IOWA BOW BUCK IN A WINTER WONDERLAND

Welcome to October. Oh, that's Derek's deer. He's an 8 and on the inside he has a 2-0. Well, we are in the bedding area. This worked a little sooner than I was hoping. Or not. We weren't fully set up. I mean, we had to hang this set. We parked the truck at 5.30. Probably got here at 5.50. And, you know, 6.30 we're all the way up here. Like, bow is knocked and everything. But, you know, 6.40 rolls around. And the deer are after, like, here or something. And look. And the thing's, like, looking up at us. Right there. Algebra, I guess. We've named him now. And, uh, he just, I think he got our wind. The wind's kind of swirly down here until it picks up a little bit more. And, uh, he kind of blew a bunch, but he really didn't know what happened. And then he started working up the side hill and it was a little risky, but he stopped at 20. And he's looking in our direction. He wasn't looking up at us. My bow was already in front of me. And there's a wind to go draw. It's like a last-ditch effort. And he either, he might have just heard me or he looked up and saw me. I don't know. I was just hoping he would just keep staring, which sometimes they do. A very nice, I think he's three. He's three or four. It's just a great deer, but it's just tough when you're trying to shoot a magnum to shoot one of those. But he got me going. He got me real tempted. It's a very large deer. Great potential. But as soon as I got set up, I could just smell bucks. Like just a musk. I think right up on this cedar ridge, there's a hot doe, I'm guessing. Because it just smells so ruddy in here. Like legit can smell it. It's frustrating. It's midday now. All right, it's three o'clock now. We got down at noon and went for like a 30-minute little scout mission. And we haven't seen anything since probably 9.30 this morning. Kind of surprised. I was really hoping there would be some midday stuff going on. We thought about moving, but we're going to stick it out. We're just in a good spot for the wind, which is a giant cedar bedding area. And, you know, it's just a matter of time, even though we kind of boogered it up this morning. It could be a new deer. I mean, there's so much stuff we don't know about this permission place. So, sit tight. Hopefully he won't come cruising around this afternoon. You know what today's date is? It's day about 32 for Day's Hunting in Iowa. I'm not sure if that's correct, but we're going to definitely, while editing, we're giving our permission farm a little break. Especially after bumping the buck we named Algebra because he's 6'4". You got to do math to make him go to a 10 point. So we're back on, I guess it's also another permission farm, but we're just involved in the management and everything. But we're back over here. And there's one buck we really haven't hunted the area here. But we name him Towers. I haven't seen him before in person, but he's just a gnarly buck. Big brown times. We were heading in here to be prepared to hang and hunt. And we stumbled upon this ladder stand, this old ladder stand. And we just jumped up in it, which works, I mean, honestly, it's in a good spot. Old ladder stands are always a testament to good spots. So we're going to sit tight. Hopefully we have a good morning. It's a good sunrise, so we're off to a good start. It's 10, 20. We're going to get down. And I got a couple, it's tomorrow's Thanksgiving. Parents are coming in town. So probably going to take some time off, just a couple days. But we only have eight days, nine days left. Before the split for guns, so crunch time. November 25. I haven't hunted in three days, I think. Thanksgiving was yesterday. Thanksgiving was two days ago. So I'm back, and my dad's up in the tree with me. He's going to try to run the camera. We're in a stand. We sat once probably a week, a week and a half ago, and had that really good encounter with a big four-year-old white rack. And then a couple other bucks, so we're in a good spot. A nine-point was in here yesterday morning. An old, mature nine-point. So that's promising, I'll definitely shoot him. So hopefully he does the same thing. We just saw two does. And it's cold. We finally got our cold snap. So we'll see what we see. Welcome to a winter wonder. November 26. We're back in the spot that I almost shot that six-by-four early in the morning. And he busted out. And he's been gone for, I think, five days. And he just popped back up last night. Overnight it didn't rain. It snowed. I mean, we got two or three inches on the ground, maybe even four. So we got super tight quarters. It already was tight. Now it's really tight. I mean, I can see 40 yards probably. But we're sitting in this main trail that is just on the downwind side of this big cedar bedding area thicket. And it worked last time. So will it happen again? I don't know. We're going to hunt this last week. We got until Friday. And then gun season comes in on Saturday. So we're definitely probably going to mix it up, go hunt some food, hunt some spots we haven't hunted yet. Because by cameras, they're definitely starting up. I mean, the party's pretty much over by now. No way. I didn't get it on film. I'm okay with it. Man, I could cry right now. That's a 10-point. He's got a split G2. Deer that we had on camera twice, I think. Man, that got me going so much. I shot him at 5 yards, 8 yards. And he didn't even really go down a trail. And I had the frame of the camera, like, on all the trails, and he came so close right here. I don't even know what to say. Pretty pumped about it. It's got to be 30-some days of just absolute grind. Morning nights, some mornings off. But the hardest I've hunted in a long, long, long time. Not even really after one deer or two is a crazy thing. We were chasing broke G2 early on, and he became so sporadic. And then just kind of bouncing around, just trying to find something else, and this guy popped up on camera. I mean, I think the first photo I had of him was a week ago. And he's a good, I mean, he's matured to some degree, and he's just a good solid buck for November 26th. Man, to do it on a morning like this is just incredible. I'm going to get down, take my booties off, or I'm going to take my booties off, put my boots on, lower my bow. There was the setup. Pretty high up, but we were kind of uphill, so honestly it wasn't too high up from where they were standing. First deer to walk down this trail in the new snow. Oh, man, it's just so beautiful out here now. It's just the edge of the cedar thicket. They just run it. Okay, we got blood. I'm guessing my arrow went through him. Instant blood right there. That's where I was. Tucker right up there, and just a perfect little group of trees. And you can see this is just the trail he was on. Just pretty textbook. The arrow must still be in him because I don't see it right here. It would be sticking out. Instant blood. He did not run far at all. Oh, gosh, he's a beautiful deer. Beautiful deer. Perfect shot on him. Oh! Yeah! He's got that little split. That's what I recognized him from. Oh, man, that is so awesome. Oh, so awesome. He's a great deer. Well, I'm going to pull him out of here for a second and get some better angles of him. This is probably the coolest morning so far in November, just snow everywhere. My hands are freezing. Finally. We got November, almost December. What a good sound. Man, he's a cool deer. He's already getting stiff a little bit, but there he is. Just a good solid 10. I mean, cannot complain, especially this late in the season. Gosh, he's a good deer. Well, sitting here a little bit, just kind of soaking it all in, enjoying it. That's why I love killing stuff by myself, too. It's always fun with people around. We get a big group, and we've killed stuff with big groups of people. But something about always just doing it all by yourself, that's so rewarding and just kind of reminds me why I do it, for sure. This year, we've had, that's the thing when I explain to people, they're like, man, you haven't killed a deer yet. And I'm like, yeah, you know, I've had an incredible year. It's not that we haven't had a bad year. I've had so many opportunities, passed a lot of big deer, some deer bigger than this deer. It's just, again, like when I explain those episodes on those properties, we have such strict management, and this property is just a permission property, and it's pretty much when a mature-looking deer comes by, I mean, it's game on. So being November 26th, he's mature, like I said, to some degree. Don't have any history with him, so there ain't no telling, 100%. And he got me fired up, and my heart started going, and I'm like, I'm going to shoot this one. So that's also fun, too, when you don't know a property, you don't know anything. It's almost like hunting when you don't have trail cameras or you don't have anything. You just kind of sit, and when something gets you fired up, you just shoot it. So, gosh, still can't believe I shot one.