There is nothing like slipping into a deer stand in the stillness before daylight. The woods are still asleep and there is hardly any movement. I spent the good part of a week hunting the woods of Western Kentucky. My stand was located on a ridge surrounded by a horseshoe bottom.
The hardwoods had dropped most of their leaves and any movement was amplified by the crunch of footprints on the forest floor. One morning just before daylight I could hear movement in the right bottom and was unsure what was out there. A few moments later I heard the squeals of a rabbit that had been caught. As daylight moved upon my ridge I saw the predator, a coyote had found his prey and was slipping back to his cover. Shortly after seeing the coyote the woods began to come alive, the reason was the sun was rising above the ridge behind me. Its funny how when the sun comes up it wakes up everything, even the wind starts to blow. I could hear roosters crowing, dogs barking and the squirrels began hitting the ground all around me.
From my stand I can see a rodeo bull farm about 100 yards in front at the bottom of the ridge. It's made up of large grazing fields filled with wooded bottoms. Many times during the week I would see bucks chasing does across the huge field. I had a chance to see a pretty good bull fight, and these are some huge bulls, it was quality entertainment.
We had 6 hunters on the property and saw many good bucks during the week. In the end we were unable to close the deal and take the kind of mature buck we were looking for. The group had out 4 game cameras for over a month and had several deer that made the hit list. Hopefully some of these bucks will make it through the year and be that much bigger next season.
Picture of a good 10 Pt. at Joe's stand.
Picture of a big body 8 Pt. from George's (Dad's) camera.
Questions or Comments
Shelby Byrd
