The Twenty Minute Buck
One of the ladder stands is only about five minutes from where I park my vehicle on an old tractor path. The stand over looks a small hardwoods cut over. I generally use the stand for rifle hunting. The stand is strapped to an oak tree nestled in a quarter acre patch of pines. Inside those pines is an old cemetery lot that dates back to the eighteen hundreds. For this reason the stand is known as the graveyard stand.
One day during the early part of bow season while at work, I had a strong feeling that I needed to be hunting that afternoon. So I decided that I would go straight from work. I always keep my hunting gear in my truck for just such an occasion.
I arrived at my property at 4:00pm, slipped my coveralls on, sprayed myself with cover scent, took my bow and ran up the tractor path to the graveyard stand. I arrived at the stand at 4:06pm. I pulled my bow up the tree, put my release on and nocked an arrow.
As I stood there looking across the cut over, I caught movement about seventy five yards out. I looked through my binoculars and found a beautiful eight pointer walking in my direction. The buck was at a steady walk and closing fast as if he had some where to be.
I slipped my binoculars inside my coveralls and placed my release on the bow string. The deer walked all the way up to a ditch about thirty five yards out and stopped. The deer looked around momentarily and then jumped the ditch. The deer then walked within ten yards directly facing me. The deer then turned and started walking to my right giving me a perfect quartering away shot.
I released the arrow and watched as the arrow made a perfect shot on the buck, entering on his right side, through both lungs and heart, and exiting on the left side. The buck followed a path about thirty yards and fell. The time was 4:20pm. The total time in the woods was twenty minutes. Lesson learned, always follow your instincts.
Turkey Hen Fighting
Suddenly, the dominate hen jumped up, started flapping her wings, and began kicking at one of the other hen turkeys. Then the fight was on. Back and forth they went, leaves and feathers flying. I tried to capture some of the footage on my cell phone. The visual didn’t turn out to good but the audio was awesome.
Although I never saw a gobbler, I did have a great learning experience with the hens. The fight lasted about two minutes and the losing hen walked away with a distinguished limp.
Coyote Turkey Hunting
About thirty minutes after the sun came up, I heard something walking in my direction. As I looked in the direction of the sound, I noticed movement about forty yards out. At first I thought it was a dog, although I hadn’t ever seen a dog in the area before. As the animal came closer, I realized that I was looking at a coyote.
Now this was my first time of ever seeing a coyote in the wild. I had seen pictures before in magazines and on TV but never in the wild. As a matter of fact, I had never heard of anyone else having seen these creatures in the area. But there he or she was. To my amazement, the coyote passed by me within twenty yards and then went out of sight.
After the morning hunt, in which I didn’t see any turkeys, I drove over to a nearby wildlife station. I hunt three hundred acres of private land that adjoins a large acreage of state game land. I met with one of the wildlife officers. At first I felt a little funny in telling my story. I told the officer that I had seen something unusual that I had never seen before.
Before I could even say what I had seen, the officer smiled and said, “you saw a coyote didn’t you.” I laughed, almost in relief, and said yes. He then told me that the wildlife division had released several coyotes onto the game land the previous year. Apparently this was an experiment that was kept somewhat quiet. The officer advised that there was a press release issued on the state website but that the specific locations were not given at the time. After speaking with the officer, I did remember hearing something about it.
As I went home and told my hunting buddies about the sighting, of course I had to here the jokes about seeing something that wasn’t in our area. They wouldn’t let me live that one down for several months until another sighting was reported. There was also another press release issued on a local scale.
The Turkey Flock
About an hour later, I noticed a hen turkey pop out into the field about seventy five yards away. Then a second hen, a third, and before long there was a total of twenty hens feeding out in front of me. I thought surely there would be a gobbler in the field at any time.
This was perfect, live decoys walking around. Thankfully, I had sat down just inside the woods near some thick undergrowth that gave me ideal camouflage. The hens never saw me as I watched them for an hour.
I never made a sound as I had the real things just talking away. Eventually, three gobblers made their way into the flock. Strutting around, looking all pretty, just out of shotgun range. I tried to call them closer but they weren’t buying into it.
It was nice to just sit and watch and gather information about the turkeys. The different sounds they make. The body languages and such. Even though I didn’t harvest anything, I truly enjoyed the entire morning.
