After a rough first half of the season, James Squires (WIarcher) scored on a nice Wisconsin 10 point on 10-30-06. Not long after daylight on his Peppin County lease, James noticed a familiar buck coming from a saddle on the bluff above. James immediately recognized the buck as one he'd tried calling in a week prior but couldn't seal the deal. The rut-ridden buck nosed his way to the twenty yard mark when James zipped a carbon arrow through his shoulders. The buck ran back uphill and soon bedded down within sight. To James' dismay the buck then got back up and dissapeared. After a two or three hour wait the beauty was found piled up against a fence straight down the bluff from where he bedded. Congrats James - You've earned it.
Up until a week or so ago I was seeing quite a few small bucks and a couple does. One of which I managed to harvest and do my part in keeping the doe population down. The next day my daughter Layne and I went into the slough and found her.
Lately though, I've been getting skunked more often than not. It seems that for some reason the deer just don't want to move much during daylight hours. I don't know how many times while packing up after dark I've had deer finally come out of their bedding area's and walk directly underneath me. But of course, it's too dark to even see them. Oh well, that's hunting - right? The good news is that in three more days I'm back on vacation and will be hitting it hard. You've gotta keep on keepin on.
Crazy Dan and I stayed with Andrae this weekend. We hunted some public ground and Andrae hunted his lease.
Saturday morning Dan and I returned from scouting to find Andrae's truck backed up to his garage. "Hmmm... I wonder if he got that buck!" I said to Dan as we pulled up. Friday night Andrae had been showing us trail cam pics of a buck he'd nicknamed the "Tuning Fork" Buck. We guessed him around 180". He's a mainframe 10 with matching split G-4's that look like tuning forks. This would be the deer Andrae was targeting on his lease.
"Dood (Dan's spelling)....there's a rack sticking out of the truck bed! He got him!"
"You're kidding," I shot back, assuming Dan was yanking my chain as usual. But a glance at his expression quickly told me he wasn't joking. I turned to see a giant rack sticking above the truck bed.
"Holy Crap, he did get him!"
Andrae's Tuning Fork buck grosses 197" and will net in the high 170's. It's his 6th net Boone and Crockett buck by bow, a record. Andrae captured it all on video himself so be looking for his story on a future episode of Lone Wolf's Whitetail Addictions.
As for Dan and I... well, we had a couple run-ins (nothing negative) with others hunting the public which pretty much messed up our hunts. We saw some small bucks and several does. Better things to come in Illinois...
