MO Gobbler Down + VECtor Down

Brian had been scouting a local KC property we have permission to hunt for the last two weeks on his way into work, without spotting a single gobbler. We killed a couple birds off the property last year and had seen birds using it in the early spring, but nothing as of late. I got a call yesterday afternoon from Brian and he said he’d spotted a gobbler in the middle of three fields on the property, so I made plans to be late to work this morning.

I had the blind set up and was ready to rock by 5:30am, so I just sat back and waited for the first gobble of the morning; that never came. Last year the birds were pretty tight lipped on this particular farm also, so I just started softly calling every 15 minutes or so. I’d just finished an x-rated calling sequence on the VECtor slate when I spotted ol’ redhead coming through the timber 100yrds south of the setup. He popped into the field and as soon as he spotted the strutter decoy I could tell he wasn’t too excited to charge in and get a whopping. He stayed near the edge of the timber and continued to work closer to me, but when he was about 70yrds out he cut back into the timber and I lost sight of him. I figured I’d go for broke, so I fired off several excited yelps on a mouth call and followed it up with some very aggressive cutting on the VECtor slate. It took all of 3 seconds before I could see his red head charging towards the field.

He popped out of the timber at 50yrds and locked up; he was giving the strutter decoy a serious once over before he made another move. I jumped on the VECtor slate with several more loud cuts when I heard a drastic change in the tone of the call. I looked down and to my horror the entire slat had cracked from side to side. I hurriedly reached for VECtor #2, but by the time I got it sorted out the tom had turned and was headed back towards the timber again. I fired off a couple more excited yelps on the new VECtor glass slate and the bird swapped ends and was headed back into the setup.

My plan was shoot him with my bow, but when he finally got into 12yrds he was behind one of the closed windows in the blind, so no shot opportunity. I held at full draw for about 90 seconds waiting on him to take a few more steps, but he never did. He finally decided something wasn’t right and turned to walk away. I let down my draw and quickly swapped the Hoyt out for the Nelli. A quick kee-kee and his head popped up; just in time to catch a load of #6s in the beak.

20lbs., 10 ¼” beard, matching 1 1/8” spurs

RIP Mr. Redhead & SAS-A-FRASS (my VECtor Slate) – at least she went out on a good note…..

Time for Brian and I to get cracking on bird #2 for each of us.....to be continued

Public Enemies - MO 2011 Spring Turkey Season

After my new stepfather “The squirrel” burned down the family lake house at Stockton Lake early last spring, I was making weekly trips down there during the rebuilding process. I was seeing and hearing turkeys all over the lake, so Pete and I decided to change it up for the 2011 MO opener and give it a go on public land; if nothing else we’d catch some fish…..

-Saturday-

Waking up Saturday morning was a treat to say the least. Rain, wind, and cold temps were upon us again and after a fun boat ride that resembled an episode of Deadliest Catch we pulled into the first area we wanted to scout. Pete hit the VECtor crow call and boom Gobble, Gobble, Gobble about 100 yards to the east of us. It was a good start to our scouting effort. After checking several other locations in the same general area we had located six nice birds and our expectations were growing by the minute for the opening morning.

After a superb breakfast of biscuits, venison sausage gravy, and hash Browns cooked up my Master Chef Pete; we were off to try and catch some fish. The high winds made the boat ride more than enjoyable to say the least, but we finally found some quiet water and we ended up catching a few crappie and Pete caught his first white bass; it was one for the record books!!! Unfortunately our keeper fish all lived to see another day and we’re just gonna have to blame it on “The Squirrel”!! Some dummy decided to buy a keeper net that opened on the top and bottom. As I dropped my third 2.5lbs largemouth into the net all of the fish proceeded to exit out of the bottom opening. Apparently whatever device that was keeping the net closed on the bottom broke and all of our keepers safely returned to the depths of Stockton.

As evening approached the winds started to lay and while I was outside BBQ’n up some ribs I could hear gobbling from a nearby field. Knowing this was a honey hole that a neighbor hunted every year Pete and I decided to go talk him and find out what his plans were for opening day. As luck would have it he was going to be working in Iowa all week, so he said to get after them. After firing through two racks of BBQ ribs and cheesy taters Pete and I put the birds to bed and we ended up running into the neighbor who’s house backs up to the field. She said that there were three big gobblers she named “The Three Amigos” and they used the field every day. That was all Pete and I needed to hear to make our decision up on where to hunt for the opener!

-Sunday Morning-

Sunday morning was a 180 degree difference from Saturday; we had clear skies, zero wind and temps warming up into the high 60s. As the light started to fill the morning sky it didn’t take long to hear our first gobbles of the day and that was just the start of the show. We ended hearing roughly 15-17 different birds sound off and easily heard north of 170 gobbles. It’s the most gobbling either of us had ever experienced in one location. Then as if on cue at seven o’clock “The Three Amigos” came strutting around the south point of the field with eight hens in tow….Monday morning couldn’t get here soon enough! We headed out after that for a day of fishing unfortunately the winds picked back up and fishing was poor at best. We did sort the keeper basket out and by the evening we had a couple nice bass for our efforts.

-Opening Morning-

After a restless night of sleep it was finally time to see if we could make the “Three Amigos” famous. After a short boat ride and a quick set-up we sat patiently waiting for the morning light to crack the east horizon. At 5:50am the first bird of the morning sounded off in the distance and anticipation of having “The Three Amigos” in our decoy setup was at an all time high. Unfortunately for us the trio had some lady companionship and by 9:30am our patience was wearing thin. The Amigos never came out of the timber; we had several hens work into the field, but the boys stayed put and kept gobbling their heads off. We finally decided to make a move on them, so we headed west across the field and setup next to two large oaks right off the edge of timber the birds were in. Pete let out a few excited yelps and all three of the birds hammered back at him. The Trio was on fire gobbling, but after a couple of minutes we could tell the hens were leading them away from our location. The Amigos were literally gobbling every 30 seconds on their own as they moved away, so we put plan #3 into action.

Pete and I knew our only chance on these birds was to sneak around in front of them and cut them off. We took off on a mad dash through the timber. The Amigos kept hammering the entire time, so it was easy for us to pinpoint their movements. We finally made out in front of them and made our move down hill to intercept them. We literally got settled on a tree and no joke…thirty seconds later first hen passed us about 40 yards out. The dominant gobbler was the next bird through and stopped in a perfect opening 40yrds out in front of us. Both of us had the safeties off and pressure on the triggers, but we knew that the two less dominant birds were bringing up the rear. We could hear the two birds walking through the timber for what seemed like an eternity, but they finally came into view and Pete and I let the Benellis crack. After the initial shots both birds flopped over into a shallow ditch, but unfortunately one made it back its feet and took out before we could get another clean shot into it. I scrambled to catch up with him but he made it into the thick under brush and we never located any other sign of him.

As we celebrated another stellar ambush and our first public land bird, it became apparent neither of us was positive about which bird went down and which one made it out of there. After we shot the birds flopped into that shallow ditch and the underbrush exploded with leaves and branches from our patterns, so we couldn’t be sure which bird we actually had in the bag. We finally decided that I had the cleared shot, so I tagged the bird…..much appreciated, brother!!!

We estimated the bird’s weight around 18-20lbs with a 9.5” beard and 1” spurs

After getting some good photos down by the shoreline we tried to get on another bird for Pete, but unfortunately we ran out of legal shooting time and it was time to go clean up the house and head for home. Neither of us had any complaints and had a great weekend living the dream!!! With plenty of season left it’s time to get Pete on a bird and I hope he’s a giant!!

Stay tuned we’ve got 3 more tags to fill, and two Amigos still on the loose!!!

Mo Snagging 2011...Fish On!!!!!

Well it’s that time of year between deer hunting and the spring turkey season that gets Pete and I fired up... It’s spoonbill snagging time in Missouri.

We got a late start to the morning because Makenna was sick and decided it would be a good idea to puke on herself at the Dr’s office. Pete, Nick, and I finally got on the road to the Lake of the Ozarks around 10:45am. The temps were closing in on 80 degrees by mid-afternoon, but there were also high winds blowing from 20-30mph. After arriving at Levi’s lake house around 1:45pm we got our gear unpacked and put the boat in the water, and we were snagging by 2:30pm. Joe had been down fishing for two days already, so we were able to get into fish right away. Between the two boats (Joe/ Pete in Joe’s rig and Brian/Nick in the slaying rig) we ended up banging 14 spoonies the first day. Brian led the first day total by snagging 6 spoonies, but the majority of fish we caught were small males. Joe caught the biggest fish of the day when he landed a 70+lbsr. To highlight the first day Pete finished the night outing in style when he snagged a big 12lbs. flathead catfish (too bad Brian can’t tie a knot or else we would’ve had a couple of huge slabs for the frying pan!!!

















Friday morning greeted us with much colder temperatures with the highs in the lower 50’s and dropping throughout the day. Levi and the Marshall boys finally made it down that afternoon and it was time to seriously get after the hunt for monster spoonies. Unfortunately we found out real quick that the fish were hard to find and spread out everywhere. Nick put the hurt on Pete and me when he landed all 4 of the spoonies that came into our rig for the day. Between the twelve guys we only caught 18 on Friday, which was our slowest second day of snagging to date. The highlight of the day was getting buzzed by couple of A-10 Warthogs that flew over us; right on the deck!









The Saturday temps were even colder than Friday’s and with thunderstorms in the forecast for the early afternoon everyone hit the lake early. The action was a mirror image of Friday....speratic action at best! Everyone seemed to catch some fish but like the previous day the fish were smaller and few and far between. The biggest salvation of the day was Nick banging out a 23lbs flathead catfish; we tied this one properly. He was pretty fired up and it was his biggest cat to date on rod and reel. Unfortunately Saturday afternoon Mother Nature decided to unleash hell on us with strong thunderstorms, luckily our boat was safely under the dock cover before the brunt of the storm hit. Some of the other boats in our group were not so lucky!









Sunday morning we woke up to clear skies and much warmer temps, but with the fishing being so slow we decided to pack it up early and head home to please the woman folk. We’re making another trip down in a couple weeks, so hopefully the fish will have started stacking up by then.

OK Hog Hunt 2011

2/25/11 - The MN gang arrived at my place around 12:15am for a few short hours of rest before we packed back up and headed to OK around 4am. The snow and ice KC had Thursday evening made for an interesting drive, but we made down to the Addictive Hunting ranch without any major hiccups. Bob Berger met us at the front gate and the hunt was on.

After getting settled in and relaxing for a bit we got our gear together and headed for the stands. The forecast had called for mid 60s and sun all weekend, so the 28 degrees, overcast skies, and 15-25mph northeast wind Friday evening made for a long, cold sit. I drove around the ranch with Bob and dropped off Jason and Chad at their sets for the evening sit. Once they were situated we loaded up and Bob drove Scott, Lance, Logan, and me to the north end of the ranch. Logan and I hunted a set called "The Boneyard" that evening. Wee-man hung in there like a trooper with the cold and wind, but after 2 1/2 hours he'd had enough and I walked him back up to the rig were Scott met us. I headed back down to the set and around 4:55pm four nice sows moved into the bait site. They were grouped up devouring the sour corn I'd prepared and I couldn't get them to separate long enough for a clean shot. After about 10 minutes of waiting I decided to slide out of the blind and try to get a better angle on them. I snuck about 30yrds down the shooting lane and finally had a shot opportunity present itself. I was settled in and about half way through my trigger squeeze when the sows all looked up, then tore out of the bait sight. That's when I noticed a black blur tearing towards the feeder from the left. I could tell it was a bigger hog, so when it stopped broadside about 80yrds out I touched the shot off. I heard the bullet hit and the shot felt good, but the hog was instantly screaming through the tall grass towards the canyon. I saw the sows reach the canyon and drop over the lip, but when the hog I shot at reached the same trail I heard a bunch of crashing around and brush breaking. I was confident about the shot, so I slid back into the set and waited for nightfall.

Around 5:45pm I heard a shot from Scott's location, but unfortunately he missed a shot at a running hog about 250yrds out into the wheat field Logan and him had set up on.

We decided to let my hog sit overnight since the temps were dropping into the low twenties. I hunted "The Boneyard" again Saturday morning and after Scott, Logan, Bobby (guide), and Nathan arrived at my set around 9:15am we started the tracking job. We headed straight for the edge of the canyon were I heard all of the commotion the night before. After a short tracking job into the bottom of the canyon we found my boar piled up in the bottom of a deep draw. This is the biggest boar I've killed to date 190lbs with 2 1/2 inch cutters.
We all met back at camp for lunch and sorted out a game plan for a drive on the big canyon that ran through the ranch. I decided to stay back at camp and get my boar butchered up, but everyone else headed out for the drive. Unfortunately the drive only yielded hog sightings, but no kills....unless you count Logan cracking a dillo's ass and Chad smoking a trapped coon.

After they returned to camp we sorted out the evening sit and Chad and I decided to play a hunch and sit over a wheat field that Bobby had been seeing a big group of hogs in the past couple of nights. There weren't any sets in place to hunt that spot, so after putting out some sour corn I created a sweet ground blind about 160yrds north of the corner the pigs had been spotted on. It was nice to finally get to hunt with Chad again, because it had been about 6-7 years since we've hunted together. At 5pm sharp I spotted several hogs headed towards the field. There were 3 big sows and 8 piglets in the group and they had one thing on their mind "sour corn". Chad and I watched them for a couple minutes while we worked out a game plan to put a double on the ground. Chad was going to shoot the biggest sow and I was going to crack the next biggest sow's ass, but when one of us had a clean shot the other one didn't. After a couple minutes of waiting the opportunity finally presented itself. Our plan was to count to three, then shoot on a silent four count so Iwasn't talking and trying to shoot at the same time. I think the excitement might have gotten to Chad a bit, because when the word "three" left my lips I heard the report from his 300 mag, I got a shot off in short order and when the dust settled two sows where down. We're not sure if I actually hit the second pig or if Chad smoked both of them with one shot, but regardless we had pigs down and it was Chad's first hog ever. We took advantage of the remaining daylight and decided to get some photos taken before it was dark out.

Sunday morning was warm, but the wind and overcast skies remained and nobody saw any movement as far as hogs go. We all headed back to camp around 10am to get packed up and head home. All in all it was a great trip. We killed three nice hogs, Logan got to smoke an armadillo and a skunk and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. It would have been nice to see/kill some more hogs, but when your hunting wild animals there is no guarantee. We're already talking about heading back down in June/July of 2012 for a summer time hunt.

Next up on the Minny-MO calender is the MO snagging season, followed up in short order by the spring turkey season....stay tuned, because we'll be laying down some more animals shortly.

Meeker Co. Massacre

With both boys out of school for Christmas break, we decided to head out for an afternoon pheasant hunt. The weather has been brutal in MN for nearly a month, but today we had temps in the mid 30’s and a light wind. With the good weather, deep snow, and the prospect of another storm hitting MN tomorrow I figured the pheasants would be on the move. We had to do most of our scouting from the car and then walk ditches because all of the grassy cover in the area is under 3 feet of snow. Not the ideal pheasant hunt, but we had to make do.

I turned onto our first gravel road at 2:15 PM. A half mile down the road we spotted a group of 7-8 hens sitting in a bush. We pulled up along side of them and got to watch them for nearly a minute before they flew off into a cattail swamp. As we started to pull away a rooster flew into the cattails on the other side of the road. I parked, loaded up and walked in after him. A few minutes later I had 10-15 birds erupt from the cattails and brush around me. I made a clean shot on the rooster closest to me and held off on other shots as the birds flew over thick cover and I didn’t want to risk a lost bird. Plus the snow was up to my waist (literally) and I was spent pretty after three minutes of walking through it. I was shocked the birds held so tight. Below is a picture of Jake with rooster #1.

A couple minutes later we drove along a brushy ditch that ran along some stubble corn. The road was covered up in tracks, so we parked the car and started to walked the edge of the ditch. As soon as we got into the thick cover the air erupted around us as 7 roosters flushed within 5-10 yards of us. Three shots later and I had two roosters laying face down in the snow. The boys each made a retrieve in the deep snow and our hunt was done in 15 minutes.

We drove around a bit more and saw several other big groups of birds. It was fun seeing all the birds, but with all the snow and lack of cover in the area they could be in big trouble by the end of the winter. We might sneak out for one more hunt on Friday and that would put an end to my 2010 hunting season. Although if it ended today, it will still be my best season ever! Luckily Minny-Mo gets to start the 2011 hunting season off with a late February hog hunt in Oklahoma, so stay tuned. Hopefully 2011 is as good to me as 2010.....

12/31/10- The rain and sleet held off this morning so the entire family made a quick trip back to Meeker Co. before todays storm moved in. Just like Tuesday, we pulled onto the same road and immediately saw 20+ pheasants run out of a corn field and into the same brush/swamp I shot bird #1 on Wednesday. This time the birds flushed a bit more wild and kept the majority of the brush between us. One rooster got a bit to high in the air for his own good and I was able to whack pheasant #1 less than 5 minutes into legal shooting time.

Minutes later Logan made his first ever spot on a rooster that was sitting down in some cattails along the shoreline of a swamp. I was able to walk within 10 yards of the bird before he even moved. The bird flushed up into the cattails and got himself tangled up in the mess of grass. I felt like I was shooting a pop can off a fence pole. 1 shot and a cloud of feathers. I am guessing #2 load might have been a bit heavy for this shot. Logan was one proud hunter when we retrieved the bird.
We saw several more birds but they either spooked as we approached or held up in areas we couldn’t hunt. Either way it was a fun morning. 2010 season is officially closed!

MO Firearms Hunt 2010

Pete and I met in Macon, MO on Friday, November 12th for the start of the 2010 Missouri firearms opener. We woke up on Saturday morning to cloudy skies, temps around 30 and winds blowing from the south at +20 mph. I chose to hunt the beach set and Pete hunted the ridge top set on the south end of the property.

Things started quickly for me. around 7am I grunted with my VECtor call and followed it up with a couple bleats from The Can. Within minutes I had a nice 9pt standing 30 yards from my stand. Shortly after that I had a big doe and her mini walk down the draw to my left. After checking to make sure she there were no followers, I settled in and squeezed off the first shot of the MO season. I punched out ol' girls heart and she was dead 80 yards from the stand. I had a button buck come in around 9 AM and that was it for the morning. Pete had one young 8 pt under his stand and a face full of stiff wind to show for his morning sit. Below is a pic of doe #1.

The rest of Saturday's hunt was pretty slow. Pete sat in the "Poachers pond" set and I sat in the "Illinois Ladder" set. Pete got skunked other than turkeys and I had two yearlings come out of the draw to my left at last light. Both of the little guys feed to within 10 yards of my stand before I finally blew at them, so I could get back to the rig.

Sunday morning Pete choose to hunt a new set he hung earlier this summer. It’s located on the edge of a bedding area that has a natural funnel of timber on the west edge of the it. I hunted the "Bowl" set which is located in the bottom of a ridge that drops off a green field. At 9am Pete heard chasing from behind his set and turned to see 2 does getting dogged by a little forky. The forky pushed the lead doe inside 15yrds of the set before he was able to get her stopped. After the shot she only made it 20yrds before piling up and that is when the real action started.
The forky proceeded to grunt, gore, stomp, mount, and kick the downed doe for the next 2+ hours. Several other small bucks where drawn in by all the commotion and the little guy chased every one of them off… like he was the king of the woods. It was a pretty amazing encounter and some of the deer vocalizations Pete heard were very educational (those where Pete's words.....NERD!) and will be used in the future.

Around 10:45am a mini doe came onto the scene to investigate, so Pete made quick work of filling another antlerless tag. Even with another shot being fired within 35yards of the forky, he still wouldn’t leave the downed doe. The forky actually didn't run off until I walked over around 11:15am to help Pete sort out his girls.

Neither of us saw much movement Monday other than some does and small bucks. I did get to hammer a coyote at over 200 yards while hunting the "Perch" set, it's probably the best shot I have made to this point with a rifle.

On Tuesday Pete slid into a small 2 acre patch of timber that is located in the middle of a hay pasture. There is a small pond located inside the west edge of the timber and we figured deer would be hiding out in this sanctuary after the first couple days of the boom-stick season.
Pete set up south of the timber about 80yrds away from the pond in a row of hay bales the farmer keeps there. There was no movement early, but about 15 minutes before Pete was supposed to meet up with me to butcher our does, a spike crested the hill and ran into the west edge of the timber. As soon as the spike hit the timber edge Pete heard several deep aggressive grunts and the little guy turned and hightailed it back the way he came.

Pete grabbed his rifle and his VECtor, got the wind in my favor and started to sneak through the wood lot from the southeast. Pete was about 40 yards from the west edge of the lot when he spotted a small 8 pt and a spike bedded just below the pond dam. Pete gave them a couple of loud aggressive grunts on the VECtor and both deer came flying out their beds looking for a fight. The 8 point ran out into the pasture, raked some leaves and an overhanging tree limb, and was grunting like crazy. Pete hit him with two more grunts and the buck came charging back into the timber right at him. That’s when Pete heard the grunt he was waiting on. A huge bodied buck stood up out of his bed about 20yards north of the first two bucks. He had a small doe bedded with him and was not happy about all of the commotion being caused by the younger bucks.

The big buck charged both of the smaller bucks and chased them out into the pasture. Pete hit the VECtor a few more times and the big guy turned and headed back towards Pete and his doe. When the buck got back to the edge of the cover Pete hammered him with .06. Fatty didn't even want to hold it and he dropped right next to his original bed. He’s is the largest bodied whitetail Pete has ever killed in the Midwest, his neck measured 27 ½” after being caped out.

Tuesday night was a slow sit for us, but the weather report for Wednesday had Pete and I going to sleep with high hopes. We woke up to 29 degrees, NO WIND and clear skies. The weather report was also calling for a rain/snow mix to move in around noon.

Pete finally got the correct wind and was able to hunt the "North Ladder" set and I slipped back into the "Beach" set. We were settled in by 6am and waited for legal shooting time. Around 6:40am I thought I heard something moving through the bedding cover that sits about 80 yards to the east of the stand. This is the same area the 9 point came out of during the first morning sit. I watched the area for several minutes with my gun resting in my lap, but never picked up any movement. After several minutes of not seeing or hearing anything I sat back and relaxed a bit. I kept my gun resting in my lap because it felt like something was going to happen, I just had that feeling.Five minutes later I spotted a tall rack walking towards me from my left. I got my scope on the deers, so I could try and determine how big he was. After a couple minutes he finally turned and looked my way. I could tell he was tall, wide and pretty heavy. Ol' boy kept walking the edge of the creek bottom and when he was directly in front of my stand at 30 yards, I softly grunted at him and the buck actually grunted back at me. That's when I squeezed the trigger and hit him with a round out of the Soul Snatcher! The buck reared up on his back legs, spun around and just dropped in his tracks. Thirty minutes into the sit and I had killed my largest buck. That buck also put the finishing touch on our 2010 MO deer hunt.

We're already counting down the days until our 2011 Missouri hunting trip!

MO-Archery kill during the firearms season

With family obligations on Saturday I was anxious to get out on Sunday for what would probably be my last sit during the 2010 MO firearms season. I'm that guy...that has a hard time making decisions on where to go, what stand to hunt, etc...So finally I decided to roll the dice and hunt Pete's killing set at our management hunt property.

I was greeted Sunday morning the worst November hunting conditions you could possibly ask for with +60 degree temps, full moon, and winds from the south from 10-20 mph....."it's seems like I've been snake bite this fall". With Pete having so much success from his killing set and with him taking the weekend off after tagging out for the firearms portion of our season, I decided to set up in his stand.

Pete told me that whenever you hunt that set don't expect movement until after 8:30am, so finally around 9:10am I spotted movement from the NW. Three mature does and two minis were heading my way, so I grabbed the Hoyt and was ready to let an arrow fly. The does came right into my wheelhouse and at 15yards quartering away I let the arrow go and it found it's mark perfectly with a complete pass through. The Big Momma ran off about 40 yards before taking a dirt nap right on the walking trail! I was pretty jacked up with this being my first archery kill of the 2010 campaign and first ever bow kill during the MO Firearms Season !

After getting down from the set and finding the arrow, I picked up the blood trail and it was absolutely amazing....so amazing that even I could follow it!!! The new Spitfire Maxx Broadheads are my new best friend and a big thanks to Scott for the recommendation, I appreciate it brother!!

After Thanksgiving I'll be back after it and hopefully I'll be able to connect on a MO Big Boy, but I'll have to do from my own set since Pete will be back on the prowl.

2010 MO Firearms Opener (Marshall, MO Farm)

The 2010 MO Archery Season has been really tough for me this season. After getting a wicked case fo poison ivy that shut me down from hunting for a month, I was ready to get the MO Firearms season started. This year I invited my friend Levi along with me to hunt our Marshall farm. Levi is a good friend of mine that owns the house at LOZ where we go snagging every year March, so I decided to return the favor this year and bring him deer hunting.

11/13/2010 – Opening Day!
The opening morning hunt was pretty much a bust for the most part. A neighbor unleashed hell on a good buck firing 14+ times (no Joke, I counted) and wounding the buck that they couldn’t find. Levi had a good buck come out 20 yards from his location, but his gun wouldn't fire and the buck moved on. At that point we decided to head back to the house and sort out Levi's rifle and eat some lunch before heading out for the afternoon sit.

After arriving back at the house we found out that a neighbor had killed a giant 16+ 12 pointer and another buddy from Marshall, connected on a good 10 pointer.

Without much luck on the first farm we decided to change it up and try another smaller farm with more timber in the area hoping to see more action! Around 1pm we headed out and got settled right in. Levi was sitting on the west set and I was on the east set. Around 2:45pm I heard Levi shoot and come to find out he missed a really big buck with a broken rack after shooting through some brush. The buck came by me but did not offer a clear shot so I had to pass, hoping he would come back by later that evening. Right at last shooting light I heard Levi shoot again and this time he connected on a great 110" 8 pointer. He was fired up because this was his 3rd biggest buck and first deer killed in 3 years!
Right after Levi shot I picked movement in the bean field to the west of me and spotted a mature doe standing in the field. After waiting a couple of minutes I decided I was gonna take a shot. I ranged her at 181 yards, settled the scope on her, and unleashed a 180 grain bullet to eat. My shot connected and after 20 yards she was done.

11/14/2010 – Sunday
With my buck tag still in hand and Levi sitting on a antlerless tag we headed out for the morning hunt. It was partly cloudy and cold temps in the upper 20’s. We ended up seeing a couple of does and small bucks but nothing we wanted to shoot. Sunday afternoon pretty much mimicked that morning hunt, so with both of us having work obligations on Monday we headed home.