MO - Antlerless 12/15 & 12/16 2007

12/15/07 AM North MO Property
We had a cold front move in Friday evening and it brought 2-3 inches of snow, cold temps, and a strong NW wind. Me and Scott hunted the S side of the main road in the a.m.. Scott set up on the Beach and I hunted the Middle Pond. Around 9:30am and after not seeing anything moving, I got up and walked the North Road. There was very little sign in the snow, so the deer must have been held up waiting for the weather to break. I was slowly working down the road checking every draw for any sign of deer. I was about 50 yards form the Tri-fecta set when I spotted a young deer about 40 yards S of me down the draw. I dropped to one knee and steadied the rifle for a shot. I pulled the trigger and a cloud of snow shot up in front of me and the deer was just standing there looking around. I looked over the scope and got the answer almost instantly. There was a small branch in front of me and I shot right through the middle of it. I chambered another round raised up a bit and took another shot, this one hit the mark and the deer ran about 30 yards before piling up. As I was watching the first deer run off 4 more deer that must have been bedded down exploded out of the draw without offering any shots. As I started to lower the rifle a 5th deer bounded out of the draw and stopped were the 1st deer had stood only seconds earlier. I settled the cross hairs and squeezed off another shot, which landed right in the boiler-room. The big doe ran back into the draw and piled up in a dead fall going out the other side. Two more deer for the freezer!!!

12/15/07 PM (Logan's 2nd deer hunt)
Logan, Scott, and myself hunted the N Meadow ground set this evening. The wind was howling, snow was falling, and the temps were bottoming out. Logan fell asleep after about 40 minutes of watching the snow fall. Around 4:15pm he woke up and wanted to go home (over heated??). We finally decided to pack it in around 4:30pm because Logo wasn't happy. I had made it about 10 yards out of the blind when I saw 4 deer coming out of the N wood lot to feed. They spotted me at the same time and bounded back into the cover. I crawled back to the blind and Scott hurried across the meadow. It was almost last shooting light and he took a shot at one of the does back in the timber. We searched for about 30 minutes without finding any sign, and decided to come back 1st thing in the morning.

12/16/07 We walked all over the N wood lot with no sign of a hit from the night before. We jumped 5 does out of the NW corner. Scott missed a doe we kicked up off the main road and also missed a coyote on the run going out of a draw. He wasn't very happy!!! In all it was a good weekend of hunting. My season total is up to 8 deer (new personal record) and hopefully 1 more with the bow if everything works out.