Sioux Narrows Deer Hunt

**Boneshaker25** · 12-12-2010 06:04 PM

Left out of North Carolina on Nov. 4th at 11pm driving north with two buddies. Arrived in Duluth, MN on the evening of the 5th. Ate dinner and hit the rack so we could knock out the last few hours in the morning. Left at 6:30am and enjoyed a scenic drive across Minnesota and part of Ontario before arriving at camp to unload and prepare to start the hunt the following morning.

Shot my bow a few times and organized my day pack before eating and heading off to bed. 7:30am I was tucked into my stand overlooking an old logging road adjacent to the lake. Nothing much happening for the first hour or so, saw a ruffed grouse and a pine martin. About nine fifteen something caught my eye about 100 yards in front of the stand. A deer was slipping through the thick stuff. Hit the grunt as the deer continued parallel to me and out of view. Two minutes later he reappeared this time heading to me. I stood up and got my bow ready as he walked to within 17 yards of me. Really nice eight pointer maybe two hundred forty pounds, but not the one I was looking for. He continued on as I settled back down. A short while later I heard a noise behind me and turned only to catch a glimpse of another buck heading towards the lake. Not sure how big he was as I never saw him again.

Day two I was back in the same stand and waiting for the right deer to show himself. There were some scrapes and rubs out in front of me so I felt confident. I sat there all morning with no deer sighted. At lunch I decided to look around. Following an old logging road back into the brush I managed to jump a couple of deer thanks to my noisey pack. Dang it! Next time I am buying a fleece pack. Lots of scrapes, rubs, and droppings along the trail. (Buck sign everywhere I looked) Ended up sitting next to a rubline that was adjacent to a beaver swamp. As it got dark I started looking ahead to day three. Unfortunately for us Ontario was experiencing unusually warm tempatures which was definitley curtailing the deer movement. As I sat on the lakeshore waiting for the boat to pick me up I couldnt help but notice the silence. No planes, cars, or people. Just myself on a wooded shoreline, watching what was left of the sunset fade to black. Something else, the stars are so much brighter up there as you can imagine with no cities nearby. Just as I was getting comfortable the sound of Jim's outboard broke the silence; like some far away bee rapidly approaching. The ride back to camp was enjoyable as we swapped lies and proferred theories on what was the best way to put ourselves in front of a shooter buck.

Jim had told me to bring my stand on the third morning so I knew I was going somewhere different. He said he had a spot that was covered up with big rubs. Man, I swear I was dreaming of big bucks all night. It was a short but dark boat ride to my spot the next morning. I had decided to bring not only my bow, but an open sighted muzzleloader with me just in case. By the time I lugged all of my gear into the woods and hung my Remington lock on it was starting to get light, and I was sweating thanks to the mild weather. Finally got settled in to cool off and see if any deer were moving. I would like to say that I had deer coming and going all morning but the fact is I had seen a grand total of zero. Nada, zilch. Two pine martins and a handful of red squirrels. I broke out the binos and was scouring the woods for any sign of a deer. Not that you could see very far as the woods are THICK. I did notice the over sized rubs scattered about which gave me some hope. By 1pm the doubt had not only crept in but was in complete charge as I imagined all sorts of reasons for the scarcity of deer. Option 1:Hunters had been in here the day before and had run off all of the deer or even worse had shot the buck that I was after. No wait, that probably didn't happen. I know that there are a lot of wolves in this area, maybe they ate all of the deer? No that sounds a little ridiculous. Get a hold of yourself man! They say you can go crazy in the wilderness. I've got it! Jim was out to get me. He made all of the rubs himself and put me over here knowing full well there were no deer within miles. I can't believe he would do me like that. I am going to have words with this guy.

I finally got a hold of myself and after a nice lunch of trail mix I figured I had better do an equipment check. After drawing my bow a few times I noticed a dead limb hanging down from a tree just a few yards in front of me. The limb looked fragile, like a small puff of wind would take it down. I figured if I lassoed it with my tow line I could snap it off. Missed on my first two attempts. Got it on my third though; just about to start yanking when a twig snaps to my left. That is definitely not a squirrel. I tucked away my tow line and picked up my bow. I could clearly hear the deer walking now. (He wasn't trying to sneak in) I realized that his present course was going to take him directly down wind of my stand. Great, I'm smoked for sure thanks to all of my sweating earlier. As the deer got down wind of me I held my breath and waited. A funny thing happened; he kept on coming. I thought to myself, this is going to happen. I could see antlers but couldn't tell for sure how big. All of these deer look big compared to our deer back home. He finally popped out into the open and I saw he was outside the ears and the brow tines were as long as the G2's. I got my bow up and drew back settling my pin low on the chest and released. Damnit! Just grazed the hair under his chest. As the buck was stiff legging it out of there I reached for the MK85 and hoped for an opening. At 45 yards he turned slightly to the right. I picked an opening and squeezed the trigger. A lot of smoke and the sound of a deer crashing into the brush. Did I get him? What happened? How in the heck did I miss him with the bow??? I came out of the tree like a monkey and eased over to where the deer had been. Whoa, I could really smell that buck. The rut is about to bust loose soon. Just a few hairs on the arrow and nothing more. That proves that I didn't imagine it. I eased along where he had been when I shot the second time. No blood, hair or anything....man he ran into the thick stuff. If I didn't hit him well he could be anywhere. I found a track and another. Looks like a running deer, no blood though. I eased along a little further and got a real good whiff of him. Holy smokes there he is, tangled up in a blow down of spruce trees. Bitter sweet as I really wanted to get him with my bow. Now the work starts, getting a heavy 200 plus pound deer out of the thicket.