Wednesday, October 29, 2025 am.

Wednesday, October 29, 2025 am Sunrise 7:34 am. Hunting opens at 7:04 am. Temperature 41 degrees. Wind: N-NE 10-15 mph. Mostly sunny. I drove down last night after dropping Charley off at hockey practice to Copper Creek. Steve was already down here. I ended up getting here around 7:15 pm. After a good nights rest, I decided to give the north side field ladder stand a try. Steve is meeting the managed forest guy at 9:00 am to tour the property, so I knew I would only be sitting until 11:00 or so. At 8:15 am, I looked to the south and there was a small doe 80 yards away going from east to west. At 9:00 am, I saw 2 fawns in the same place I had seen the doe earlier. I decided to pull out my grunt tube to see if I could get them to come closer and hopefully bring along a good buck. At 9:01 am, I looked to my left and the was a nice tall 8 pointer coming into the water station. It rained last night, so I was not able to hear him until he was on top of me. I decided it was too good of opportunity to pass. I quickly drew my bow, settled my pin and hit the release while he was taking a drink. He took off to the SW. I waited 15 minutes and snuck down to grab my arrow. It was a pass through. There was a bunch of hair and some blood, so I backed out. Kurt has a camera on the water hole and got video of the whole encounter. We looked at the video, and the buck dropped about a foot at the shot and I hit him a little high. I gave him 3 hours before I went to look. I did find a pretty good blood trail for the first 150-175 yards and then it disappeared. So bummed. I put a call into a drone guy that has thermal technology, so I am hoping to hear back from him. Totals: 4 deer. 3 does and 1 buck. https://share.icloud.com/photos/03aMOzFtrPrqk-qtN4t_3R2DQ