Post by davidhelmly on Nov 17, 2007 10:12:19 GMT -5
Let me warn you that tis will be a long and poorly written story but it was the best hunt I have ever had. I finally drew a tag for Iowa this year so that I could go up and hunt with my son who is in college there. I left GA on Nov 1 and met my son on the 2nd at the nice little cabin that we were staying in SE Iowa. The weather was pretty good for us, no rain and lows in the high 20's and low 30's. The first few days we were seeing some does and small bucks and he had several encounters with 1.5-2.5 yr old bucks coming into his decoy and doing everything that you see on TV. We weren't seeing any chasing until the morning of the 7th. It was a cold windy morning and we were setup in the same piece of timber about 300 yds apart, I saw at least 3 different chases that morning but it was all smaller bucks. At around 8:45 I thought that I heard something coming down the ridge behind me, as I turned around there was a pretty good buck that had already come down the ridge and turned in the bottom heading for the end of the timber. I didn't have a shot because he was walking straight away from me, I grunted, bleated, snort weased, everything that I could think of and he acted like he didn't even hear it. After he got about 150 yds from me I hung my bow up and tried my rattling horns, he looked up and came on a run and stopped DIRECTLY beneath my stand, I could look straight down at my stand platform and see his head on one side and his rump on the other, he pinpointed that sound perfectly! After what seemed like 10 minutes he moved off and gave me a shot and the rest is history.
After I killed my buck I set a second stand at all of my son's locations so that I could sit with him and video. We had a good encounter on the 8th but got busted by a 140" 8 pt because we were sitting up there chatting like we were on the sofa! We had moved a couple of cameras to a couple of smoking scrapes that we had found while bloodtrailing my deer, we checked them at lunch on the 8th and had 7 pictures of this guy two hours before dark!
We went back and got two more stands from our cabin and hung them on the scrapes, it was pretty late when we finished and we were sweaty so we decided to go to a set that we had not hunted yet. It was a great looking area that was open enough to decoy so we put out bucky and climbed up. As we got in the stand my son asked me what to do if we see a decent buck here while knowing what was a few miles away. He is 22 yrs old and has killed a pile of deer with his bow but has never killed a buck, he has had plenty of opportunities but has always elected to pass waiting for a bigger buck. I told him to shoot anything that made him happy. After about an hour in the stand he said he saw a good buck and for me to grunt, about the time I grunted I saw the buck cutting across a grown up weed field about 100 yds away. When I grunted he stopped and looked, after a second grunt he saw the decoy, layed his ears back and came on a bee line. He came in and circled the decoy down wind while slobbering like a fool and my son shot him at about 10 yds! The coolest thing was that I got it all on video, the look on his face after he shot that buck was priceless.
Sorry that it was so long but I warned you. It was without a doubt the greatest hunt that I have ever been on, spending 12 days hunting with my son and killing deer on top of that. It just doesn't get any better
After I killed my buck I set a second stand at all of my son's locations so that I could sit with him and video. We had a good encounter on the 8th but got busted by a 140" 8 pt because we were sitting up there chatting like we were on the sofa! We had moved a couple of cameras to a couple of smoking scrapes that we had found while bloodtrailing my deer, we checked them at lunch on the 8th and had 7 pictures of this guy two hours before dark!
We went back and got two more stands from our cabin and hung them on the scrapes, it was pretty late when we finished and we were sweaty so we decided to go to a set that we had not hunted yet. It was a great looking area that was open enough to decoy so we put out bucky and climbed up. As we got in the stand my son asked me what to do if we see a decent buck here while knowing what was a few miles away. He is 22 yrs old and has killed a pile of deer with his bow but has never killed a buck, he has had plenty of opportunities but has always elected to pass waiting for a bigger buck. I told him to shoot anything that made him happy. After about an hour in the stand he said he saw a good buck and for me to grunt, about the time I grunted I saw the buck cutting across a grown up weed field about 100 yds away. When I grunted he stopped and looked, after a second grunt he saw the decoy, layed his ears back and came on a bee line. He came in and circled the decoy down wind while slobbering like a fool and my son shot him at about 10 yds! The coolest thing was that I got it all on video, the look on his face after he shot that buck was priceless.
Sorry that it was so long but I warned you. It was without a doubt the greatest hunt that I have ever been on, spending 12 days hunting with my son and killing deer on top of that. It just doesn't get any better
