuck an arrow through both lungs for what I felt like was a perfect shot. As usual the buck immediately took off in another direction but in a matter of seconds I heard a big crash and then it went quiet. That’s when the adrenaline kicked in and I got the feeling that no drug can produce and what a feeling it was. It was only a couple of days into our deer season and I already had a great buck on the ground.

By the time I got my stand off of the tree and found my buck it was dark and I still had a long walk and a lot of work to do. It was a good thing my cousin Greg was kind enough to help me get the deer out of the woods, get him field dressed, and to the processer. I was sure glad that he was there to help out but it was even better having him there to share the hunt and celebrate with.

A Story of too Many Bucks!

-By Brandon Wikman

It’s not often that hunters face the serious predicament of allocating space for trophy buck mounts. Most hardcore head junkies would rip off their own family portrait to replace the empty spot with a magnificent shoulder mount.

Typically, hunters find themselves lucky to knock down a good buck that deserves wall status every few years, but not for two of the most buck-ridden diehards I know; Butch and Marc Fox of Bluff Bucks Outfitters.

I’ve had the pleasure of hunting with the Fox’s during their initial start as a full-service outfitter in Buffalo County, Wisconsin. Bluff Bucks Outfitters (BBO) was a new face on the already cluttered map of guides, outfits, and mom n’ pop fly-by-night hunting businesses scattered along the Mississippi River region. After receiving the invitation to jump up a tree in hunter-heaven to film an episode for my show, I soon realized that this outfit was here to stay. From that day forward, the Fox’s and I have become more than friends, almost a family.

Both father (Butch) and son (Marc) slammed Booners during the same month last year. As incredible as that spectacle was, there’s nothing that shakes your soul more than seeing their new trophy den!

As the outfitting business grew, Butch had no choice but to expand the lodge to accommodate more hunters. As more land is leased, more hunters are welcome. And as more hunters are booking, more living space is necessary. As funny as it is, I still poke fun with Butch by telling him that he just wanted more space to hang heads! He just laughs and shakes his head. The scary part of the equation is that he literally ran out of space to hang any more bucks. From bedroom-to-bedroom, each corner of the upstairs, and every centimeter downstairs was chocked full of giant whitetails plastered on the wall. If a non-hunter was to walk in the house they’d think that this was some kind of whitetail deer museum.

Now with more space than ever to provide elegant comforts for his clients, the Fox’s now have a cathedral ceiling that’s sky high and beautifully showcasing a collection of giant deer. Each shoulder mount holds a fond and precious memory in our lives. It’s a peculiar fascination of reflection that drives our mind to ease.

I will be making my way over to BBO this weekend to archery hunt the early season. With any luck at all, maybe I’ll be able to throw one of my trophies this year in the BBO big buck gallery!

A Hunter's Work Is Never Done

-By Rich Miller

Every year it seems that there is more and more to do to get ready for the upcoming hunting season. This year is proving to be no different either. Keeping up with the areas that I hunt locally is bad enough but when you throw in the lease in Kansas it is even worse.

Last week I flew to my home away from home to visit my good friend and fellow Knight & Hale Pro Staffer Mick bowman. Even though we always have a good time when we are together the purpose of this visit was work.

We tried to get as many stand sites prepared as possible before the season opens. Though it will be November before I am there to hunt, when I show up all I will have to do is get in the tree. We were able to get four different stand sites prepared for a hunter and cameraman. We hunt some of these places year after year and we always see a lot of deer activity.

We checked out a couple of new places that looked very promising but it was so thick out there right now and they will look totally different come November. We trimmed some of the brush from around the stand sites and they will only get better after the leaves fall off the trees.

In several of these places we are not able to plant food plots because it is in pasture. The farmers just won’t allow us to plow up parts of their pastures no matter what we are planting. It didn’t matter anyway because the ground was way too wet to allow us to plant anything. Our solution to putting a food source in these places is Moultrie feeders. Most of these pastures are 80 or 160 acres in size so we put a feeder or two in the middle of the property to help draw deer into these areas.

We place the feeders in areas that are natural travel routes for deer and it doesn’t take them very long at all to find them. The does use these feeders on a daily basis and as you well know, where there are does in November the bucks will be cruising through to check them out. These feeder sites are a great place to set up our Game Spy cameras so we know what uses these feeders. It also provides me with a lot of anticipation every week as I wait on Mick to send me the weekly pictures from our cameras.

I was there for five days and we did manage to get a lot of work done but as it always goes there are never enough hours in the day. It was time for me to fly back home before we knew it. It will seem like time is dragging until I get back out there to hunt in November. There is an upside though, bow season opens here tomorrow. If I have never mentioned it before, I love this time of year!

Opening Weekend

-By Brandon Wikman

The tireless daydreaming of archery season has finally come to an end as reality settles upon the eager hunters of Wisconsin and across the country for that matter. This coming weekend marks the grand opening of the 2009 archery deer-hunting season for several states around the country.

This year is incredibly interesting because the opener of bow season is far earlier than previous years. This brews a much more potent concoction for hungry hunters! The date of the big bang is Saturday, September 12th. Thanks to a gracious calendar year, opening archery weekend favors on the hunters’ side now. Shimmying a tree this early may pay off in a huge way for a few reasons.

Scoping out some of the places I’ll be hunting this fall has proved that several bucks are still carrying fury velvet. Typically, deer begin shedding their soft skin at the end of August, but it appears many are still sporting their summer headgear. Like many, I’ve always wanted to arrow a buck in velvet. The beauty of a reddish short and thin coat complimented by fury wrapped antlers is a hunters dream. This year’s hunters may have a true chance at a buck that hasn’t fully cleaned his rack and is still wearing their summer suits. Hunters will find that the earlier than normal opener, will still show deer cruising their exact same travel patterns they used throughout the duration of the summer. That includes trails, feeding locations, and bedding areas.

It is obvious that deer slowly transition and rotate to feed on different crops as farmers begin harvesting their spring plantings. Deer are going to be mowing the soybeans, alfalfa, and clover for another few weeks. In fact, much before the farmer’s heavy-duty equipment will. Thousands upon thousands of agriculture fields remain moist and green. The summer has been very mild. The scorching heat from previous years has been replaced by substantial rainfall in 2009. The crops are healthy and the deer are too. We must take advantage of the opportunity and make our best attempt to pick off an early season bruiser.

I’ve captured a few incredible trail cam pictures of several mature bucks. The photos not only provide me proof of a few bucks on my hit list, but also give me a reason to be in a tree come this weekend. Thanks to using these cameras, I’ve been able to photograph a handful of mature bucks on countless occasions. The camera was set up on the edge of an alfalfa field, where deer have been pounding the greens. Food sources once again prove to be my best location to position trail cameras.

If you are the type of hunter to hunt the rut exclusively, this season it wouldn’t hurt to try your odds in a few days! I wish everyone the best of luck as we get our deer hunting gear back out and a new season underway!

Hunting the Canadian Bruin

-By Brandon Wikman

Deep in the impenetrable, moss-infested bush of northwestern Ontario lays a land untamed and merciless to the heart of a city dweller. An environment choked with tangles of vegetation, sculpted by ancient rock bed cliffs, and home to some of the most sought after big game species in North America: monstrous black bear.

My cousin, Joe Nawrot, and I ventured into the north woods of a land lost in its own beauty and mystic. We brought with us video equipment, archery gear, and a grueling intention to defeat the black beast of the boondocks. Our journey provided us with a humbling experience to hunt with the most legendary Canadian outfitter in the entire province of Ontario; Dan Schafer, owner of Cygnet Lake Camps. Schafer hosts an enchanting vacation for those looking for a week spent in paradise. Cygnet Lake Camp is home to the finest fishing, hunting, and soul soothing excursions. It was my time to embark and make peace with a Canadian wilderness adventure.

The enduring pursuit to outwit a bear by bow n’ arrow has always been one of my most desired goals. I lugged the title of rookie bear hunter, but sported a relentless attitude to learn the craft of the trade. My mind sopped with information that Schafer flooded me with. Fine details that wise bear hunters like him could slowly drip into quenching amounts of vital information.

He explained that bears are extremely difficult to judge by size because they are completely shaded in black, a statement that fashion aficionado can attest! Bears are also super-stealthy. Many newbie hunters are baffled by the way bears silently drift through the forest like they’re walking on air. By the time Schafer finished wrapping up his sneak-peak course of Bear 101, I had my homework cutout for me.

The Canadian terrain may look marvelous to the casual observer, but don’t let the pretty looks deceive you. Unveil the mask of splendor and you find a hostile environment swallowed with flooded timber, bottomless marshes, and raging rapids of water tumbling from the skyscraping cliffs. The word “wilderness,” now resonates a whole new meaning to me.

The trek to the tree stand was an adventure in itself. An ATV was our means of transportation. The four-wheelers cut into the crusted moss beds that clung onto ancient boulders and fallen trees. An entire new habitat caked in spectacular colors of green decorated the depths of the spruce forests. Throughout the ATV venture, we slopped through puddles of muck, scaled stairs of protruding rock, and tore into scenery that echoed with mystery. The walk into the jungle began as the turkey trail transitioned into a simple footpath. As I walked along the trail with dazzling eyes of curiosity, I was in awe of how few people left their footprint in a land so virgin of human destruction. A humbled sensation of adoration crammed my soul with glee until it nearly exploded at the sight of a ladder stand in the distance.

The hunt for black bear began as I nestled myself into the mid-level branches of a spruce tree. My eyes scanned the snarled forest that hummed a nasty melody from an infestation of bloodthirsty mosquitoes. Wisely, I sat content with my bug-suit that shielded my skin from the annoyance of pesky bugs.

Moments passed slowly. Each waking minute purified my soul and sanitized my mind. I showered in a natural cleanse of Mother Nature; scrubbing the brilliance of wilderness and majesty of nature into my memory. My movements were slow and cautious. Each glance from side-to-side took a scrupulous amount of analyzing the twisted timber for a colossal mass of charcoaled hair.

As beams of glowing sunlight flirted with the Canadian horizon, pink shadows of streaming ribbons festooned the dusky sky. My eyes winced into the blockade of forage as I spotted movement beneath a cluster of white birch trees. A blob of black, which looked as dark as ink, sauntered toward my direction. From the shadows of the murky forest loomed a beast of the night.

My quivering arms snagged my bow as he eased closer. With each step the bear took, my eyes became larger and larger. My heart ached with pulsations of nervous excitement as my conscious failed miserably as a seasoned guide. I was as frazzled as a ball of yarn tattered by a militia of viscous cats. As my bow peaked and broadhead cocked into firing position, I let go!

The carbon arrow pierced into the giant’s vitals. The shot found its mark. I mustered a shriek of thrill that could be heard from the next hillside. My bear hunt was completely accomplished.

Echoes of life still resonate within as I recollect the fond chronicles of the north woods. The Canadian wilderness is home to awe-inspiring scenery freckled with translucent lakes clustered with fish and bountiful forests hiding an assortment of wild game. As any true hunter would realize; the harvest only lasts a mere second, but the entire hunting adventure lasts a lifetime.

Hunting With Deer Decoys

-By Rich Miller

As the summer is coming to an end and deer season is less than a month away you can imagine where my mind has been. I have formed a daily ritual of shooting my bow at different ranges trying to make it as realistic as I possibly can, and praying for rain so my food plots are as green and lush as they can be. My conversations with friends have turned from how the fish have been biting to how many deer we have been seeing and who has got the biggest buck on their game camera.

All of this deer talk and watching the new hunting shows on TV has gotten my mind wondering back to some of my past hunts. I run these hunts through my mind over and over again whether they were successful or not.

One of these hunts that still haunts me was a bow hunt from back in 2006. I was perched in a cedar tree not 10 feet off of the ground. This cedar tree is in the middle of a pasture between crop fields and bedding. I figured by using a deer decoy at this stand location that I might be able to catch a buck cruising and get him into bow range. I tried this one afternoon when the wind was perfect and had several young bucks come in to the deer decoy and do exactly what I wanted them to do. Right before dark I happened to look behind me and saw a huge bodied buck about a hundred and fifty yards away. When I threw my binoculars up and looked at him I almost fell out of the tree. The buck was an absolute monster! I grabbed my grunt call and called to him a couple of times and he would stop and look and then start walking again. So I grunted at him again and when he stopped and looked at me I snort wheezed at him and he stuck his head up really high and turned toward me spotting the decoy. Well that really got his attention so I snort wheezed again and that is when he started my way on a steady jog.

There was a barbed wire fence in between us and when he got to it he stopped jogging and started walking up and down the fence looking for a place to cross it. I had my bow in hand and was doing nothing but watching and letting the decoy do its job. After pacing back and forth a couple of times he got below me and jumped the fence. At that point he was in range but I was waiting for him to get out in front of me to get a better shot angle. The buck was posturing and had all of his attention focused on the decoy. He couldn’t have acted any more like I wanted him too if I had written him a script.

He was walking straight at the decoy perfectly broadside at twenty yards when I drew my bow. As soon as I had my bow drawn I grunted at the buck and he stopped in his tracks and he was looking straight in my direction when I released my arrow. The exact millisecond my bowstring left the jaws of my release, that buck came completely unglued. He dropped to the ground all the while turning to leave the scene. I still to this day have nightmares of that arrow sailing right over that monster buck’s back.

After the fact and several years of kicking myself for breaking my own rules on this hunt all I can do is learn from my mistakes. The first thing I did wrong was to grunt to stop this deer. He was walking but he was moving really slowly and when I grunted to stop him it put him on alert and my shot didn’t surprise him. His nerves were already on edge because he was getting ready to whip up on my deer decoy. If I would have shot him while he was walking he would have never flinched.

What really bugs me about the whole deal is that I broke my golden rule on this hunt. While giving seminars and telling people about hunting with a decoy the thing I preach most about is “patience with the shot”. When a buck is coming in to your decoy setup just wait and let him come. When he is committed like this deer was, if I would have waited just a little longer he would have been at 15 yards and quartering away slightly and offered me that high percentage shot we as hunters dream about. Of course every deer is different but I have been using deer decoys for years and it has been my experiences that if you are patient and wait they will offer the shot you want. Don’t do like I did and let buck fever get the best of you and get impatient.

It all worked out in the end because the very next morning I was able to take a nice buck out of the same stand using my deer decoy. On that morning the deer and I both did exactly what we were suppose to and I shot the deer at 15 yards and hit him perfect. If you have never tried these decoys you are missing out on a great opportunity for an exciting hunt. I have used these from the Carolinas to the Midwest and from the early season to the post-rut and they work. That is they work when I hold up my end of the deal and do what I am supposed to do!