Pat's Outdoor Adventures: 2017 Rut Hunt

This post is a little delayed, but I wanted to make sure to get it done before the memories and feelings of the hunt fade away. On the evening of Friday, November 3rd, I headed down to the cabin for my dad for 5 days of hunting during the heart of the pre-rut. Since buying the property, the first week of November has been the most consistent week of seeing and killing deer so hopes were extremely high.

Although there were cool temperatures in the forecast, the weather was extremely weird. Winds were primarily out of the Northeast and the East and were VERY gusty throughout the days. The skies would clear off and get cold overnight, but would cloud over in the mornings. These conditions kept us out of our favorite stands and were marginal, at best, for the stands we did hunt.

The weekend started off with some excitement as I shot a good buck less than an hour after shooting time started on Saturday morning. I was hunting what we call the DNR/County line stand which is about a 1 mile walk from the cabin. Things were very quiet for the first hour when I heard something behind me. Things happened very fast as a quick look reveled some antlers headed my way. I stood up, grabbed my bow, turned and drew back as the buck was already in a shooting lane. I waited for him to clear another tree and released an arrow from 10 yards away. I noticed right away that the arrow hit him in the front portion of the shoulder, but it appeared to penetrate all the way through. It was a similar shot to the first buck I killed last year, or so I thought, so I was expecting him to be dead within 100 yards.

I waited in the tree for an hour texting Erin and my buddy, Brent, the good news and gave my dad a call. After getting down, I quickly found the arrow the portion of the arrow that broke off and determined that about 14 inches of the arrow got into the deer. I began following the blood trail which was sporadic but easy enough to follow. After about 75 yards I lost blood and spent the next hour working my way down each deer trail that I could find without any success. I called dad and told him it was time to start doing a grid search looking for him so dad headed over. While waiting, I pulled up the GPS on my phone with an aerial map and decided to walk the entire perimeter of the ridge that I was on. With a lake on the East side of the ridge, an open field and the tree stand I shot him from on the West side, and a deep ravine on the North, I was hoping to find more blood or the deer.

Once dad arrived, we met back at the tree stand and starting 20 yards apart, we spent the next several hours walking slowly back and forth across the ridge without any success. I was, and still am, devastated. My goal as a hunter is to always make a good shot that will kill the deer as quickly as possible. After re-evaluating the angle and the trail that the deer was traveling on, my best guess is that the deer was quartering away and I only caught 1 lung. A deer can live for awhile with a single lung so even if he is dead, he could have run a long ways before expiring.

With the disappointment of Saturday in the rear view, we tried to move on with our weekend. We woke up to rain on Sunday morning but still sat for a couple of hours before heading into mass at St. Patrick's in Ottumwa. Sunday evening was exciting for dad as he saw several deer coming out to feed in the small field food plot. I got to hear 2 bucks fighting followed by a doe being chased within 30 yards of my tree stand right at the end of shooting time.

Monday was less exciting as the deer didn't seem to be moving much at all. I didn't see a deer all day and dad didn't see much either. I was getting a bit frustrated but knew it was just a matter of time. Tuesday was almost identical to Monday although when the winds calmed down in the evening, deer seemed to start moving. Dad saw a bunch from the same stand that he hunted on Sunday evening while I only saw one. I was hunting the same stand that I had shot the buck on Saturday and managed to spot a BIG 8 point buck with dark chocolate colored antlers. He was about 60 yards away and although he acknowledged my grunt call, he continued down a path that led away from me. On my way back to the cabin that night I spooked several deer which made me think that Wednesday might end up being a great day.

Dad headed for home after loading up his truck and I got a good nights sleep before heading to my favorite tree stand called "The Ridge Stand" in the morning. It was a very cold and clear morning with no wind and a hard frost so the ground was very noisy as I walked to my stand. I didn't want to spook any deer so I took about 20 minutes to walk what would normally take about 5. My silence payed off almost immediately. Within 20 minutes of being in the tree stand I had a 2 year old 8 point buck come into the ridge food plot. I watched him for a few minutes before he headed up the trail towards the big field. As I turned to grab my grunt tube to see how he would respond, I was surprised to see a buck about 25 yards behind me that had snuck up on me. I froze in place and let the buck work his way up the food plot behind some trees. The buck was missing an antler but I think he was a 3 year old and had a big 3 point side. I decided that I was going to try to shoot him so I grabbed my bow and drew back. He actually turned up the trail to the tree stand and noticed me in the tree stand and immediately took off running.

I was disappointed, but with the morning starting off so good, I was really excited to see what else may come through. I couple of hours later there was a big commotion to the Southwest off the end of the big field. I looked across the ravine to the south to see a doe heading across the ridge with the same 8 point buck from Tuesday night right on her tail. Shortly after them was another mature buck that I have a lot of trail camera pictures of. He has a normal 4 point side but just a small forked antler on the other side. I would have been thrilled to shoot either of those bucks. The crossed over to my side of the ravine but then headed back after the doe. A little while later, more rustling from the same direction revealed another good buck following the same trail of the others. He was a 10 pointer but a little younger then the other 2 deer. I grunted at him but he didn't even acknowledge me and continued heading to the South after the other deer. What an exciting way to end my trip!

It was a long 5 days of hunting and I would classify the hunting as just okay, but as always, it was great to spend some quality time with my dad and spending some relaxing time away from work. One of the lessons that I learned from this trip is that it isn't always great to put my eggs all in one basket. The time of year was right but the weather was weird. I think that next year I'm going to try to be more flexible with my time off work and plan on hunting over a few weekends. The year is not over, however, as I'm heading back down for 3 days of hunting after Thanksgiving with my friend, Justin.