I knew I was going to like this place.
Late in the summer, Mike Romine, his son Zack Smith and I moved one of my box stands to a new spot in a big pine thicket at our hunting club in northern Grant County.
The landowner thinned the thicket in recent weeks by removing every third row of pines. That turned a dense, dark expanse of forest into a light, open area with long sight lines. Most of the new lanes are oriented east-to-west, and I will convert some to food plots next year. It's a really nice place to spend a few hours, especially when a light breeze whispers through the pines.
"I'll bet this is a good place to see bucks chasing does," Romine said. "It's sheltered, yet open. Just the kind of place they like for that kind of thing."
That was a prescient observation.
In the meantime, I sweetened the area a little by hanging mineral bags from low tree limbs in several places. When it rains, water soaks the burlap bags and drips minerals in the dirt. Deer really like this system. In other areas where I've hung bags, they've eaten big craters in the ground. I also buried a bag of rock salt in an eroded hillside. Deer are already working these licks, as well.
I buried blocks of what can best be described as brittle. It's solid blocks of candy waste from Insights Nutrition. I used to set the blocks on the ground, but they seldom lasted more than a couple of weeks. Deer kick them to pieces and eat them quickly. Now, I dig a hole in which the blocks fit snugly. Deer try to dig them up, but they can't. They can only lick these.
Finally, I added a Moultrie feeder, which was pointless. I have trouble with Moultrie feeders. This particular unit is only two years old but it doesn't work.
Instead, I spread 50 pounds of corn on the ground every couple of weeks. Deer can eat it when they please, and they are not conditioned to come to this spot only when the feeder fires. I also sweeten the feed piles with another Insights product called Buck Nut, which is powdered candy waste.
I didn't put a remote camera in this spot initially. I had cameras in two other spots. One showed three does visiting every third day from 7:30-10:30 a.m. and from 1:30-5:30 a.m. The camera in the other spot rarely photographed deer. It shares a spot with another balky Moultrie feeder.
The odds for encountering a buck in those spots seemed low, so I decided to concentrate my early season efforts in the thin. I took my daughter Amy there on the first day of the youth deer season, but we saw nothing in the morning.
I returned last Thursday for an evening hunt. I got there about 3 p.m. and got comfortable. I had a swig of coffee, a piece of a candy bar and I checked e-mails and messages on my phone.
At about 3:50 p.m., I caught movement about 150 yards to the south. An antlerless deer ambled across the lane near one of my mineral bags, but it disappeared before I could get my binoculars on it. A second deer bobbed into the clearing and stopped.
I suspected it was a doe judging by its coy, skipping gait, and a look through my binos confirmed it. It continued into a brushy draw. A third deer stopped in the lane, a spike buck with tall beams. I wondered if that was the buck chasing the doe.
The doe continued across the hillside through the pines but stopped about 60 yards in front of my stand. It saw me and stiffened. Its expression seemed to say, "Don't you try to fool me! I know you're trouble!"
It came closer, and the accusatory look intensified.
It came closer still, to about 35 yards.
"I'm all the trouble you can handle, sweetheart," I whispered.
I squeezed the trigger of my 6.5 x 55 Swede and planted her with a single shot to the neck.
Ten minutes later, the chaser buck showed up in the lane to the right. Its tall antlers gleamed in the fading sunlight. I was excited that I might get a double, but I couldn't tell how many points were on the buck's antlers. Finally it turned its head. Two on both sides, a four-point.
He should be a dandy next year.
Sports on 11/20/2014