Friday, October 28, 2011 pm Romance

Friday, October 28, 2011, Temp 52 degrees, Wind S-SW 5-7 mph, partly cloudy, Sunset 6:06 pm, Hunting closes 6:36 pm. Nate an I drove down to Copper after the morning hunt. We stopped at the Swing Inn for a burger, the headed on down. We check the 3 cameras (Rock Out's batteries were dead) and nothing really peaked our interest. We thought it would be best to head back to Romance and try our luck there. We each took a quick shower and headed out. I took Hairy and went up to the Sherpa and Nate decided that he was going to hunt to the west point on the edge of the big corn field. It is really more of a gun stand, but the deer really seem to be using it as a food source. It is an old wood ladder stand and a bit exposed (you are on 10 feet up in the air) but he cannot do any worse than we did this morning. Today is the one year anniversary of me shooting my 10 pointer from Everest and Haag shooting his 200" beast in Waushara County, WI. After my steep climb, I was all set up by 3:45 pm. At 5:25 pm, I could hear something walking from the west down hill from me. I just caught a glimpse of some "bone." He walked by about 100 yards to the south of me. I was able to grunt and bleat him back up towards me. He was a small fork horn. He ended up walking back through to the west about 40 yards away. I did get some video of him. I tried to get him to turn and see my decoy, but I could hear another deer coming from where I had first seen him. He must have seen that deer that was downhill and he trotted off 2 join him. No complaints. Finally some action. At 5:35 pm, it really started getting interesting. I heard something coming from straight west of me. It was a really nice 11 pointer, heavy, but a fairly narrow spread. He was grunting and stopped at a licking branch 50 yards away. He kept coming across at got to 10 yards away. I got some great video. Unfortunately he was quartering towards me and in the brush. He was very tempting, but at this time I didn't think that I would have shot him. He was locked on Hairy, stopped in the brush just short of my shooting lane. The use of a decoy may have hurt me tonight. Just as I was getting ready (I decided if he offered me a good shot I was going to take it) the wind swirled, he spooked and took off. I need to look at the video and see. Regardless, he was a very mature buck on the move during shooting hours. I am glad we came back to Romance. Totals: Bob - 2 deer, 2 Bucks. (One was 140")