Story time:
Went back to my old stomping grounds this morning where I hung a stand last month. Beautiful morning although I saw fewer small woodland creatures than opening day 2 weeks ago. The entire area was tracked-up by deer, turkeys, rabbits, partridge, porcupine, fisher, etc so I had high hopes of seeing some wildlife. Told the wife I'm trophy hunting and have no plans to tag a deer.
At 6:40 a large deer slipped by on the fringe of what I could see and I couldn't get the scope on him. Grunted to him but no response. Waited 40 minutes and rattled for a minute. I heard something circling behind me but couldn't see anything. Then there was a commotion and what sounded like a woodpecker tearing into a tree when he stopped to scrape and also beat up a cherry tree.
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Finally he stepped out into an opening 60-70 yds to my right. I could see it wasn't a big deer so I didn't even turn or raise the rifle. But he kept coming, acting like a riled-up bully just exactly like they do on the hunting shows. About 15 yds out I noticed he had 5 points on the near side and couldn't recall the last time I passed on a wide-racked 10 point so I eased the rifle up, gave thanks for the silent safety on a Model 700, and squeezed when he was passing directly in front of me at 8 yds.
He turned, tucked his tail, and scrambled back the way he came without the normal grace of a bounding whitetail. A minute later came the thrashing sounds of a downed deer. Then all was quiet. I was wrong about the points. He's missing a brow tine on one side so it's only 9 but I was right about the size. He's like a Texas deer that was transplanted to Maine cause he only weighed 160. Pretty exciting hunt though. Whether it was the same deer that got by me early I have no idea but I wouldn't be surprised if it was.
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