Hunting Heaven!

[rufus]

A good fishing buddy of mine found out that I lost my 300 acres of hunting land, called me a couple weeks ago to see if I wanted to hunt his 97 acre lease. I did not want to offend him so I said sure I could "help" him out . Well, I have hunted it now 7 times in the last couple of weeks with him and all I can say is WOW! He told me it was very good, but I did not even imagine. The first night I sat in his "hot stand", I saw over 70 turkeys (I quit counting at 47, there were just too many to count) and 43 deer and the corn was still standing. The thing that makes it so good is that the adjoining property is over 500 acres and has not been hunted in over 30 years. The guy that owns it sharecrops a portion of it, but does not believe in hunting . I was able to hunt Friday, Saturday and Sunday night this weekend (10th, 11th and 12th). On Friday I saw 23, Saturday 34, and last night was a bad one at only 15 . I have seen three different bucks in the 135-150 inch class and I don't know how many others. Last night was a heart breaker, his father who also hunts and has just started bowhunting this year, decided he would sit close to me on the ground. He is not able to get up in a tree stand due to a recent surgery that has left him grounded. He has had a bad first year and has not been able to take his first bow deer. This property has very thick cover and is not well suited to ground hunting as far as seeing the deer movement. I told him to come sit close to me and I would put him on the trail that I have been seeing them come into every night. Well at about 5 pm I noticed a large deer moving our direction on a slow trot. I should not have but I put the binoculars on him and "the fever" started to set in. A 150 class 10 pointer was on his way over. I signaled to Jim to get ready as I did also. Well at about 50 yards the buck decided to go south across a small creek. This is the first time I have seen a deer take this trail, but of all of them of course this would be the one. I tried bleeting grunting everything I could think of to turn him, but to no avail, he just wasn't interested. Fortunately, about 15 minutes later a nice doe showed up and began coming our direction. I once again signaled to Jim to get ready. I gave her a few soft grunts and she was within 30 yards of him in no time. She locked up in the brush for a few minutes for some "primping time", but she finally came into his 20 yard shooting lane. I watched as his first shot bounced of a few thousand limbs and cleanly miss her. She ran about 50 yards and stopped. I started grunting softly again and she must have had a death wish because she turned right around and headed right back to us. She once again stepped into his lane and he shot again. It looked and sounded like a clean double lung shot ,but after and hour of looking for blood we found nothing. We could not find his arrow or any sign whatsoever. I am still baffled at what happened, but we are going back after work to check again today. Unfortunately that was his last chance to hunt for the year, for he has another surgery scheduled on Wednesday. On a better note I was able to harvest a 130  pounder on Saturday night. There is meat in the freezer, but no horns on the wall. My wife is happy about that though. She said we need to save the $400.00 for Christmas shopping. God Bless and Good Huntin'
I hope to soon post a success story. Firearms season opens this Saturday the 18th.