We took off at 2am on Saturday morning for the 3.5 hour drive to Theobald Farms in Barneveld, WI. We picked up a sleepy Chris at his place in Madison, stopped at the PDQ and then finished the drive, arriving at 5:30 am with plenty of time to hit the woods. Our hunting party consisted of Bob, Chris and Devon Vater & Gary and James Maurer.
Jen's dad had taken the time to sight in my 20 gauge to within two inches of center so you can imagine how upset I was when I tripped over a log on the way out and sent it flying across the gravel field road. Assuming my scope was now off, I didn't look forward to missing a big deer in the morning and probably would have to take some time in the afternoon to sight the gun back in.
At about 7:30 I noticed a pair of deer descending the ravine on the opposite side of the stand I was in. They were coming down a draw to the bottom of the ravine so I put my scope on them and prepared for them to exit the other side of the trees. They didn't show so I assumed they were headed back up the hill at another angle that would take them right past Jen's Dad. No sooner had I made that assumption than "Bang!" and then "Bang!". Typically a delay between two shots means that Dad shot both deer. I watched the ravine for any movement and then sure enough, one of the deer was coming back down from the other side. It was making a beeline for the washed out gully that sat below the stand I was in. I scoped the deer, whistled once, which caused it to stop in its tracks and then, Bang! I had one two. Both turned out to be yearling bucks, but two hours after the hunt began, we had two deer down.
I called Chris on his cellphone for assistance and while he was walking back towards me, he kicked up a doe and took a shot. He had hit it but it crossed over the line fence into the neighbor's property. We went back and got my truck to pick up the deer we had and drove back to where Dad was waiting with them. As we cleared the knoll where he was sitting, there was another deer, a doe, standing twenty yards in front of him. Dad had his gun up but the deer saw the truck coming and took off. That was unlucky. We got permission from the owner to follow the deer and did so. We kicked it up a couple of times and couldn't get a fair shot. It would have a limp but it would survive so we went back to Theobald's to take our deer into town and register them.
Upon returning for a bit of snacks and drinks, we found out from Devon that shortly after we arrived in our various stands, Devon had six or more deer run right past his stand but it was so dark in the woods, you could only see silhouettes. Kudos to Devon for making the right, safe choice and not shooting. Those deer ran down the trail out onto the flat where they followed the creek to another hunter on the farm who dropped the last deer in the group, a monster nine point buck. We did get to see it when they brought it back up to the farm and it was nice. Dale said there were atleast four bigger than that around so we raced back out to the woods.
The afternoon was fairly uneventful, Dad took shots at some more does that ran past him but they ran off as well. When Chris asked why he wasn't waiting for the big buck that typically follows the does, Dad said he hadn't met a deer he wouldn't want to shoot at. After a fairly lengthy conversation about patience, selection and jerky we came to realize that Dad probably wouldn't be seeing any big bucks this weekend. Devon had three does run past him on Squirrel Hill but he didn't see them in time to take a shot as he claims they were running really fast (and that he wasn't sleeping)
We hunted Sunday morning until about 10 am and saw nothing. We pushed the ridge and didn't kick up a deer. James' dad saw nothing all week, but he had gotten two deer on our last trip in October. There was a young kid, about Chris' age hunting over the fence from Jen's dad's position, launching shells like they were going out of style but no deer presented itself on our side of the fence. We packed up and headed home with the two deer we had and arrived back in Centerville by 2:30 in the afternoon. Thanks Dale, Arlene & Fred!
Pictures to come.
