Greg,
Pictures and a story for you and the CBA gang. November 15, 2000, Maryland - wanted to wait until I got the pictures back this time. Took a couple days off to bowhunt. Wednesday was to be my first of a 4 day bowhunt down in Maryland. I hunted the morning until 10:30 without spotting so much as a gray squirrel. Extremely windy, and that gave me the idea to still hunt for the rest of the day. I dropped my stand off at my truck and headed back into the woods at about 11:00am. I'm not a very good still hunter and I bumped two doe soon after starting out. I slowed up, but then got sloppy again and bumped 2 more doe. Finally a managed to spot a deer before it saw me. It was a doe down in the bottom of a little hollow. I watched her in the binoculars because I was sure there must have been a buck down there with her some where. Finally I saw him, a little 4 or 6 point. Rut was in full swing and he was running her all around. They moved out of sight and I sneaked in the same direction they went. I had the wind in my face and I was walking on a horse trail which made stalking a lot easier. With the high winds, I figured it would be unlikely for a deer to hear me very easily anyway. As I rounded a bend in the trail, I saw the back end of a big deer crossing the trail. I stood there trying to decide if I should sneak down for a look, but finally decided it was probably the little 4 or 6 point, and I was hoping for something a little bigger. A red fox trotted by, and I watched him cross below some rock outcroppings to my left. When I got to looking at it, those rocks looked like they would make a great place to sit for awhile. This was a good funnel area, and from those rocks I'd have an open shooting lane out to 40 yards into a meadow full of pine trees. I wasn't being real careful as I walked the 20 yards over to the rocks and was actually trying to decide which of 2 rocks I wanted to sit beside when a doe burst out below me at about 10 yards. She stopped and looked back. She heard me, but wasn't sure what she heard. I was planning on shooting a doe if I had a good opportunity, so a slowly pulled an arrow. I just got it knocked when she started to my left, heading right for a big opening. That's when I saw "him", a real nice buck stepped out from a brush pile at 35 yards. He started to follow the doe, who was now disappearing into a hollow. I could see one opening out in front of the buck. When he hit the opening, I bleated and luckily he stopped. I settled the pin and touched off the arrow. 31 yard shot. It looked perfect, and through the wind I tried to hear them as they crashed off. 4 or 5 seconds later, I heard a big crash, and was sure my buck was down. I waited 1/2 hour, took and 15 more minutes to slowly follow the blood trail for 60 yards to my deer. I even had a spike within 15 yards as I was blood trailing my buck. I double lunged the buck and he hadn't made if far. Turns out buck number 3 for the season is an 8 or a 10 point (could go either way), with palmated antlers. Real neat rack. Wasn't planning on getting another deer mount, since I've got one mounted each of the last two seasons, but I couldn't pass this one up. Made the pleading phone call to my extremely tolerant wife after I got him out of the woods and he's now at the taxidermist. Photos are below. Thursday, I was back out and now out of buck tags and had to leave a 16" 8 point walk at 5 yards. Hunting with only a doe tag in the rut can be frustrating - cut my hunt short and went home before I had to leave any really big ones go.
I also sent a picture of the goofy racked 6 point I got November 4th. It's not a good picture, but the only photos I have of that buck are with him and John's doe on top of our pop-up camper. Actually the camper will probably be more interesting than the 2 deer on it. Sending a picture of my Dad's Perry county 7 point bow kill as well.
Take care and Merry Christmas.