SUCCESS IN THURMONT

After practicing for a few days I had my confidence up and was ready to go back in to the field to try again. My wife gave me permission to go out after work on Tuesday, so I did. I went back to Thurmont, MD and tried again. After last week I knew that stand placement was going to be a very important detail, even more so being able to shoot out of my stand. So I took a little extra time searching for the right tree. I had been in my stand for about 45 minutes when I heard a noise that sounded like a couple of squirrels running around in the leaves. But once I checked it out with my binoculars, I realized it was a button buck jumping over a fallen tree. I felt my heart stop as I took a second look: I saw three deer this time about 120 yards off and walking away from me. There was a 4 point, a spike, and a button buck.

After I calmed down my breathing, I found my grunt tube let out three grunt calls in the direction of the deer. I made some short low tone buck grunts, being careful not to make them too low. I didn't want to scare them off; they weren’t exactly monster bucks, you know. After the calls they slowly turned to the left and walked back towards the beading area they just came out of, about 140 yards away from me. Ten minutes later I saw them again walking towards me this time. My heart started beating really fast as I watched the three deer eat acorns off the ground 50 yards away from me. I took this time to decide which one of the three I wanted to harvest. I chose the spike because it was the biggest of the three and I was hunting for meat, not horns. If I was there for the horns I would have let them all walk, but I need to fill the freezer.

After deciding on a target, I blew another series of grunts, softer then the first time but same tone. Within minutes they were all under my stand and I got a great 15 yard shot at this big boy! This time, unlike last week, I nailed it- hit him right through the lungs. First he jumped, then walked about 30 yards where he laid down for 2 minutes, got up and walked another 15 yards then laid down for about 5 minutes. He got up a third time and tried to walk up the mountain but fell down and rolled into a tree.

Tell me what you think- I know a lot of people think it’s wrong to kill a spike but this one was a full grown deer (dressed out 153-lb).