Been an interesting year to say the least. From Oct 9th to the 15th two of us went 8 hours north to hunt moose on a relatively remote river paddling 60 miles over 4 days. Only seen 2 cows and a calf and 1 dead bull shot earlier in the season. Way too warm in my opinion as we should have had some cold weather to get them moving/rutting. The plus, no issues and we got to see lots of beautiful country!
Then on to deer season. Up here it goes all of Sep-Nov but I don't usually start until November when its colder and usually snowy.......not to be the case this year! I put in a few solid days walking/sitting and only seen a couple of bucks but no shots presented. Only seen a handful of does/fawns too which is unusual. The last two winters were absolutely brutal so I think they winter killed off some.
A co-worker hadn't tagged out yet so the two of us decided to head to a friends trapping cabin for our last 1 1/2 days of hunting then we were done for the season. The cabin is off the beaten path accessible only by boat or ATV so hunting pressure is lighter up there. On Saturday morning we fired up the ATV's and we went our separate ways, him the South line and me the North line. Cell reception is sketchy at best up there so we agreed to meet for lunch at noon at a well known corner in the trail system. After BS'ing for a bit at noon with us both only seeing a few does in the morning we went our separate ways again. Around 2:30 I stopped the ATV and sat in a part of the trail that looked promising. I spotted a heavy 5 x 5 crossing the trail about 100 yards away but it was moving fast and offered no shot. I said what the heck and let out a bunch of loud grunts and whacked the rattle bag a few times to see if it would show itself. Almost immediately a buck came skidding to a stop from the bush 75' away from me on the trail. It took me by surprise but I sealed the deal quickly which dropped him right on the trail. I'm confident this wasn't the same deer as I'd seen. Time, 2:35. This one is a nice 4 x 5 with dark colored beams so typical of bush bucks up here. I took out my phone and I had cell service! Then I seen that my buddy also had cell service and he had shot a buck at 2:20 and to not bother coming if I was busy. I sent him a pic of my buck and said yep, busy. We both had to leave our deer and go get our tub trailers at the cabin. I was just over 3 miles and I think he was the same....we turned out to be about 5 miles apart as the crow flies. His buck is a heavy 4 x 4 that rough scored 143"....a very nice buck indeed. I haven't put a tape to mine yet but should be ~135"...definitely a nice deer!
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Watching him thru the sight, for a second I thought I could wing it without the dot, but I didn't want track a clumsily wounded deer. Came home, swapped batteries and the dot worked, so obviously a bad battery.
Originally Posted by fabiodriven
