Friday, November 11, 2011

Of Imposters and Living Life

Well, yesterday an impostor using my handle trashed the Marine Corps at Defense Tech in the opening comment. I made a couple of comments in the last couple of days in different places but nothing about the Marine Corps Birthday. [An odd honor of sorts I suppose, having the trolls take a personal interest in you.]

So while the troll with no life is trying to smear my good name, I'm on vacation and was again out at my Brother's ranch yesterday and today (got back tonight).  Last night, the 'local girls' were out early.

It was a cloudless, gorgeous evening last night (tonight we had high clouds).

Tonight, the two older doe were out so early that there was only a few feet of shadow on the oat field, and I had to move the two early birds off just to get to my stand.  They came back later with three friends and moved down the field in front of me. I kept watching the top of the field and pretty soon (almost too dark) a nice buck came out. He scraped the ground and ran his antlers into some low branches and proceeded to move towards my position almost on a bee line.


He's that spot at the top of the field (sorry about the poor quality, but it was so dark I had the camera on 'aperature priority' and had to snap a quick one so I could have my rifle ready before he got too close.). He veered straight down the field towards the doe such that his line took him even to my position. As he approached, I decided he was the same pretty boy I saw last Saturday night pacing a doe in the same place, only tonight I could ID him as the non-typical 10-point (Eastern count) that has been showing up on my Brother's game cameras.

He looks like an 'eight' but he has nice little double brow tines. Nice buck, but next year (if he makes it) he might be a 'great' buck --his peak is yet to come. This guy worked his way down in front of me no more than thirty yards out. About the time he pulled even the wind from behind me picked up, and he caught some of my scent. He couldn't locate me, but he knew he didn't like me very much and after giving me a left view, a front view, and a right view, he decided to pull out fast - back to whence he came. It was a great show tonight. Thanks Brother B!

P.S. I'm looking for something more along the lines of a mature 'Hard Eight' or another mature buck that's showing up in the cameras. Meet Mr. Midnight:

3 comments:

Solomon said...

so glad to hear this....i was about to shoot flames but i reread that post a couple of times and figured that the wording didn't seem right so i pulled a post flaming you on it.

glad i did.

glad i was wrong.

oh and down south that 'soft' eight is what we call meat on the table.

save me some backstrap.

SMSgt Mac said...

Not a problem.
RE: Meat on the table.
It is a long season, and as my brother quoted a guy last night before I pulled out. "If you shoot all your good deer, you'll never shoot a great one." This year I'm focusing on quality over quantity, which is a good thing since my Brother limits the hunting to a few people every year (and we have a big family). The rut is just really getting underway here and with a little more rain, come December that oat field will be the only large unfenced forage for miles. I expect to have plenty of opportunities to get one of the big boys that will come cruising through to compete for the local girls. Afterwards, I'll finish my AR hand help my Brother out with a burgeoning feral pig problem.

Dave said...

Good luck. Lots to do when you get back to work.