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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