I was able to make a trip to a good friend of mines place in GA Wednesday the 28th after work. This is supposed to be an annual deal but the scheduling just hasn't worked the past two years. Anyway, the weather for Thursday morning sucked and I saw 5 deer. A couple of does and one nice 3yr old half rack buck pictured here
With cold weather moving in I thought the afternoon might be good. I was shown two tc pics of bucks that frequent the area, one to shoot and one they wanted to give one more year. You can guess which buck stepped out. He was a beautiful 4yr old that chased does all afternoon. I ended up seeing 14 deer total. Here he is through my binos
Friday morning was good, but not great. I saw several deer and a couple of nice 2 and 3 year old bucks but nothing to ever pic the gun up. Here is a crappy bino pic of the best buck I saw
Friday afternoon it was cold, so I got in the stand early. At around 3 I had a beautiful 3yr old ten step out and eat corn for an hour or more. He's really going to be a buck to watch out for. Here he is as im watching him 300 yards down the road.
After a while I began seeing deer after deer, buck after buck. At 5 I had a lone doe step out 300 yards away. I could see a buck behind her, but couldn't tell what he was. Finally, it was what I came here for. The man, he walks behind her up to 200 in a broom sage field offering nothing but a head on shot. Here is his TC pic
Shortly after I saw the other guy I was after but was heart broken when he faced me and I saw his left side was completely gone
By dark I had seen 25 bucks and 35 deer total. Including this beautiful 8 that has been passed all year
Saturday morning we surrounded the area hoping for "the big 8" at daylight he is standing on the corn 300 yards from me. I can see him and so can my buddy mike who has his 5yr old son with him. I asked mike to please take the shot. He did as I was watching through my scope. His son was fired up as we all were. Once we found him Mikes son finished him off with a BB gun shot from his Red Ryder right behind the shoulder. It was a great moment. Here his is
About 30 minutes after mike shot I saw a buck we call "moe" he crossed the road at 250 doing the buck walk and I saw him for only a second. He was a beast. My buddy Matt went back that afternoon since I had to leave and killed moe. He was aged at 5.5
It was an absolutely incredible weekend with me never firing a shot. I can't wait until next year.
On a side note, my friends bought this place back in 07. At the end of the season in 09 they invited all the neighboring clubs over for a cookout and pitched the idea of a co-op between all clubs. My friends own less than 1000 acres and where I saw all these bucks was on less than 500. They were able to get an incredible response to the co-op idea with one simple idea. To let bucks 3.5 and younger walk, nothing else. The co-op started with 5 clubs at 6000 acres, today its pushing 30,000 acres under the same management plan, with some clubs having stricter rules. In 09 the biggest buck killed in the co-op that year was 121". This year, there have been 10 over 150" and one 170". Letting deer walk really is an incredible thing, especially when your neighbors do the same.
Hope y'all enjoyed the post as much as I did experiencing it.
Thanks
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