Late Pre-rut/Rut hunting

The last three weeks have been a busy time for all of us pre-occupied with bowhunting. I’ve spent all but a few days in the woods and swamps, and maybe a total of 90 minutes on this web site during that stretch. I plan on making this post and then getting right bed to do it all over again tomorrow morning. I’ve spent most of the last couple weeks, from Oct. 22 til Nov. 8th, hunting the hills of Western WI. and the last couple days in the swamp close to home.
Late October had bucks active and chasing late into the mornings and back at it two hours before the sun went down. I rattled in a couple scrubbers during that time but nothing worth shooting. It’s the first time I’ve had success rattling, but based on the age class I was attracting I abandonded that tactic feeling I was only giving mature bucks a heads up as to my whereabouts; they had heard that all before and weren’t being fooled. I was seeing a few shooters while on stand but couldn’t get them close enough for a shot, or I moved stand locations pre-maturely only to have shooters walk by the location I had just abandoned. The bigger guys were cruising till around 11 AM and you had to be confident that it could pay off to stay in one location from sun-up until noon; I got to second guessing myself due to winds swirling and it cost me on a 140 class eight pointer. My son Tom, joined me in early Nov. and spent a couple days filming me giving up his precious little time he had for bowhunting to help the old man make it happen on film. One evening he filmed me arrowing a jake an hour before sundown, and a half hour later we had a shooter come in from downwind to 20 yards, only to catch us set up for filming the other way. A two minute staredown from that buck got my heart kicked in to overdrive but he got in on us so quickly neither cameraman or hunter could make the proper shift to get into position to do the job since he already had our wind and was looking right at us, all we could do was freeze hoping he would do something stupid and give us a chance. Even horny bucks aren’t that stupid. Two days later both Tom and I got close to shooters around 10 AM but couldn’t get them to come close enough. That night Tom grunted in a 21″ wide, short tined eight with long main beams, that he passed at four yards. It was getting to be around Nov. 6th when I started to feel I had burned all my spots and it wasn’t gonna happen. My farm had a lot of does and fawns on it until early Nov. when the does split, leaving their fawns to fend for themselves. Instead of having a buck magnet property with willing adult does waiting for Prince Charming to show up, I wound up with a baby deer nursery! I left for home a day later and dove into a local swamp and hit paydirt. The first evening I hunted this spot a doe and her fawn showed along with a couple yearling bucks. The does hocks were black so she was a welcome sight. I planned on being back at the same spot well before sun-up the next day to see if the local mature bucks would come courting her. The next morning I was set up and settled in waiting for shooting light when I started hearing the deer chasing close by. All I could do was wait for daylight and hope they’d hang around. Once it got light I could see it was yearling bucks harrassing a couple fawns but it was fun to watch. A half hour later I’m still watching two small bucks milling around when a branch snaps behind me. I slowly turn my head and see a good buck just make a turn to walk away from me. I swung my camera in his direction but he was on a steady walk and I couldn’t find him in the camera view finder, he was getting away so I reached for the grunt call and gave a single long, low grunt. To my surprise it worked and he turned my way and was coming in fast. I guessed which spot he would pass in the heavy cover and pointed the camera there, then I drew my bow and aimed at the opening he was going through. Too late, he got passed it so I swung forward to the only other opening there was, just before he got there. When he hit the next opening at about 18 yards, he angled in my direction and gave me the less than broadside shot, but I held tight to the shoulder and got both lungs as my arrow passed through him. He whirled around 180 degrees and stumbled in the thick cover. He ran 30 yards and stopped, 10 seconds later he was on the ground and a minute later it was lights out. I believe he thought one of the small bucks closeby had made that grunt and was gonna head over to him to set things straight with who was boss. He’s 18″ wide with 10 points and scores 133″. Not a slob but I got it on film which is rare, for me. I’m happy with him and a little more confident that it is possible to get kills on film doing it yourself. I’ll try to get a pic posted soon.