Hunt #3 - Lots of Action...

Saturday morning was my 3rd hunt of the season and it was pretty exciting. I knew several days in advance that it was going to be a cool morning and I was looking forward to that. I was a little disappointed that I hadn't gotten much on my trail camera during the week, but still I was hoping for the best.

I left the house at 6:15 a.m. and at 6:30 a.m. I was making my way to my stand. I was able to go in quiet & undetected and by 6:45 a.m. I was ready. At 7:45 a.m. I heard several footsteps in the leaves and the sound of broken twigs on the ground and I knew deer were coming. They came out of the woods in front of me and to the right about 40 yards, but I didn't have a shot in that direction. I counted 5 deer and one of them had antlers. It looked to be about a 4 pointer and I was excited to see something other than a doe, but it wasn't the big 8 pointer I was hoping for. As they slowly walked away I decided to grunt at them to see what they would do. The buck looked up and back in my direction, and at this point he was at least 50 yards from me. The buck took a few steps in my direction and I started to get excited, but he stopped and turned back in the other direction. A few minutes later I heard steps coming in front of me, and out walked a decent sized doe and two young deer. I had a nice 10 yard shot at the doe, but decided there was too much action going on and I was hoping to still have a chance to see the big 8 pointer. Things quieted down until about 8:45 when I saw a doe feeding to my left. I could see it feeding and it appeared to be making its way in my direction but it got spooked from noises coming from the closest house near where I was hunting and ran in the opposite direction.

I decided to get down at 9:30 and try to find out if there were any new rubs in the area where I saw the last one. I hadn't walked 75 yards until I looked up to see two doe trotting straight towards me, stopping at about 20 yards. I reached for an arrow and they ran away. I walked a little further and saw several more deer running the other direction. I couldn't help but think that if I had stayed in the stand they might have came by.

It was a fun, exciting morning and I'm looking forward to the next hunt...