Way to go AKbowman! If I remember correctly this has been a long time coming? Seems like every year you have an ongoing thread on your late BT stand hunts and its been tough in years past. Congrats again.
Thank you. Its crazy how much there is to learn about these critters, than theres just dumb luck too! I think the biggest thing I learned from this year is that if you see a buck on cam or in person in the summer/late fall he will most likely be somewhere within a 1/4 mile come the rut. It just takes a strong beleif that he is near! The cameras were crucial for my success this year;
1. I started to notice the prerut activity on camera during modern season and monitor activity throughout the rut so I had a pretty good idea when the second rut would hit and I got that part right.
2. I picked this buck up on camera last Wednesday for the first time since August. I was about to give up on this stand and move my set up to a whole new area.I was able to document that he came by my set up at 2am then again at 4pm while I was in another stand. There were also a couple of resident does that showed up again that had dissapeared for a while and were back using their normal SW facing hillside bedding area. This gave me a ton of confidence that this buck would be back in the area and he wasnt far. He came in again at 5pm Thursday while I was in stand and I again got him on film. Than he came in on a line Friday at 3:30 after two doe bleats and I got him.
A couple of years ago I had a thread going for Late Archery BT's and I ended up missing an 8 yard shot on a wide open decent sized 3X3 w/eyeguards on day 14. I was pretty broken up about it. Than last year I hunted with archery during modern and was in deer but just not able to make it happen. I killed a small buck 3 years ago and a doe the year before that with archery but I got pretty lucky for that to happen.
It was def worth the wait to have it all come together for this buck. He was past his prime and had passed on his genes leading a good life. Now he will help feed my family and he will go up on my wall for a memory so I am glad to make this happen. I cant wait to get ot in the next few weeks and scout some new areas for next year. Good luck to everyone still hunting and thanks again for the congrats.
