Blessed to take a really nice buck (to me) and my first ever public land buck. Been hunting this piece of public for three years now since the divorce and having to end my hunt club lease. To be honest, I actually enjoy hunting hunting public and the challenge, strategies more than hunting private. But that's for another time.
I had still hunted, really scouted, this piece of the WMA last Monday or Tuesday in the rain. It's been on my mind to hunt since last year, but I've focused on some other areas with some success. Hiked all over the place earlier in the week. Liked what I saw and thought it was promising. Saw some buck sign and heard a buck busting around on top of a little knob. Might have been this guy. I had tacked a good climber tree that was about 3/4ths up the knob that I was planning to get to and hunt out of yesterday morning. But plans don't always work out and I guess it's how you respond when they don't that matters. Turns out I left home a bit later than I should have. My two other favorite areas of the WMA already had 6 or more trucks parked as I drove past so I got to worrying that this new spot would be filled up with hunters. But got to where I planned to hunt and was surprised that there was just one truck and two guys getting ready. They both head in just as I'm getting out of my truck and the one is heading in the direction that I was planning to go. I eventually get everything together and head in. I see the guy's headlamp up ahead and eventually catch up to him. He's set up in a tree just off the trail and I'm feeling bad and whisper "sorry" and that I'm hiking much farther in. Turns out he had dropped his pack when getting up the tree in his climber stand. Why he wasn't using a pull up rope is strange (and dangerous) to me, but he seemed like a young guy who maybe didn't know better. He asks me if I can toss it up to him and so I help him out. Took two attempts to get his pack up to him, but now I'm even later and it's minutes at most from first shooting light. I continue hiking in and probably go another 150-200 yards down the trail from him and realize I'm never getting to get to where I want/planned to be. I hear the first shot of the morning in the distance and realize I just have to find a tree to get up into and see how things turn out. So I finally get up the tree. Damn it was cold, as you all know. For the first 2 hours I see nothing except squirrels and a line of 15 turkeys moving down from the knob heading toward a private cut corn field about 100 yards from me. I liked where I was because I've decided these deer like to shift and contract their core area from the WMA when the war zone erupts on opening day of rifle and I think they move back and forth from private to the WMA to eat and bed in both areas. Plus, the area I'm hunting is nice edge habitat. The field, bordered by hardwoods where I'm at, bordered above me by a pine thicket, and then I know there are more hardwoods bordering that pine thicket up to the top of the knob. But I'm freezing my arse off. I start thinking about getting down and walking on down the trail to put in reflective tacks down the trail to where I would need to head up the knob to the tree that I originally wanted to hunt to make it an easier access when I come back to hunt this piece of the WMA. Pull my phone out to see what time it is and then I see this guy coming down sort of following the same path as the turkeys 45 minutes earlier but a bit closer to me. Put the phone back into my coat pocket and put my scope on him. He looks up and at that moment I'm thinking he's got my scent or just figuring out what is that in the tree. So I pull the trigger not wanting to wait for him to turn broadside for fear he's going to bust me and take off. He goes right down and fights for maybe 20 seconds before he dies. It was 9 am.
It was a hard drag for this 61 year old, but only some sore muscles today that the gym helped work out. Not a monster, but made my day.
