Official 2016-2017 Deer Season Thread

[Howler]

TWRA happen to be at the processors and they asked if they could age him. They said he was 2.5 years old which is about what I thought. I tend to guess using the base of the horns vs the teeth.

[rugerla1]

Well fellas and gals, I'm tagged out for bucks this year. Hope y'all don't mind my short stories, I enjoy telling them even if it's one that makes me tell on myself for doing something stupid or give you something to laugh at (by the way, there is one of those stories I'll add at the end).

So the big 12 that I've been waiting on....is NOT the one I got. Otherwise the first paragraph would not be legible. However, I've been letting every small buck walk that I've seen since I got the 6 a few weeks ago. Now he wasn't big by many people's standards but I'm dang thankful to have been able to harvest him. Everything I'd seen up to that point this year had been spikes, button bucks, or does with fawns. I was sitting in my blind yesterday at 5am thinking about how the 28 degree weather should be good for deer movement. It turned out it wasn't, at least where I was hunting. I didn't see a thing all morning. At about noon I'd decided I was going to head home and spend the rest of the day with my wife and daughter.  I was staring across the sugar bowl I was hunting the ridge of and saw legs walking and that's all I could see. As this creature walked towards my side of the bowl, I was hoping it wasn't one of the big rottweiler's that the neighbor owns. They never bother me, bark and move on, but I was hoping it was a deer instead. I was looking everywhere for movement because the deer can walk down in the bottom and pop up right in front of you with no way to tell until they're looking at you. He ends up walking around to my left where I can see part of a rack sticking up. Well my heart stopped for a minute and thought "That's him, he's back!". As he's moving I can see part of the body through the brush but nothing else. I could have shot but I didn't and waited to see more as my heart raced. BAM! Out in a clearing steps a HUGE 1.5 year old basket rack 4 pointer LMAO Man I don't know which emotion was stronger, the thought of it being the biggin or the let down from seeing it wasn't him. I did have a little chuckle about it though as I watched him ease on across the property line. I then made the decision that I'd stay a while longer since deer may have been moving later. My buddy had also just sent me a text saying "Just had a spike come through the back yard, maybe this evening will be a good time to hunt. The 4 pointer and his text were enough to convince me to hang out. About 45 minutes later I was watching that far side where I'd noticed the legs earlier watching for any movement. All of a sudden from my right smaller window of the blind I see movement on my side of the bowl around 20 yards from me. I saw a nice rack easing down in to the bowl. I thought "Oh my gosh, he really did show up!!!" as I raised my .308 up and shouldered it. I put the cross hairs on him and then realized I didn't see the kickers on the back of his G2's. The next few seconds felt like years as I tried to decide what to do and scanned behind him to see if the 12 was around. While I'm deciding , he's steadily moving down and farther away and I decide that he's bigger than any buck I've killed and he looked pretty tall and wide. I shoot and he hunches up and stumbles forward but is still standing and looks back towards me from behind a tree. I thought what the heck is he doing? He eases forward in a non familiar fashion. I'd immediately chambered another round after firing so I decided to shoot again just to be sure. Never seen it happen and would have loved to had it on film but he did a forward flip and dropped straight to the ground and didn't even kick! Then my adrenaline went to 8 million miles per hour! I sat there for a few minutes thinking "Was that him and I just couldn't see the kickers? Oh well, if not I'm still extremely proud of him and thankful for the harvest". I text my wife while waiting and she got all tore up thinking it was the 12 also. I told her I wasn't sure but pretty sure it wasn't but that he was a very nice looking buck for sure. She was still excited for me and knew that I was sitting in my blind unable to make words sound correctly as usual. I waited for a while and eased out of my blind to look at him through the scope. He was still laying in the exact same position he was when I watched him do the flip. I walked slowly up to him and as I got closer said a prayer thanking God for this beautiful animal that I'd just harvested. My heart is racing like crazy as I walk up to him and check to make sure he's done even though I knew he was. He definitely was not the 12 but an 8 pointer I'd seen on camera a few times at night and thought he was a 10 from the pictures. I call my wife and let her know and of course she says "Don't do a thing until you send me a picture!". I love that she's excited for me. She answered "OH he's beautiful!" and I agreed. I struggled trying to get selfies with him so most of the pictures are of him by himself.

It really is a new thought process to let the small bucks walk for me as I've just started trying to do that over the past couple years. It may be years before I kill a buck like I see on many of the Facebook TN deer hunting pages. But I'm working towards it and enjoying each buck that I get that is bigger than the last years harvest. Now it's gonna be letting my niece and my daughter's friends hunt with me to get their first deer. My daughter is still iffy about it and I don't want to push it and turn her away from it being fun so I'll wait patiently even though it's hard. I need to get a couple does for the freezer as well but hope to get these girls their first deer. Anyway here's the pictures, I hope you enjoy as I sure have enjoyed the season even though many hours were just watching nature and no deer. I love every minute of being in the woods!

And now for the Paul Harvey rest of the story. The funny story that happened earlier that morning is as follows:

The morning had been eerily quiet as the sun brought the the woods to life. I kept waiting for squirrels to start their morning ritual of sounding like deer. Then I saw a huge hawk barreling through the woods. It amazes me every time I see him that he moves so dang fast through even the thick part of the woods. It really is amazing to watch. I never heard a bark from a squirrel for an hour and attributed this to the fact that Mr Hawk made about one trip through ever 20 minutes or so. Then they started moving around though cautiously. Well here he comes again and the typical freak out barks began as he landed and sat in a tree 40 yards from me. I was staring at him and since I was tired I kind of fell into an dream mode although my eyes were open. I was imaging for some reason that the hawk had flown into the blind with me. I'd looked up as it began to attack me and I grabbed onto it and through it to the ground and had my foot on top of it as it screamed and flopped. I was trying to figure out my next move as I "came to" from this dream that I was having and immediately had a dang starling barrel right to the window of my blind landing on it sounding like a full grown man had slapped the top of the blind! I jumped back and hollered out loud! It scared the &#(@! out of me, I just knew that hawk was about to hammer my head! Instantly I busted out laughing at how bad I'd jumped. I imagine being half out of it had a lot to do with it, but it didn't matter because I knew my daughter was going to laugh her rear end off. She did and so did my wife  Anyway, there's my funny story for y'all to enjoy. Also happy hunting to the rest of you and many congratulations to all who have been successful so far!

Edited November 29, 2016 by rugerla1

[FJCrusing]

On 11/27/2016 at 6:21 PM, Howler said:

Good looking deer and a great looking rifle. Love the Browning rifles.

Thank you.  Very smooth firing rifle with the Browning BXR 155gr ammunition.  Tested out 2 other brands (Federal Trophy Tip & Hornady SST) and it had the least recoil and best groupings.  Just purchased this past year and first season with it. 

[Spawndn72]

I hunted some in college and for one reason or another never got anything. Decided to give it another go last year and got nothing. This year was going about the same until yesterday morning. I know it is not very big, but, my first deer. Shot from a blind with my Winchester 30-30. Open sights from about 30 yards.

[rugerla1]

2 minutes ago, Spawndn72 said:

I hunted some in college and for one reason or another never got anything. Decided to give it another go last year and got nothing. This year was going about the same until yesterday morning. I know it is not very big, but, my first deer. Shot from a blind with my Winchester 30-30. Open sights from about 30 yards.

Congratulations on your first deer and also on giving hunting another shot!

[gregintenn]

Way to go, Spawndn72! Congratulations on your first deer, thanks for sharing, and welcome to the forum!

[Randall53]

Congratulations! You've got some good meals ahead to look forward too!