tree . Quickly we discussed a plan . I was going to follow the edge of a shale slide right in on the tree where he lay . Lee was going to circle below and let the deer wind him . The deer would stand and hopefully give me a shot . Wasting no time we made our move . Step by step I slowly worked down the hill . The hot summer wind was perfect and covering the noise of my footsteps up . My heart was pounding as I pulled my range finder from its case , 14.3 yards . I sat ready waiting for the deer to stand . Suddenly the giant buck flew from his bed in one giant leap . Unable to get a shot I stood up and seen my partner down the hill below me . We both knew where we went wrong , we should have sat on this deer all day and let him make the mistake . We decided to head for camp and come out for a later hunt this evening .
The heat slowly began to let up and it was fixing to be a good night of summer bow hunting . We decided to return to where spooked that mature buck earlier in the day in hopes of finding him again . We watched a buck feed out from a thick pocket of brush . We decided this buck needed to be hunted . Using a few trees and brush lines I was going to work the
cover to close the distance . There are some stalks that feel wrong and some that feel right and this one was in my favor . The brush was tall and easy for moving in . I turned and looked back and seen the glare off the lens of the spotting scope . I smiled to myself and felt thankful to have such great friends to share this passion of mine with . The deer was moving right toward me around 80 yards out . I would only move when he moved . Every so often he would lift his head and look
around seeming alerted . The wind wasn ’ t perfect and could have been swirling at times towards him . Then he would casually return to feeding . Light levels were getting less and less and I was becoming nervous I was going to run out of time . He came out from behind a large sagebrush and stopped with his vitals barely visible between the two large bushes . The low light levels were causing my range finder to not read , click --- click --- finally 44.4 yds . As I prepared to draw he took one step and disappeared . Back at camp that night we laughed at our failures and couldn ’ t believe how close we got multiple times that opening day . Around the fire we talked about plans for the next morning .
Earlier in the summer we had placed a tree stand in a draw where the deer were consistently on a day to day basis . Like most bow hunters I ’ d most definitely rather spot and stalk a deer than tree stand one . There was a big buck that lived in this draw with some extra points that I would love to harvest and sitting that stand was a good method . With my head lamp beam shining the way , I made my way to the tree and into the stand . Patience is the true test to this method of hunting and for me it was a new game I ’ d never hunted this way .
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