This is the month in which Antlers will begin to shed velvet on whitetail bucks here in the Northeast. These bucks are for the most part nocturnal. I reflect and tell my hunter friends that whitetail bucks are most vulnerable to the hunter during New Hampshire’s Bow and Muzzle Loader season in early November. I took a few nice bucks a while back in southern NH on opening day of Muzzle Loader season. One of the bucks, I called with a grunt call and rattled him in too.
I had pre-scouted the area and new there was lots of deer activity. It was the early November, I entered the woods in the pitch black. Today I use a headlamp and swear by them. The air was still and the woods were silent. I could hear me breathing shallow with my heart beat captured within it. I took my time feeling the ground with my feet. Leaves are falling here and there as photons of light began to create a blue purple horizon. The earth smells of musty oak, moss and sweet acorns amid the pungent spruce give way to my mouth salivating with a desire to drink the forest floor for its kaleidoscope of fragrances. Near my hunting spot, I just remained quiet and still looking and listening to the sound of birds and morning arriving.
I had a back-pack with a small pair of rattling antlers. Around my neck was a grunt call that was mid-tone no tube attached. I have heard deep low grunts from man-made calls and do not like them. Cripe-sakes, you’d think Godzilla buck made that sound. So my thought was to tell the local deer population that I am small size buck on the prowl for a hot doe. A larger buck would step in to chase me off. I would occasionally grunt softly once or twice every five minutes hoping that a nearby larger buck would want to check me out. As it turns out a doe came toward me and froze as she identified me as human. She swapped ends and walked away watching me over her back.
This was my chance, I thought to do a tending grunt sequence like, grunt, step, grunt and step as if I were tending the doe. At that same moment I took out the small antlers and after 5 minutes or so I began to tine tick and fuss like 2 lesser bucks. Adrenaline was pumping as I believed that anything could happen like a buck charging in. I believed with all my being that I had the mojo of the moment but for several minutes I just sat in silence taking it all in.
Like magic, a dandy 8 point buck appeared at 25 to 30 yards and walking right at me. He swaggered toward me intent on a battle to chase off the lesser bucks messing with his doe. He had to negotiate a small tree in his path and gave me a shoulder shot with my 54 cal. I raised and fired just as he cleared the small tree.
Smoke bellowed everywhere. I got on my knees to look under the smoke but no buck!
I have told this story before but not with the idea of mimicking a lesser buck which is important. I marked my position and moved forward to where I thought the buck stood. A tree behind the buck was covered with blood. Got him, my mind thought! The buck jumped to the left his tracks tell me, and made it about 30 yards and piled up. It was a great day for me in the deer woods! By the time I got the deer gutted and to the road it was around 65 degrees and noon time. A hunter near his truck gave me and the buck a ride to my vehicle. The buck was not huge but respectable as an 8 pointer. Gonna want to do that again this fall! We shall see!
© 2016