I was lucky enough to pick up a
new local farm to hunt this year. It’s only 52 acres but it hunts much larger.
Ironically it is only about 300 yards from the Blue Springs Honey Hole farm we used to
hunt with a lot of success from 2006-2008.
The landowner let
me plant a +1 acre food plot in a mix of Biologic Maximum, Winter Bulbs/Sugar Beets, and Outfitters Blend. The day after the field was planted
we got about 1.5" of rain and the plot has blown up! I have been
monitoring my trail cams and have had a lot of pics but nothing real big. After
doing some scouting I found a perfect funnel on the northeast side of the farm.
There is also a huge oak tree that is absolutely loaded with acorns and I knew
as soon as they started dropping that this would be a magical spot.
September 22
The first morning I hunted set was Sunday morning September 22nd. It was an absolute
beautiful, cool, clear morning. Around 8:00am I looked over to see two does coming in. At 12 yards I let the arrow fly and it found it's mark. Boom I was officially on the board with my first kill off the new property.
September 27th
I was able to slip out of work early. I had dinner plans with the family,
but it was hot and I knew that I would be done early enough to get to the stand.
I arrived at the stand at 5:45pm. I had literally just climbed into
the set and got my pack squared away when I noticed movement to the east. Out popped two
a nice 2.5 year old bucks that I had on camera. One was a smaller 8 pointer and the other a solid 9 pointer. I was kind of in a panic because I didn’t even have
my bow in the tree yet, but after five long minutes I was finally able to ease my bow up
and get an arrow knocked.
For nearly an hour I watched the
young bucks eat around the base of the giant oak tree. Both were solid bucks
with great potential, but knowing there were much bigger bucks roaming around I elected to give them a pass. Just before 7:00pm I noticed
movement from the east again. Another buck was running towards the other two. I could tell immediately that he
was a good one and bigger than the other two. Once he got closer I grabbed the binoculars and saw that he
was 10 pointer with nice tall tines. Definately a shooter! I had some
branches between me and him so I had to sit back and watch the show. The
smaller 8 pointer came up to the big 10 and they started sparring. It was
awesome and a first for me to see bucks fighting. Finally the big
10 made it to one of my shooting lanes and turned broadside at 33 yards. I
slowly drew back, zeroed in on my pin and let the arrow fly. As I saw the arrow track I knew it was really low and not a lethal hit, so I knocked
another arrow. The buck had bounded off about 15 yards farther away and stopped in another opening. At 38
yards I sent arrow #2 on it's way. As soon as I shot the buck ducked and turned; obviously jumping the string since he was alert. I heard a loud crack and he took off like his tail was on fire.
Not knowing exactly where the arrow hit him I waited another 30 minutes
before picking up the trail. As soon as I walked up to where he was standing at there was blood everywhere. He'd run about 200 yards before piling up in the bottom of a large ditch. The MO archery season has barley gotten started and my first buck tag is filled; not a bad start to the season!
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