I realized the other day that I never actually made a post for my buck last fall - I guess it's better late than never.
I spent a lot of time chasing whitetails this year, and as the close of the season approached, I figured that I had better stop being so picky if I wanted to put a little meat in the freezer. I had passed on this buck a few days before; I was actually sitting on the same stump from where I eventually shot the buck, it was first thing in the morning and he surprised me by sneaking underneath me at about 100 yards. I watched him through the binos for a few seconds, and decided to hold off.
A few days later, I was hunting in the same general area, but hadn't seen much that morning. I decided that I would go back to this stump that was positioned above an old clear-cut and exercise some patience and plant my butt there the rest of the afternoon and evening. I had just taken my pack off, and begun to get situated, when I heard a twig break below and to the right of me. I immediately froze, and waited to see what was on its way. It turned out to be a doe. However, this doe was headed right to me, I had set up expecting a 200-300 yard shot below me, so I didn't have much cover directly in front of where I was sitting. I waited for this doe to see/smell/hear me, but the wind was just right, and she continued to feed right in front of me, literally right in front of me, I counted it off after the fact and it was 4 steps, so literally 4 or 5 yards in front of the stump I was sitting on. She continued on, and fed into some heavier brush below and to the left of me. I sat there not believing that she had not busted, but as it would eventually turn out, if she would have busted me, I wouldn't have gotten my buck. So anyways, after about a minute, I saw a smaller buck coming on the exact same route as the doe, but he ended up turning downhill and sidehilled below me at about 30 yards. 20 or so yards behind him came my buck, I recognized his wide rack and good eye-guards and knew that it was the buck I had previously passed on. I decided it was time, I waited for him to get into position, but as he came towards me he immediately stopped and had me pegged. Like I said, I had no cover directly in front of me. As the stare-down ensued, he finally got nervous and started to bust, I blew on my grunt tube, which simply confirmed his suspicions as he blew off that hillside at an increased pace. I jumped off my stump and ran to the crest of the hill to try and see where he would come out of the bottom of the ravine below me. He came out of the bottom and stopped in a small patch of pines to look back at me. I leaned up against a big dead tree on the crest of the hill, and touched one off. I lost him in the recoil, and didn't see him go down or run off. I thought I had missed because I couldn't see him down in the patch of pines. I left my stuff, and ran down to where I had shot, and sure enough, he hadn't taken a step. He is a symmetrical 8 point, with a beautiful red haired cape - I couldn't be happier.
