Finally got my first Buck; I mean my first and second!!!

[bigg09]

Well, i have been hunting now for about 7 years since I graduated from UNCW. I have become a member of a couple of small leases with a small group of guys up on the eastern shore where we started about five years ago to manage due to relatively low pressure around us. We installed a 1-2 acre food plot and have left the land otherwise very undisturbed. In the past seven years I have pretty much hunted twice a week from the second half of bow season till close of the year. While we have been getting a few good bucks each year from our properties, I had only seen a couple shooters and most were out of range of my bow or further than comfortable to shoot with my shotgun. I have been getting jered by my family, but the guys in my club have all been great and said to just be patient and it will happen. Well it did.

This year has been pretty hot with quite a lot of movement, but not a lot of buck movement other than spikes and four pointers up until that nor'easter for me. Before this weekend 2 9ptrs had been shot off of one property and 2 eights a 7 and a moster 10 were killed off our other property. I had planned to work this past weekend, but my wife invited my best friend up to visit as she had sort of hooked him up with her best friend. (we'll see how that works out, but for now it is workign out great and allowing me to fish and stay in the woods more often ). Since it was the beginning of the second week of shotgun i sqeezed him up to our property a 1/2 day early and told him don't shoot anything your not going to hang on the wall. We got up late due to work in the morning and walked in the woods about 3pm. I was sitting and waiting for the twilight to begin to set in and boom!!! Oh chit, Brian shot! I new it was a buck because we had decided we did not want to deal with a doe till the next morning. he is in a stand through teh woods about 200yrds from me and i hear the deer running my dirrection. He does and stops 15 yrds from a shooting lane in front of my stand. Not limping, not stumbing, just stops and looks both ways and then starts to walk. he stops and looks my way as he just walked over the path i came in on. I'm think this deer isn't hurt. well he walks three steps further broadside into my shooting lane and i drop him where he was. Once we both got down, both of us had hit him. High fives and joint venture. My buddy said, that's your deer you dropped him. I said no we got him. Whatever. It felt great sharing that experience with my best friend!

you can just see the 9th point on the right side behind the main beam point (about an 1" tall) the night time photos make the deer look huge, but small body buck for our area. He was 30-40# lighter than a doe i kille dthe week before.




What a short evening. We are all excited and ready to go up to the road house. Have some beers, eat some food and then go to sleep. In the morning we wake up about 25 min late and are in a big ruch. Two other guys are meeting us up and we are going to have a full load on the property. Well i got the deer the night before so i took last pick on the stand. It was fairly warm so i opted to go where no one else could. What we call our marsh stand. It is a low lying area that is still flooded from all the rain from the nor'easter. chest highs on and walking in water up to my waist but mostly just above the knee. get to the ladder stand and its a little wobbly. what the hell, its up there and feels solid. We'll it wasn't perfect but i could be still and it was 5 min to legal shooting time. less than 10 min latter i here swoosh swoosh. chit!!! getthe gun up, but just a little 4ptr on a missing half belly in the water walking through. up the other side to the dry area and i start to hear a little rustling and what i though was squirl grunts. WRONG. 5 min latter and I MEAN RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, i see the deer right through the thin woods looking at me. Damn, my gun is resting on the shooting rail and i have no burlap around me. in full sneak, he walks two steps and looks at me. repeated again and again. there was no cover for me so i knew i would have to wait till he was right under me. he gets eight feet from the base of the stand, i pick the gun up he jumps around showing me his broadside and i shoot. THIS WAS A 10-15' SHOT WITH 1BUCK. he ran and i got another shot of OO in him before he gets back in the woods 30' in front of me. he ran a little, and then i heard him hit the ground and restle. he restled for a little while. after 20 min i got down to look but did not want to go searching and mess everybody up. he was not in sight of the trail and so i got back in the stand. I was worried because he was running so hard even after what i thought was a perfect broadside shot. i was too wired to stay in the stand, so i got down and walked out slowly on the trail to the truck. About an hour latter, i hear a shot and a buddy of mine shot a doe (we'll thought it was, Damn ended up being a button). I went back in to look and he was right where i thought he might be. about 150' from the stand in a 4 yr old pine thicket.

What is the odds. two nice bucks less than 18 hrs apart when i waited 6 years jsut to have one come close enough! Although it is hard to tell, the second buck was much bigger, heavier, and had a neck twice the size of the 9ptr. We'll i guess i am hunting my bow the rest of the year. Thanks, for reading. Casey

[Catcher's Mitt]

great story and congradulations. gives me encouragment to get after them again.

[Five4Fighting]

Congrats!!!

[weekender]

great story, congrats on both the bucks an good luck with the bow.

[WAHOONBOX]

WHAT A FANTASTIC READ ! I AM SITTING HERE ON WI-FI AT BOGANGLES IN TARBORO......I CAN'T WAIT TIL TOMORROW!