My 2010 IL Hunt - Not over yet

[Guest clutepc]

During Thanksgiving week I spend a full week hunting a 250 acre family farm in IL.

Had a great time and saw the biggest deer I've ever seen up close.

I scouted during gun season and started hunting the Monday before Thanksgiving,

The weather was a mess, one day 74 then a front came thru and it was 30 for the high the next day.

Friday after Thanksgiving I saw more deer by 12 than I've seen all year.

Also saw the large buck in the daytime picture below.

He was walking to me because I had 6 doe to the left and right of me.

Then on the hillside 6 more deer ran by and he turned and started chasing them.

I couldn't get him turned for anything, he only needed another 25-30 yards and I'd of had a shot. but that's hunting.

I did end up shooting a small one I'm not proud of, I decided to fill my doe tag and all the bigger doe were right at 35 yards, then one that I should have looked at longer ran up to 18 yards so I shot it. Still good to eat but would have rather shot a older one.

I'm going to pickup 2 more doe tags when I go back, the family says the doe are like "Rabbits" they are everywhere..lol

I'm going back before the season ends to try and fill the buck tag and a few more doe.

I posted some pictures from the trip.

The buck I couldn't get a shot at.

This is the biggest deer I've ever seen, the scale marks stopped at 220 but it went right on past that. roughly 230+ lb 9 point.

The neck was huge on this deer.

A buck I never saw but kept getting on my cam making rubs all over the place.

This deer looks like the deer in the first picture but it's not, this picture was 4 days later.

My arrow after the shot, complete pass-thru heart shot and still went 60 yards, they have a strong will to survive in them to do that.

Looked like someone poured a blood trail through the woods,

I'm shooting Muzzy MX-3 no complaints with them.

A Slide show of the bucks I got on the trail cam, you can see the last one making a rub.

Edited December 4, 2010 by clutepc

[Guest GunTroll]

Nice! I love reading these stories!

[whiskey]

Nice buck. Hopefully he will be bigger next year.

[ShaunM]

Very nice deer.

[my82cam]

makes me wish i could have gone to our family farm in indiana to hunt this year, it didn't work out.