I pulled the trail camera card from the camera behind the cabin and it revealed a lot of activity during the month of October, including a few really nice bucks. With a northwest wind, I knew right where we needed to hunt. I sent Brent to the newly positioned Ridge tree stand while I threw a ladder stand on my shoulder and hiked a half mile west to the open gate location that I had so much luck last year.
After getting the stand setup in the dark, the action heated up fast. I had a doe wander in along the fence line from the north with a very large 8 point buck trailing her. She made it into 20 yards while he stayed out at 40. The doe then started to work away from me and he followed. I gave a couple of grunts that initially got him fired up but he ended up pushing the doe in the opposite direction. As I was texting Brent to tell him what I saw, he sent me a message saying that he shot a good buck and saw him go down at the bottom of the deep ravine. I was very excited but wanted to hunt a little longer before going back to help him.
I didn't have to wait long as another 8 point buck came in from the west and worked his way right into the same shooting lane that the doe had been in at 18 yards. After I shot, my initial reaction was the shot was too high and I may have shot above the spine. After waiting about 15 minutes, I got down to retrieve my arrow with the intention of walking back to help Brent before pursuing my deer. My arrow was covered in good blood and I could see an extremely good blood trail leading across the ridge in the direction the buck ran. I decided to follow it just far enough to see down into the next ravine over and locate where he headed up the neighboring ridge. As it turned out, he was laying in the bottom of the ravine and hadn't run 60 yards before dying.
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| Dead buck in the bottom of a ravine |
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| Good 8 point buck on the ground after 2 hours of hunting |
Brent headed my way and after a significant amount of effort, we managed to get my buck drug out of the ravine and back to the cabin. We then fired up the ATV and headed for the ridge to retrieve Brent's buck. It was a long drag up from the bottom of the ravine but we finally got his buck back to the cabin as well. Both of us were extremely excited and for the first time since purchasing the cabin, we had killed 2 deer in a single day (there is only 1 other time that we had even killed 2 deer in 1 trip)
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| Brent with a nice 8 point buck taken from the ridge |
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| First time doubling-up at the cabin |
Brent headed home in the afternoon and I spent the rest of the day skinning and deboning my deer. It was a beautiful evening and ended up being just about a perfect day and a great start to the week.
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| First time using my hitch deer lift |
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| All cut up and ready for the cooler |
Dad arrived on Saturday evening and ended up hunting through Tuesday. He had a few good hunts but things were definitely slower then Saturday. I spent Saturday morning squirrel hunting but then opted to head into town to buy a doe tag. Even though I tried to put dad in the best tree stands each day it seemed like I would see deer and he wouldn't. I was sad when dad left for home on Tuesday night as it was my goal to get him on a deer this year and we just couldn't get it done.
My friend, Justin, arrived in camp on Wednesday afternoon. A cold front was moving in so the temperatures were dropping and the wind was extremely high so we didn't see much for the evening sit. Justin and I had some great sits on Thursday and Friday but we were not able to get any shots (again I seemed to have a parade of bucks come by every hunt). Justin had to head home on Friday night so I did the same. It felt great to be home after a fun an relaxing week at the cabin. It was a successful week of hunting and I managed to get in some squirrel hunting, cooking over the fire, and odd jobs done around the cabin as well. Even though dad and Justin weren't able to fill their tags, I personally had the best week of hunting of my life. I had 12 sits over 7 days and 7 of those I had bucks in range that I would have happily shot if I still had a buck tag in my pocket.
The plan is to return for another 4 days of hunting in a couple of weeks. I know that Justin will be coming down for sure and even though I have my tag filled, I'm still looking forward to it. Hopefully we will be able to build on the success that we have already had!
