The morning air was cold and crisp as my oldest son, Tripp and I headed into the darkness toward the swamp bottoms to our destination. I had high expectations for this morning, especially for Tripp, as the morning before set a plan in motion for the current hunt. We finally reached the path that would separate us for the morning and we did our usual “good luck” routine. I headed deeper to a stand that has captured some good bucks on camera this season, and Tripp was on his way to a ground blind that I had built in 1992.

Wading through the knee deep water in the dark is quite a task when your age starts slipping up on you. My footing is not quite as stable as it use to be, but I made it to the stand without embarrassment. We got in our stands well before daylight, which gave me time to reflect on yesterday’s morning hunt. I was sitting the ground blind which now was occupied by Tripp, and had a shooter buck get past me at 7:20am. Not just any shooter buck, but a deer we called Bone Head. A little while later I saw a couple of doe’s moving quickly from a bedding area and saw the buck again as he pushed them towards a swamp bottom.

I jumped this buck out of his bed this past August. He ran out in front of me less than 20 yards and quickly disappeared into a standing corn field. I moved on so that he would settle down and gave Tripp a call to let him know what I had seen. The name Bone Head seemed to fit because of the tine length and mass that his rack carried. On September 1^st, we captured Bone Head on one of our camera’s far from the field and down in the swamp bottom. We never saw the buck again and he avoided our cameras, so we were not sure if he was still around.

Tripp needed to leave early so we were texting each other about what was going on and he told me to sit a little longer. I caught movement out in front of me and saw the buck again as he came by pushing the group of does. About an hour passed when I saw a doe step out 60 yards in front of me. Then two more stepped out, but one of them appeared to be very nervous. That is when I saw Bone Head. He was close to me but angling towards the group. I could see part of his rack and his legs, but because of the dense underbrush, I could never make out the body. The doe’s spooked and ran off to my right and the buck followed without ever offering a shot. Man I am glad that it happened this way.

That night, Tripp and I discussed where we would hunt the following morning. I told him that I thought he needed to sit the ground blind and I would sit a stand across a small cut over that ran between the pine ridge where I saw the buck, and a swamp bottom.

The morning light started filtering in through the swamp bottom as I scanned the surrounding area for any sign of movement.  Time passed and it was now 7:30am. I had already seen the shooter buck yesterday morning by this time and was wondering if Tripp had seen anything yet. I knew that with the full moon coming in, the last rut was on us so this would be our last opportunity to catch a mature buck at his weakest point.

At 7:40am a shot rang out from the ground blind that held Tripp’s post for the morning. Excitement started building as I held my phone in my hand waiting for some type of response. The response never came so I texted him to find out the result of the shot. Time seemed to stand still as I waited for his response, but it finally came. He had shot the buck, but it ran out of his line of sight so he wasn’t sure if the buck was down or not. I told him that I had heard a shot connection, to sit tight and give him some time, and that I would be there shortly.

Time seemed to stand still as I sat in my stand trying to give the buck some time before heading out to my son’s post. The time finally passed by and with my boots pointed in Tripp’s direction; I slipped along slowly scanning the woods where Tripp told me that the buck ran. When I got within eyesight of the ground blind, Tripp made his way out and began to recount the mornings hunt.

He had been using the bleat call and would mix in various types of grunts. About 7:35 he heard something to the left of the blind. Looking over the burlap, he saw the buck about 15 yards from his post moving to his left and heading back behind him.

He slid off of the bucket, which served as a very uncomfortable seat, and on to his knee to try and get on the buck before he got out of sight. There was a lot of brush between the buck and Tripp, so at times he would lose sight of the deer.

The buck started circling downwind of Tripp’s post and was headed towards the flag trail that leads to the blind. When the buck walked through a small opening between two pines, Tripp grunted to stop him and instantly squeezed the trigger. He saw the buck arch up, lunged forward, and out of his line of sight. He could hear the deer as it ran a short distance, then he thought that he could hear the light sound of the buck kicking on the ground.

We made our way towards the buck and found him down against a pine log with his head lying over the fallen tree. From our position, we could tell that the buck looked good, but we had no idea just how good until Tripp lifted the rack off of the forest floor. For a moment, I was speechless and that is saying allot. The buck had it all. Great mass, long tine and beam length with good space between his antlers.

The buck had grown a very symmetrical set of headgear and was very impressive to say the least. His dark chocolate antlers and dark body had all of the characteristics of a true swamp buck. To say that I was pumped would be an understatement. I had been waiting for a buck like this for my son for a long, long time. All of our years scouting, preparing, moving stands, and passing on younger bucks had finally paid off in a big way with a great buck for my son.

After finding this buck last August and 15 minutes later placing a phone call to Tripp, who would have known that he would end up taking this Lowcountry trophy three months later?  I am thankful that I was never presented a shot on this deer, and that Tripp was finally able to place his hands around the antlers of his first book buck.

I had great anticipation as I headed to meet my guest this morning. I was meeting Mark and his son, Seth, for the first time and Seth was hunting for his first deer.  I had scouted for the past two weeks and had planned on putting them in a ground blind for the morning hunt, followed by a box blind for the evening hunt. When I pulled up to our meeting place, my guest was there and waiting for me.  After the introductions, we headed to my lease three miles down the road.

After getting dressed and all of our gear together, we made our way through the darkness and down into the swamp.  I lead the way to the ground blind and left my new friends with high hopes of hearing the young man’s gun sometime during the morning. The blind which they were sitting was located on a pine ridge between two swamp bottoms. It has always been a good place for bedding and a prime area for bucks to make scrapes. I headed to a stand at the edge of a swamp that had produced a buck for me a couple of day’s ago.

The air was crisp and there was not much wind.  The time passed quickly and was now time for us to meet back up. I never heard Seth’s gun go off, so I was beating myself up pretty good as my foot found the forest floor below my stand. My mind was on Mark and his son as I turned towards their position and never saw the buck heading my way until it was too late. We saw each other at the same time and he stood for a second then turned and pitched off through the saw palmetto.

After meeting back up with Mark and Seth I learned that they had seen a few deer, but were unable to connect because of low light conditions. We headed out to get some lunch to build our energy for the evening hunt. Spending time with Mark and Seth was enjoyable. Watching their close father/son relationship reminded me of my two boys when they were Seth’s age. This warmed my heart and soul, and I considered it a privilege to have them here hunting with me.

We wasted no time in getting our lunch down and were ready to start our evening hunt. The stand that they would be sitting for the evening was located on a pine ridge between a beaver swamp, and an acorn hill. My son and I had planted a food plot there during the summer that held grain sorghum, soybeans, iron clay peas, and cow peas. The stand had only been hunted one time prior to this hunt and I felt pretty confident that they would see deer. I headed back to the bow stand in the swamp. It was around 1:30pm before we got into the stand, so we were in for a long hunt.

As the sun started lowering behind the trees, I heard a distant shot on one of the surrounding farms, and knew that the deer were up and feeding. About 15 minutes had passed when I heard a shot ring out from the direction of Mark and Seth’s stand. My heart started to race and I wanted to climb down to see if they were able to connect, but knew that I had to hold tight until dark. My hunt was basically over as I could not concentrate on my hunt because of the excitement building each minute for Seth’s success.

When darkness finally fell in the swamp, I made my way quickly to the truck, to find out what had happened. When I reached the truck I could hear my phone ringing, and when I answered I heard the very excited and proud voice of Mark on the other end. Seth had connected with a good mature doe and they were waiting for me to pick them up.

When the lights of my truck hit my friends, all that I could see was the smiling faces of two happy hunters. Handshakes, back slaps, and hugs followed the next few minutes as Mark and Seth recounted the evenings hunt. Seth had made a great shot on a large doe and was now in the special group of people called deer hunters.

After the tag was placed on the deer, we loaded it into Marks truck for the long trip back to their home. The old saying “we meet as strangers but leave as friends” was very true on this day. It was my pleasure to be able to be a part of this very special hunt, and to be in the company of two great and caring people. For a 12 year old, Seth did an outstanding job. He had sat for over eight hours in the stand, overcame deer fever, and made a shot that would put most adults to shame. The day proved to be one to remember.

Watching someone take their first deer is far better than taking a deer yourself. Passing this great hunting heritage on to someone is a great feeling, and Mark is to be commended for doing this for his son. This hunt started out to be Mark’s hunt, but he asked to pass and let Seth take his place. I know all that were involved were glad that he did. The smiles in the picture say it all.

As they pulled out of my lease and turned towards their home, the feeling of success came over me and another memory was etched into the old memory banks, that no one will ever be able to take away.

The morning of October 16^th found me on the lease where Flare lives. He is a buck we caught on our trail camera earlier this year and was given this name because his right main beam turns slightly out to the right, and does not follow the normal sweep of the main beams. Overcast skies and a cool morning greeted me as I quickly dressed and gathered my gear. I made my way down the edge of the soybean field and turned into the small pond that held my post for the morning hunt. This stand had not been hunted this year and I was anxious to see what it might hold for me this morning.

Daylight made its way through the trees as I reached for the grunt tube. After a series of grunts, I put the call away and waited patiently for some type of response. Out in front of me a deer blew and I could hear it crashing through the dark pines to my left. This surprised me as rarely do I have a deer make me in the stand. Within seconds I heard the unmistakable sound of a buck grunting and deer running towards my post. I then realized that the deer blowing was not because of me but because of the buck that was pushing a doe. They ran past me as I held my bow at full draw, but I did not try to stop them as the buck’s rack appeared really narrow for a mature buck. I could hear the buck pushing the doe through the bean field and back into the woods.

The light had now penetrated the pond by the time they came back through, and I could now see that the buck was older than I had first thought. I tried to stop them, but they passed me in high gear. This went on for another 30 minutes, and they passed my post five times. All became quite for a few minutes when I saw the doe making her way back through the pond. As she passed my post, the buck darted around her to cut her off. I was able to stop him this time and the arrow passed through burying itself deep in the ground. The 60 yard trail was short and ended just inside the soybean field. The temperature was dropping as I loaded the buck in the truck and headed home. I wasted no time in getting the buck taken care of and headed back to one of my other leases before noon.

A light mist had started falling as I pulled up to the gate. I got dressed and headed to one of our bow stands in the swamp. By 1:30pm I was set and ready for a long stay in the wet swamp. I had laid down a scent trail and put a scent post in one of my shooting lanes. Every twenty minutes or so I sent out a series of doe bleats and followed it up with the tending grunt. Three hours had passed and I had not seen nor heard anything that even looked like a deer, but I was determined to keep my routine going.

We had trail cam pictures of several bucks in this area with one of them being a 10 point. I was just hoping for a chance at one of the mature bucks that hung around this area.  I stand the entire time while bow hunting and had been at this for over three hours now. I had just completed another series of the calls and put the call back into my pocket, when I caught movement to my right. The buck slipped past me and stood on the edge of an opening just looking straight ahead. He was blocked by some limbs but I knew that he was a shooter and never stopped my hand from finding the release hooked to the string.

He started forward then came across my scent trail. Without stopping, he hooked left and followed my trail towards the scent post. My hand found its anchor against my jaw and the pin settled just above his elbow. A light grunt stopped him as the arrow passed through and buried deep within the swamp mud. He arched high and nearly fell when he came back down. Neck stretched out low; legs spreading wide, and a low body posture confirmed what I already knew. The saw palmetto swallowed him up after a twenty yard dash then all became silent. I never moved. I just stood there listening for some type of crash, but it never came. The time was now 4:50pm. I could see my arrow sticking out of the mud and the feathers were laying flat against its shaft; a good sign.

After a while I made my way down the tree and over to inspect the arrow. From where I stood I could see the evidence left on the palmettos. Twenty five yards in I saw the white of his ear ahead of me. He was lying belly down with his head jammed under a log. It was a good feeling to be able to drag the 10 pointer that we had on our trail camera back to the road. Maybe it was the old heart pumping or the fact that I may be getting stronger with age but his 195lb weight didn’t seem that heavy to me. October 16^th had been good to me again for it was one year to the date that I took a 134” buck in this same swamp. Can anyone guess where I will be on the 16^th of October in 2010?

     This is the third and final part of the series about scrape and rub line hunting. I will try to finish where we ended in part 2 with identifying types of rubs, what they can tell you as a hunter, and which of these methods have given me more success over the years. Again, all of this information is based on my years of hunting, scouting, experimenting, and studying the habits of whitetails. Others may have different opinions, but these are my thoughts.

     You are in the woods scouting when you happen to spot a rub. You walk over to check it out and you see another, and then another. From where you stand you can see multiple rubs scattered all around you. There is no pattern to them, they are just everywhere. What did you just find? I am asked this question quite often. I call them cluster rubs.

     Cluster rubs are normally found in one of two places; staging areas close to a food source, and buck bedding areas. First, let’s discuss the staging area rubs. As the season progresses into the rut and on to December, you can find these types of rubs close to food sources. During the rut, a buck will hit these areas and just hang around waiting for a doe to appear. While he is waiting for this to happen, he will take out his frustration on the surrounding trees. After the rut, bucks will hang out in these areas waiting for the cover of darkness to venture out to feed. Most of these types of cluster rubs will be found close to food plots and agriculture fields, but I have also found them in acorn flats.

     The second type of cluster rubs is found near buck bedding areas. When a buck beds in a certain area, he will not just lay there until the next feeding time. He will constantly get up, move around, feed a little, and rub a tree or two. Multiply this factor by the buck using the same bedding area for a couple of weeks, and you can easily see how a cluster of rubs is born. These types of rubs are never close to feeding areas. They are found in isolated areas where a buck feels safe to bed, without being disturbed by human activity or other deer. Both staging and bedding area rubs can be hunted with success. Early morning hunts are good for bedding area rubs, while the evenings are best for the staging area type.

     What can a particular rub tell you? Sometimes there is not much information in one single rub. You may have to follow the rubs for a while to find this out. This is what I look for when following a rub line;

·         The size of the tree, as this indicates the body size and age of the buck

·         The intensity of the rub, which also indicates body size

·         Deep gouge marks in the heart of the rub can indicate sticker points between the base and g-2

·         Light gouge marks high above the heart of the rub gives you an idea on tine length

·         Trees close to the rub having light marks on one side can give you an idea of antler spread

·         A single gouge mark off to the side of the heart can indicate a kicker off of a tine or main beam

·         Bark shavings at the base of the tree to see how fresh they are

     A buck rubs a tree in the direction which he is heading. Rubs leading from feeding areas will take you to his bed. Once you find this, look for rubs leading out of the bedding area because they will lead to feeding areas, scrapes, or boundary rub lines. The rubs leading into bedding areas make for better morning stands and the ones leading to feeding areas make better evening stands.  Rubs made on both sides of the tree are good for morning and evening sets.

     So which method of hunting will produce more for you this season? I can only answer this based on my years of keeping hunting logs and your experience may very well differ from mine. If I could only hunt for 2-3 weeks a year, it would be in the pre-rut stage on a rub line close to bedding areas. I have taken some of my best bucks in their core area on early morning sets. Now I need to say that I have also taken bucks in all scrape and rub line situations that we have covered, but with limited success. I have made mock scrapes in the past and have had good success with them. As I stated in part 1 of this series, I harvested my largest typical with this method, but it was a rub line that put me in that position to make this happen.

     I have also made mock rubs in the past by taking the bark off of a tree and applying a buck’s gland scent to the trunk, to have a dominant buck take over the mock rub. I have cut the overhanging limbs off of scrape lines, leaving only the ones that offered good stand approach and placements. There have been times when none of the scrapes found made for good stand sites, so I would cut off all the overhanging limbs. Then I would move the limb that had the most active scrape and tie it to another low hanging limb that offered a better stand placement. Under this new limb I would rake the ground underneath, pour in a mixture of buck urine and doe in estrus scent, and then mix this into the ground. The limb which I attached carries the tear duct and saliva scent, which is why it is important to attach it to the new limb.

     As you can see, there are many methods of hunting scrape and rub lines. This three part series just barely scratches the surface of both methods, as a book could be written on both subjects. The long and short of this is that I have had more success hunting rub lines than scrape lines.

     Hopefully there has been something brought out in this series that will help someone understand the meaning of scrapes and rubs, that will help bring success this season. Take this information with you and find out for yourself which one will produce more for you; scrape or rub lines?

     In this second part of hunting scrape and rub lines, I will try to explain the different types of rubs and their meanings based on my hunting experience. Again, these are my personal observations and may very well go against any observations made by others.

     First let’s start with the early season rubs. I have found these as early as late July and they are normally made on small saplings. These early rubs can tell you a couple of things. The most obvious is that you have a buck in the area and at this time of the year there is a good chance that he will not be far from the rubs you find. It also lets you know that the rub was made by a mature buck even though it was made on a small sapling. When bucks are less than four years of age, all of the nutrients taken in go to the body structure of the animal. What is left makes up the antlers. The older the buck, the earlier he will rub as his antlers will develop quicker with his body structure now complete. Can you have success hunting over these types of rubs?  You certainly can as the deer will be in his summer patterns and if the food source stays the same, he should not move far from the area in which the rubs were made.

     After the velvet rubbing stage bucks will split up and start to establish their home range. They will make rubs along their home boundaries marking their scent with the forehead scent gland to let other bucks know where the” no entry” line will be. The size of these rubs will vary from small to medium sized trees. As with territorial scrapes, a buck will normally make his rounds every three to five days along this rub trail. Things can happen during this time of the year as a more mature or stronger buck may move in and push the original buck out and start to make his mark around the new area. This new buck may have a smaller or larger home range and he also will mark it with numerous rubs. This can become very confusing to say the least as the original rubs may grow old and there seems to be no pattern to them. You can have success hunting these but I normally will not waste my time hunting them. I use them as evidence of a given bucks range.

     As the hunting season progresses and hunting pressure increases, you will start to find the type of rub lines that have produced more for me than others. These are the rub lines which connect bedding and feeding areas together. To find these I will walk heavy, worn down trails and look for the small trails the cut across it. I will then follow the small trails looking for rubs that may give me some type of indication of the size of the buck. If you follow these small trails you will notice that it parallels the main trail and will cut across it every 50 to 100 yards. If you have ever watched a snake crawl in a straight line you will notice how his body weaves back and forth across this line. This is how a bucks rub line will look while scent checking the main trail for a doe. This is the time of the year when you will start finding the larger rubs as the heavier bucks build their neck muscles up for the rut that is just ahead. To me there is nothing like the pre-rut stage. This type of rub line is visited more this time of the year than any other in my opinion and you will have great success hunting them than any other type of rubs.

     If you walk the woods long enough you probably have found a sign post rub. These are normally found on pretty large trees and once examined you will notice that it has layers of scars made from bucks rubbing and leaving their scent over a number of years. I have found trees that I could count as high as nine years worth of rubs left on its trunk. I have yet to unravel the mystery of why bucks will search out a certain tree to use as a sign post. What I have found is that the tree is normally at an intersection of major doe trails and usually close to a feeding area that produces some type of food year round. Just about every  buck that comes close to a sign post will walk up to it and do one of three things; rub his antlers, leave his mark with his forehead gland or scent check to see if the dominant buck is still around. A mature buck crossing over the boundary will do all three. This is where some people get the misconception that a small buck will rub large trees. I have seen young bucks go up to a scent post and appear that he is making a rub but in reality, he is scent checking for the dominant buck or rubbing his scent gland and not his antlers. If the dominant buck gets taken out then the next in line will take his place. This is why this type of rub is visited by most of the bucks in the area. A true sign post is a rare find and makes for a great stand site.

     In part three of this series, I will attempt to tie all of this together and talk some on cluster rubs, how to tell a morning rub from an evening rub line and what rubs can tell you about the size of the bucks rack and antler characteristics that he may be carrying. I will also give my thoughts on which method of hunting will produce more for you this season; scrapes or rub lines.

     I have been out of the woods this past week due to my mom having surgery and a virus that I caught; so I thought that I would hit a topic that gets much attention each year. Which will produce more success for you this season; scrape or rub line hunting? Do all scrapes have the same meaning? Can rubs tell you anything besides that a buck was once there? Do you hunt them separately or do they go hand in hand? I am asked these questions almost every year so I thought that I would share my thoughts based on my personal hunting experiences.

      I put scrapes into four types of categories: open or field line scrapes, territorial scrapes, scrape lines and primary scrapes. Let us first explore what I refer to as the open/field line scrape. These can be found along openings such as roads, field edges, and cut downs under just about every overhanging limb that has an opening under it. Do these mean anything? I believe that at times they do. A single buck can make hundreds of scrapes from the time he sheds his velvet up to the time he starts bedding with a doe. This type of scrape normally appears in the same place each year, and some will often grow cold fast, while others will remain active. What I believe makes the active ones stay active is the presence of a licking branch being used by many different deer in the given area.

      I have watched bucks and does use these branches all year long; it’s kind of a social thing. Licking branches are mostly found around field edges, so it would only make sense to see the scrape that is most active under one of these branches. They can be productive as I have taken bucks working or checking these types of scrapes over the years.

     The second type, territorial, are also made soon after and sometimes during the velvet stage as bucks start to mark their home range. They may or may not be made under a low hanging limb. It depends on the buck’s home range as to how often these scrapes will be worked. Usually every 3-5 days a buck will make his tour and rework, or make new scrapes along his travels. This type of scrape is made early before the chasing period starts. They can be productive, but timing is everything with this type of scrape.

      I refer to the third type as a scrape line. This type can be found in conjunction with rubs and are made during the pre-rut and rut periods. I find them to be close to and sometimes directly on a doe trail. You will find these about every fifty yards or so while walking through the woods, and can usually find them by following a trail of rubs. As the temperature cools down and things start to heat up, this type of scrape will become more evident. Again, this type of scrape can be productive and spicing these up with an estrus type scent can make for a very memorable hunt.

     The last category is what I call a primary scrape. This type of scrape can be found under the licking branch mentioned above, but is normally found near a sign post which I will attempt to explain when we get more into rubs. I find that these are made year after year in the same place unless something changes in the habitat. The scrape will be anywhere from 6” to 12” deep and I have seen them as large as six feet in diameter. In close proximity to this type of scrape, is usually a tree which will have evidence of many years of rubs on it; a sign post. In my opinion, this is the most productive type of scrape to hunt. Finding this type can be difficult to say the least.

     While most scrape activity is conducted under the cover of darkness, I have had success hunting them over the years, so they should not be ignored. Most of my success hunting scrapes has come on early morning hunts, after a hard rain and during the pre-rut stage. I took my largest typical whitetail over a mock scrape, so they should also be a consideration.  There are ways to make a buck stop using certain scrapes and concentrate only on the ones which you choose. There are also ways to create your own primary scrapes and rubs to better suit your stand placement. There are techniques that you can do to fire up a scrape and cause an old mature buck to drop his guard, which is how I took my largest non-typical. 

     There is just not enough room to explore all of the tactics I have used over the years in scrape hunting; maybe in a book one day I will have room for all of this. In the next entry, I will try to dissect rubs and what they can tell you as a hunter looking for any buck, or that specific mature buck that you may be hunting.

9-14-09- I made my way through the darkness to try my luck where I last saw Bone Head. As things started to take shape, I saw a buck slipping along in front of me. I could see a rack but could not tell much about him. He continued on never slowing down until he was out of my sight. I knew that it was not the buck I was hunting for but I sure would have liked to have gotten a better look at him. This seems to happen to me a lot. Most of the time all I need is five more minutes. Will be back this afternoon to see what happens. This afternoon I am back in the same stand that I sat in this morning. Just minutes after getting into the stand, I have a 4 point and a spike come out. Then the does started filtering through. I ended the day with 11 does, 4 fawns, one 4 point and 3 spikes passing by me. The rack bucks must be busy in the bottoms as they never passed by my post today.

9-15-09- This afternoon found me on the same lease as yesterday but in a different stand. Time went by slowly before the first deer came by. A really small spike came past me three times feeding in front of me never knowing I was above his feeding grounds. Two does and a fawn fed past me just before dark. One of my hunting friends saw 10 does and 2 spikes from the stand I sat in yesterday. Good activity this evening and I know that it is just a matter of time before one of those mature bucks will make a mistake. There are just too many does and small bucks passing through for it not to happen.

I got a little behind on the hunting log entries so I will try to compress the past couple of hunts into one.

9-05-09- My oldest son and I got invited on a dove hunt by some of our good friends. We had a great shoot with both of us getting our limit. I have never been on a better dove hunt. More birds than we could count, great fellowship and memories that will last a lifetime. After the dove hunt, we headed to one of our leases to try our luck. The evening hunt produced a doe and yearling for me and a bobcat for my son. This lease holds a buck I call Flare because of the shape of his antlers. I hope that he is still there as he will make a great trophy.

9-10-09- This morning found me on the lease where Bone Head hangs out. I saw a decent deer early but it was still to dark to tell anything about him. I had a couple of does and one fawn come by just after daylight. Not much activity this AM.

9-11-09- Back on the land where I hunted yesterday. Saw another deer early but too dark to tell much about it. After the morning light started filtering through the swamp canopy, I caught movement to my left and saw a buck walking past me on a trail we cut through a cut down a few months ago. The buck had a good body but had a deformed rack and I passed him up as I was unable to tell his age. About 15 minutes passed when a 6 point came down the same trail followed by a basket 8 point. It was now light enough to see that both of these bucks were 1 ½ years old. They continued on and out of my sight. Thirty minutes passed when I saw a buck off to my right and recognized him as the first buck I passed on earlier. I could now see that he had some age and good body weight so I slipped the release on the string and grunted to stop him. As soon as I made the grunt call, he turned towards me and stopped under my stand. I had put some gland lure on my boots as a cover scent and he smelled where I had climbed the tree. He finally took a few more steps and offered me a quartering away shot. The arrow passed through and buried into the ground below the chest of the buck. The buck weighed 180lbs and the left side of his rack was really deformed. Good morning with 4 bucks seen and one riding home with me.

9-12-09- Have any of you seen Bone Head? I am not sure where this buck is now but I am back here again this morning hoping to see some bone. Not much activity this AM with only does and one fawn seen. My son, one of his friends and I hunted the same land this afternoon. The farmer cut corn all day and was still cutting when we left for our stands. My son hunted a stand where we have some good bucks on one of our cameras and saw 3 does and 1 fawn. His buddy hunted one of the cut cornfields and saw 7 does. I hunted a new stand and saw a 6 point and 2 does. We are finding a lot of scrapes and rubs so it is just a matter of time before the pushing period will start. I am ready.

     I was back on the lease where my son and I had hunted last Saturday evening. The temperatures had really cooled down as I settled into my evening post. I had been in the stand about an hour when I saw antler tips in the tall soybeans.

     The beans in this field are up to my chest, so a deer can feed in it without ever being seen. I watched the buck for thirty minutes losing him at times in the beans. I think that he was bedded out there the whole time, and had just stood up to feed. He would move along and stretch his head up every few steps to try and look over the bean tops.  He finally hit a place where I could see enough of him to make a shot.

     It felt good to load the 8 point in the back of the truck and head home before dark. He was the only deer that I saw this afternoon. The ride home was better tonight with fresh deer meat to feed my family and another memory to drift back to in the days ahead.

     It had been raining all night as my son and I pulled into the lease where Bone Head lives. After a few minutes, we were on our way towards our morning stands. My son chose a stand that sits on the edge of a swamp, and I went to an area where I had place a stand in the corner of a standing cornfield.

     Light came quickly as I leaned back against the tree scanning the corn rows for any sign of movement. A couple of hours had passed when I heard a group of turkeys fly down at the edge of the swamp. I guessed that the rain from last night kept them roosting longer than usual.

     Soon afterwards, I could hear my son coming out of the swamp and heading back my way. His morning had gone about like mine. Neither of us had seen anything so we decided to check our cameras and try out another lease this afternoon.

     The rain had gone and the sun was out bright and hot, as we made our way to our evening post. He sat in a hardwood bottom where we had captured a group of three bucks on our trail camera. I sat on the edge of one of our food plots hoping to see what had been eating the soybeans planted back in June.

     The evening turned off to be quite nice as the sun dropped behind the trees. Darkness fell on us quick and I had not seen a deer. My son had seen one doe cutting through the pond head towards a soybean field. There sure was not much deer activity today; I hope that it picks up soon.