I had probably hunted the spot eight times or so without seeing the two bucks I was after. Trail camera pictures from summer and early fall revealed daylight movement of one brute nine point in particular, and an eleven point had shown recently. On a post-season scouting mission I had discovered the heavy bedding area the year prior and prepped to hunt it, and the mock scrapes I had established in mid-summer were getting a lot of attention.
Still, it’s a timing game and when October 1st rolled around I thought the data aligned well for a surgical strike. By far your best chance at a buck is the first time in, and on public land you have to walk a razor’s edge between timing it perfectly, beating other hunters, and being overly aggressive and blowing it out yourself. Last year I had achieved the first, but this year possibly the later. I usually don’t give a spot more than two hunts, but many things aligned to tell me this spot might be different. Deer were still using the small overlooked thicket, but it seemed every time I hunted nothing was hitting the scrapes, with deer staying just out of sight but still within hearing range. Wearing out a spot is never your best bet, so I knew a smart adjustment was in order.
I began by scouting the perimeter at midday over a period of several days, careful to use the wind to my advantage. Thinking the two bucks possibly bedded nearby or within the confines of the thicket, I was looking for telltale signs of a slightly better angle to catch them in daylight – namely with new fresh rubs or scrapes with big tracks. I didn’t find either of these. Plan B was to find a different access point to hunt the densest part of the thicket, the two acre eastern edge where I had heard most of the activity from my previous hunts. A narrow corridor with worn trails between that and another thicket to the east was the perfect setup to give the bucks the feeling of security, and oddly enough it happened to be where I had a stand about eight years prior (which I hadn’t realized was just off the bedding area I had been hunting). Around noon on a Friday in mid October I made two mock scrapes where these trails converged just outside the heavily used bedding area I knew well, and set a trail camera to monitor and see if the bucks were truly still active there. Would the micro adjustment to my hunting plan be enough to seal the deal? I was set to find out the next night as hordes of hunters piled into the public hunting land.
It wasn’t particularly cool, around sixty degrees as I packed my jacket, sticks, and platform on my back and attached the saddle to my waist for the 400 yard walk to my tree. This spot was definitely not deep, but definitely overlooked – so far. That’s the thing on public land, one day and one hunter can change all that. The two other cars parked in the lot didn’t make me feel great about that, but I had a good inclination that this location still had the characteristics that I chose it for – it did not stick out and was largely unimpressive until you actually hunted it. I had envisioned shooting a big buck at my prior location all fall, but when hunting heavily pressured areas it pays to not box yourself in and pre-decide exactly where it will all happen. A lot of perception today is that you have to go deep to find the deer, and that leads many people right past great spots like this, and I was banking on that this particular evening.
Swirling winds and exceptionally dry conditions made the leaves crunching underfoot painfully loud, sounding like bags of crisp potato chips with each step. The last 100 yards I slowed to a crawl, utilizing the occasional winds to mask my sound and take several steps when I could. I was almost there and just outside the looming dark black thicket, which was so thick little sunlight made it to the forest floor inside.
As I approached 40, then 30, and then 20 yards a deer jumped up from the area I had made mock scrapes and bounded into the cover. I was sure it hadn’t smelled me, so I continued on my course and slowly climbed my tree to get settled in for the evening hunt. A snort jerked me to attention half way up the towering maple, as I the doe I had booted was barely inside the brush and didn’t like what she was seeing or smelling from within. The winds had switched and were blowing dead into the bedding area, and this was not good. But in these conditions, especially when you’re so close to where the deer are living, this exact scenario is highly likely to happen. You just have to trust your preparation in scent control and the element of surprise to see you through. Although painfully slowly, I reached my height of twenty plus feet above the fresh scrapes directly in front of me. I’d made my surgical intrusion.
About twenty minutes later the sound of a consistent gate through the leaves drew my attention to the left. Legs came into view, and they led whatever deer they belonged to into the bedding thicket. A few grunts and then pulling up my binoculars revealed an immature six point, which then skirted to my right and emerged into the small opening I was hunting. As I watched a smaller noise got my attention to my left and into the thicket, so I looked back. A tall, mature-bodied seven point buck stood just in the clear looking in my direction. This was not one of the biggest, but I recognized him from trail camera pictures and now seeing him on the hoof knew that he met my criteria in Michigan – he was a shooter. He turned away and I quickly drew, but with only a small window opted to let him continue into the waist high brush left of me where I could only watch. He began to nibble browse and then racked some small saplings just 25 yards away.
All I could do was wait and see if he made his way in front of me into one of my few small shooting lanes. Several minutes passed, and he casually and comfortably took a little step at a time toward me, eventually putting his nose in my fresh mock scrape. It was then I knew the shot would happen, and it was definitely not how I had envisioned it the whole summer and fall leading up to this moment. As he took two more steps into a slight opening in the brush, I drew and launched my arrow through the cooling autumn air, sending the buck quickly bounding back into the dark safety of the thicket he called home. Silence fell over the woods, and with the nock glowing in the dirt and leaves below, I waited.
And I waited all night. Unsure of my hit and not hearing him crash, I knew waiting until morning would be my ally. I picked up the blood trail at dawn only to find a meandering track that doubled back and then cut across a wide open stretch of timber. Down to a speck, a couple friends in camp joined as we leap frogged from one speck of blood to the next, eventually finding him bedded not 150 yards away where I finished him off with a final shot. A truly wild, unpredicted, unforeseen end to my months of planning and envisioning.
As our trio carted the large-bodied buck back to our camp, several things came to mind that ring true whether you hunt private or public, and which are good reminders when hunting in ever-changing landscapes like pressured areas of Michigan. First, it’s easy to pre-decide like I had, or have a strong emotion to where and how you’ll take a certain deer. Trail cameras probably make this worse as we know more about the existence of deer than ever before. However, just like in my case, many times you just don’t see the deer you’re after or someone else catches up with him first. This is why it’s important to consider having criteria to help make decisions, not pre-deciding on certain deer or even circumstances in which you’ll take them.
In my case, that’s a three year old buck in Michigan, and this buck met that criteria and had a unique and heavy rack to boot. Second I was reminded to just read the sign, not project. Again, what the deer are actually doing matters the most, even if you don’t have a plan for it – adjust. In my case my pre-prepped stand location and monitored mock scrapes was the perfect setup and the deer agreed, that is until archery season hit. Then the observations told me the action was a bit further east, and it took me longer than it should have to make the micro adjustment I needed to make. Yes, I can admit that. Trying to think more objectively, not emotionally helps you keep up with, or better yet stay ahead of the deer and is essential to be able to do. And yes, don’t be afraid, and definitely be ready to make micro-adjustments on the fly to seal the deal. Sometimes a slight change, like my move to the other side of the interior bedding area can make all the difference.
