Opening day ML in the Central Zone of NC yesterday, I figured with bucks cruising for does-in-heat this week, the cost of gas, etc, I decided to make an all day stand of it yesterday...instead of hunting first light til 10:30, driving home, taking a nap, and driving back to hunt from 3:00pm to dark. (PS: 11.5 hours in one spot is a long day, but that little camp chair I got for turkey hunting made all the difference in the world...I was actually comfortable all day...going to do it again tomorrow).
Anyhow, I'm sitting down in a bottom where a trail crosses a drainage ditch...have taken deer there before...heard shooting on farms all around me the first hour but didn't see a hair where I was. At 1:00pm a weird looking spike came wandering along the trail...one spike on the left side maybe 7-8" tall...and THREE spikes growing up out of the right side pedicle...looked like a star-burst when the USAF T-birds go straight up then curve away from each other.
At 1:30 I hear scratching commotion coming through the leaves behind me and its 7-8 Toms and Jakes...a couple of the tom's beards were very long, and one of them looked like it might have had two beards side by side...not one above the other but side by side. Seemed like an abnormally thick wide attachment point on his chest and could barely see that it looked like two sources but bunched against each other...came within 20 yards of my natural blind and never knew I was there...just passed on through out of sight.
At about 4:00pm, I hear that same commotion coming up behind me again but this time its all hens and poults...looked like 2 adult hens and several poults that at first glance you'd think were grown hens until one of the hens came into view...a couple of the poults passed within just 4-5 steps of my boots...one of them stopped and eyed me...made a couple of half hearted putts, then went back to scratching along with the others.
At 5:00pm I saw the largest, most magnificent 8-10 pointer of my life...the top half of all his tines glowed white in the dusky low light, about 50 yards away but not on the trail that crosses the ditch...he was very, very cautiously stepping along parallel with the other side of the ditch...kept thinking he'd eventually cross over into more open area but he never did and then I lost sight of him...magnificent buck.
Anyhow, I'm sitting down in a bottom where a trail crosses a drainage ditch...have taken deer there before...heard shooting on farms all around me the first hour but didn't see a hair where I was. At 1:00pm a weird looking spike came wandering along the trail...one spike on the left side maybe 7-8" tall...and THREE spikes growing up out of the right side pedicle...looked like a star-burst when the USAF T-birds go straight up then curve away from each other.
At 1:30 I hear scratching commotion coming through the leaves behind me and its 7-8 Toms and Jakes...a couple of the tom's beards were very long, and one of them looked like it might have had two beards side by side...not one above the other but side by side. Seemed like an abnormally thick wide attachment point on his chest and could barely see that it looked like two sources but bunched against each other...came within 20 yards of my natural blind and never knew I was there...just passed on through out of sight.
At about 4:00pm, I hear that same commotion coming up behind me again but this time its all hens and poults...looked like 2 adult hens and several poults that at first glance you'd think were grown hens until one of the hens came into view...a couple of the poults passed within just 4-5 steps of my boots...one of them stopped and eyed me...made a couple of half hearted putts, then went back to scratching along with the others.
At 5:00pm I saw the largest, most magnificent 8-10 pointer of my life...the top half of all his tines glowed white in the dusky low light, about 50 yards away but not on the trail that crosses the ditch...he was very, very cautiously stepping along parallel with the other side of the ditch...kept thinking he'd eventually cross over into more open area but he never did and then I lost sight of him...magnificent buck.
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