I'm on the backside of my annual Indiana trip. This year I was blessed to hunt with some close friends on a lease in an awesome area. Some dandy bucks were taken during gun season a few weeks ago so I had high hopes. I'd taken hogs and does with my flinters but a good buck always eluded me. Not any more.
Well my, my, the Scout has flinted a dan dee. I want to be the first to give you an at-a-boy. That right there is a trophy buck all day long. Give us the story, what cal. and grains of powder?
:saluting
Well done
Congratulations!! That is a humdinger of a buck!! Tell us how it happened.
Treefarmer
My apologies guys, my internet connection up here isn't good at all.
I arrived a day earlier than the rest of my friends who were traveling in. I wanted to scout the new area out. I met up with my buddy who lives local there and who is the deer guru of the group. We went out to nail down where'd be the best place for me to start.
We didn't walk far and found this:
I hunted that area the first morning based off more sign we found and on the first morning had 7 does and a 5 point slip in.
My buddy had already killed his buck for the year, a monster too, so he was pretty much scouting the area as well. He saw the buck I killed one afternoon while checking out a small woods no one had been in before. It busted up and ran at me on my stand he said. I never saw it.
The next evening I sat in that wood lot. Sure enough here he came but he saw me at the same time. Like any good woods ninja he took two steps and was gone. Poof!!
The next afternoon, we decided to team up on him. No one hunted that spot in morning so he be bedded in the afternoon, we knew. 4 of us decided to play along so we set up on the ways we thought he'd bust out of there while 1 of us slipped in there. I actually drew the directly upwind spot so I figured I had zero chance of seeing him.
I was in my position about 45 seconds or so and I heard some tinking sound on a deadfall to my right. Sure enough it was him but he was headed in from a way we didn't expect. Turns out my buddy bumped him early and he slipped completely around that wood lot and headed directly upwind.
He was very low to ground, almost like a half belly crawl and was limping very badly. He got about 30 yrds from me and made me. He couldn't see me but the wind was at my back and in his face. I could see his head and half his neck above the grass and briars. I figured I knew about where his shoulder should be so I let her rip. He didn't take another step.
It turns out he was limping so badly because someone shot him with a 20ga. slug during gun. It was a very low shot that travelled up into his shoulder between the meat and skin the whole way. It was lodged there.
I was lucky and truly blessed to take him.
