Well headed east on October 12th to meet up with my dad and brother for the deer opener the following day. My brother is an archery hunter and had spent most of September in the woods and had a pretty good pattern on a group of legal bucks (4 pt. minimum). That evening we decided to check out where we would be going in the morning from a safe distance to see if the deer were where we thought they would be. Sure enough, the deer were there, headed single file through a depression in the barley fields toward a small forested area, just as my brother said they would. We headed back to camp and formulated our plan for the next morning. We decided that me and my brother would sneak out into the barley early in the morning and sit on a fenceline just north of the depression and try and catch the deer crossing in the morning. As for my dad, he would set up at the base of the mountain about 500 yards to the east of us to try and catch the deer as they past us and headed towards the mountain. Well opening morning came and we snuck into the field just as we had planned and waited for light. Light finally came, but no deer came from where we were expecting. I glanced to the east and noticed three deer already at the base of the mountain. we put our binos on them and noted two of them to be legal bucks. I asked my brother to range find them for me as I prepared for a shot. Turns out they were 350 yards and I decided to hold off for the time being as I felt I may be able to get a better shot. At this point I radioed my dad to tell him that he had legal bucks right below him. He responded that he saw them and shortly thereafter he shot one of them at about 150 yards.
We headed back to camp to clean the deer and regroup fo the next hunt. After cleaning and hanging his deer we decided to go check out another property that we had been scouting. Not 100 yards onto the property a doe spooks, followed by another doe, followed by a spike, and suddenly a legal buck jumps up! They didnt seem too spooked so I let them bounce off before creeping into the woods after them. About another 100 yards up the hill I spotted the two does, I took a seat and scanned the area for the buck, I couldnt see him anywhere and as soon as I decided to move, he spooked from about twenty yards to the left of the does and went deeper into the forest. I chased these deer for about an hour, with them always staying one step ahead of me.
We decided to get ready for our eveining hunt and headed back to the property where my dad had shot his deer earlier in hopes that the deer would return to the field that evening. As we drove past the property we noticed that multiple deer were already in the field. we put binos on them and saw that two of them were nice bucks. My dad dropped me off on the edge of the forested area and I crept along the edge of the trees until I found an opening where I could see the bucks. The deer seemed pretty far to me, but I felt comfortable with the shot, I set up, took a deep breath and squeezed one off, clean miss. The deer ran about 75 yards and stopped broadside looking in my direction. I jacked another round in and contemplated if the deer were too far or not. I sat down and took a rest on my knee and decided that I was capable of making the shot. I calmed myself and squeezed off another shot and down he went! I ended up hitting him right behind the shoulder and he never moved an inch. After recovering my buck we used a rangefinder to see how far the shot was, turns out it was right at 415 yards!! It was a very exciting and successful opening day!!
