I had an eye on this nice-looking eight-pointer around the area I can hunt. I had him on my cameras several times and even had a chance at him last season. These Bucks up here in Connecticut Are not consistent but they can be scheduled. This buck showed up the same time this year as last and I also have an even bigger buck that does the same thing just haven’t met up with them yet.
First November shows up and this big guy starts marking up his territory and hitting every one of my mock scrapes all at night though. The temperature starts getting cooler and I know it’s time to try after him. The first hunt a hunted A travel corridor, set up downwind from two scrapes that are about 100 feet apart.
The temperatures are in the 60s and I’m expecting late movement. It’s about 430 and I’m at the base of the tree about to put my first climbing stick on the tree when I see antlers walking right to me. Turns out to be a tall 2 1/2-year-old eight he gets downwind of me and bolts. Thought to myself “that’s a good start”.
Now it’s about an hour before sunset then I decide to rattle. Three minutes later here comes a mature doe looking for where the rattling came from and stands 25 yards from me looking for about a good 15 minutes. At this time I have about 15 minutes of legal shooting (sunset in CT) time and this doe is still hanging out. I see her looking behind her and here comes the same tall eight-pointer who starts chasing her around. He ends up chasing her off and the next thing you know here comes a fawn bleating to me And again stops in the same area. At this point, legal shooting time is over And I can’t do anything because I have a yearling next to me and the eight-pointer is back.
I’m watching these two and I hear something loud walking through the leave. this big-body buck stomps his way in at about 30 yards snort wheezes and then walks off. It’s dark now but the eight-pointers won’t leave and the big buck which turned out to be the eight comes back gets to about 20 yards. Steps up onto his hind legs and knocks down a tree and starts destroying it for the next 10 minutes. After that, he decides to walk underneath me and stop at 10 yards. By far one of the coolest experiences I’ve had in the woods seeing a giant doing his work up close and personal range.
Fast forward to election day the temperatures have dropped and it’s time to hunt in the mornings. I go to the same travel corridor and set up about 100 yards from where I hunted the other night. Gotta love mobile hunting!!
The Sun rises and I have a couple of does run my Way and I was wondering what was going on. Here comes a decent eight-pointer that probably scores around 115, it had a light fur coat and looked old. I watched him for a while and he ends up bedding at about 35 yards. He looked back where he came from and walked back into the boggy thicket. I see him getting all bristled up and then I see a big boy about twice the size of him doing the same thing.
At this point they are about 80 yards away from me and it looks like they were just waiting for does to walk by or the big boy was tending. I decided to grab my grunt calls and started Doing a tending bleed and then grunting. Both bucks look my way and start heading right toward me. They cut the distance quickly and the next thing you know The older smaller eight is right underneath me with the big eight in tow. The old looking buck gets startled when he gets downwind from me and both Bucks stop. The big one, of course, is behind me at my 7 o'clock behind a tree 30 yards quartering from me. Then behind me, a doe shows up out of nowhere and the old buck starts chasing her in front of me from my left to right while the big buck watches both of them. He stands there for a good five minutes and then starts moving to where the buck and doe are headed. I have two shooting lanes and then after that, a beach tree branch takes over. At this time he’s at about 25 yards with a slight quartering too I attempt to pull back my bow and all you hear is this boing sound! Buck bolts about 10 yards and stops at about 35 and starts making a scrape and I have no shots. I couldn’t believe it my stinking cable Popped off of my cable guard. Buck makes another scrape and just walks off.
I watch the two bucks push the doe around and then I see them going to the hillside and I assumed they bedded down for the afternoon.
I quietly get down and decide to make a plan for the evening hunt. My goal was to get to the right where the bucks were when I first saw them early in the afternoon. Found a tree got set up and ready and slowly snuck out.
With the wind in my face, I slowly sneak back into the woods at about 2:30. Get settled in the stand anticipating some action. It's about 3 and I see a doe slowly browsing my way and then beds down in a laurel type of bush. The next thing I see is a young 8-pointer on the same trail. I watch him in my video camera sniffing the trail the doe was using. The buck stops and stares down to where the doe is bedded and for some reason, he doesn't move and is just staring down the hill. In the corner of my eye, I see a rack!!
Here comes the big boy walking right to me. He stops right in front of the doe and starts looking for her. He scans the area and catches her move and he starts chasing her around and she takes off. He then starts walking right back to me. I get the camera set to the scrape where I assume he is going and get ready.
You can hear him walking through the crunchy leaves and he's doing exactly what I thought he was going to do. The buck walks to the scrape and starts to sniff the ground. I pull back settle the pin for a 22-yard shot and let the arrow fly. The buck tries to duck and the arrow hits high and he drops in his tracks. I grab another arrow and make another shot.
At that moment I was very disappointed with the shot placement and could not understand what happened. I was happy that There was no track job though just wish it didn't have to end that way.
I go grab my son and we check out the deer together. By far the biggest bodies buck I have ever taken. The body looked like it came from Canada. All around a great deer and we both admired him for a while. He was my first buck in my new home state and was well worth waiting for.
Buck dressed out at 208 pounds
Grossed 130 and change.
