Got a call from a hunting buddy John yesterday. He had hunted the morning and hadn't seen anything, then ran to town to do a few errands.

John got back and decide to go "sweep" the acorns out of the White Oak stand. It hadn't been hunted yet this year, so he knew it would be covered in acorns.

You can drive within 100yds of the Stand, and he got there at 2PM. Using the truck reduces the chance for any incidental human scent getting spread about by walking. Of course, John likes to be as quiet as possible so as not to draw attention to any intrusion into the Deer's territory and has a very quiet muffler on his truck.

As he got out of his truck, he leans over to get a whisk broom and somehow manages to BLOW THE HORN. Well, John said he was so mad at himself that he could spit, but he didn't want to leave spit scent on the ground - totally disgusted! Since he'd made all the noise, he decided to go on and sweep acorns since it would make no difference at all.

He walks to the leaning ladder White Oak Stand and climbs up to where he can begin sweeping. He had his Stainless and Synthetic 30-06 M116 Savage loaded with 165gr factory Winchester ammo with him, but figured it was a waste of time since he had "alerted" all the Deer for 50 acres. He sat the rifle inside and began sweeping acorns, leaves and twigs. You can imagine the noise as this stuff is falling onto the ladder. Finally got a spot big enough to get his right knee into the Stand so he could reach all the way to the rear.

For no reason in particular, John swiveled his head around to the left. The view is a large 2 year old clear cut which is grown up in head high (and above) weeds. About 50yds out was a Buck looking in his general direction. John said the neck looked very large, but he could only see half the neck and the head. The rest of the Deer was hidden from sight by the weeds.

Against all odds, he slowly reaches for his rifle and is able to turn on his knee just enough so he can rest the rifle against the front edge of the right Stand wall. He said he didn't want to shoot that far up on the Deer's neck, but that was the only visible part. At the shot, the Deer drops and he can hear it moving around a bit. Can't see the Deer and has to run over to it to put one more through the heart.

John backed the truck through the clear cut almost to the 9-pointer and struggled to get it in the back. He had hurt his back a bit the week before, so he was concerned about that.

He said it may just be the "largest weight" Buck he has killed on the property. Nose against the front of the truck bed and rear end about 6" from the tailgate. He was guessing it to be around 225#, but was going to get the scale and go weigh the Deer. He called me at 2:38PM, or 38min after he started to the Stand. He did mention "something" about being "LUCKY"!!!

John is a great Deer Hunter and is also blessed with an AMAZING amount of luck when it comes to Deer. He works hard at hunting creating as little impact on the area as possible, which explains "SOME" of his luck. But he is the first to admit random luck is nice to have as a "back-up" - HA.

So yesterday, the SC Lowcountry pattern was to wait until mid-day, drive up close to where an unknown TROPHY was bedded, blow the truck horn, make noise sweeping acorns and then neck-shoot the Deer!!!

...

Heard Dennis' truck pull in the drive last night. Sure enough, here he came carrying a nice 8-point rack. He had gone to his property near Lockhart, SC on Monday night. Slept in and finally decided to go in the woods a bit past 11AM. He rides a 4-wheeler to the back of his property, leaves the 4W and takes off walking up a creek.

Dennis gets all settled in on a Dove Stool next to a tree with a 308Win Weatherby Ultra-Lightweight loaded with 150gr factory Winchester ammo. Nice and cool (54deg) and a light breeze coming toward him. After a short while, he turns to his right and sees a Deer moving. He noticed the antlers and realized it was a taker, but there was no open shot. Too many trees and bushes in that spot. He lifts up slightly, turns to his right and sits back onto the stool. As he watches pieces of the Deer easing along, he notices a small "V" opening between two trees that the Deer is moving toward. AH-HA, a chance!

So, he lines up on the small opening and waits. Sure enough, here comes the Buck and he shoots. Buck takes off, stops near the creek and it sounds like it staggers or falls, then it gets up and takes off again.

Dennis walks up and checks to make sure his shot "had not" hit either tree. No bullet scars on the trees, so he starts looking for signs of a hit. Doesn't find a thing until he gets near the creek and finally spots one small drop of blood. Then he gets to apparently the spot that the Deer had stopped and finds a good bit of blood.

This piece of property is hardwoods growing next to some fairly deep ravines for this part of the country. There is just enough small blood drops and disturbed leaves that he can track the Deer without a whole lot of trouble. Even found a small piece of Lung after 100yds which bolstered his spirits about the shot. That Buck ended up traversing 200yds after the Lung-to-Lung shot. Entry had been behind the right shoulder and the exit was about a 2" hole behind the left shoulder. Only problem was the Impact was slightly above the centerline of the Deer's body, which meant the vast majority of the Blood was staying "within" the body cavity.

Dennis looked back and realized he couldn't get his 4-wheeler very close to this Buck. "Uuuh, No Problem." He made sure the Buck was dead and took his rifle back to the 4W. Drove just a bit closer, got his knife and Drag Rope, and off he went back to the 8-pointer. Huuumm, had to cross a creek and a couple of ravines. Probably a good idea to lighten the load a bit. He ties the left rear leg up to a tree so he can eviscerate the Deer and leans down with the knife to get started.

All of a sudden, there is a LOUD WOOOOOSH about 40 feet from Dennis and it is a HUGE WHOPPER TROPHY Buck taking off. He said he really thought he had messed up his pants cause it scared him so bad. Said he is sure he jumped at least a foot in the air, but fortunatly didn't throw the knife away or stab himself.

Dennis finally regains his composure, guts the Deer and takes off dragging. Gets the Deer to the 4W after a couple of rest stops. Too exhausted to lift it up onto the front rack. Now what to do.

He sits back and thinks about it for a minute and it dawns on him that he has a Winch on the 4W. "No Problem!" He tosses the cable over a limb, winches the Buck up, swings it over the rack and lowers it right down. Even uses the cable to hold the Deer on the rack. (Lots of praise for the winch!)

Back to the house and uses the winch to lift the Buck up onto the Skinning Rack. Notices that with the head as high as it will go, the rear hooves are just barely clearing the ground. Biggest Buck he has taken off this property too. He guessed it to be around 190#. BUT, the one that blew at him was a REAL WHOPPER!!!

...

Both of the Bucks my buddies killed had the swollen necks and darkened hocks we associate with the "Rut". So, it looks like it is starting right on time. The next 3 weeks will be Prime Time here in the Carolinas.

Best of luck to you all.

Great stories! Man that got my blood pumping. I'm taking my son out early tomorrow morning for the Special Youth Weekend for Texas. I think we are already in a pre-rut in North Texas. It has been cold and wet for about 3 weeks. Very unusual for us. The young bucks were getting irritated with each other a week and a half ago and I have seen some of the bucks sniffing and chasing the does. My son should have some good chances at his first deer.

Heck, I don't know who is more excited. Yeah I do. I am!!!

Hey Longbob, Best of luck to you and your son on the Hunt.

Just had "CISCO" from this Board stop by last night for a visit with his wife. They live in Mississippi and had come past a Game Preserve in the Smokey Mountains on the way up here. My gosh, they had some VCR flicks of HUGE WHOPPER TROPHY BUCKS at Cade's Cove.

He said you could nearly walk up to some of them before they would move off. Off in the distance just at dusk he caught one that had to have a rack of AT LEAST 22"-24" wide. Quite a DEER!

Even caught some "idiots" walking up to some fairly large Black Bears. I could hear him chuckling on the tape concerning their total lack of understanding about what could happen.

Fortunately, the Bears didn't bother with chewing on any of the idiots. But it would have made some interesting viewing.

Hey Longbob...Good lu... Oh to heck with YOU!! Good luck to the kid!!

Sounds like Papa's got a bit of the shakes...

I do have the shakes. Hopefully, I will be back here tomorrow night posting pictures. We'll see...

The rut is on in East Central Georgia too. I killed a nice 10 pt Saturday. Went again today and watched a very nice 8pt chase a doe from 4:15 to 6:15. It's my first year in this club and I would hate to shoot this deer in the second week of the season-there may be a bigger one around.

Hey mrfudd, Congratulations on the 10-pointer.

When you have a chance, give us some details about the hunt.

Hey Hot Core, Great stories. Will be heading to Mn. in early November, then to Mi. in mid November, then back here in Cheeseville for our season at the end of the month. Good to hear your out and about giving the whitetails hell.

The rut usually is in full swing here around the 10th-15th here in Wi. with the chase period in Minnesota while I'm there.

Take care my friend---------Chainsaw

I witnessed the GA rut again this weekend. I saw 7 deer yesterday, a young 10pt, a spike,a button heas and 4 does. The 10 pt was running 2 does pretty hard and chasing the spike away from his girls. I took my wife today. We saw two 8 pointers, a four pt and 5 does. The 4 pt was chasing a doe as was one of the 8 pointers. This was my wife's first afternoon in a stand-she went as an observer and had great fun spotting deer. We were in a tower overlooking a 40 acre field of 2 yr old planted pine-she could not believe how the deer just materialized. We didn't shoot today, I won't shoot another buck this year unless I see one larger than my 10 pt from last week,but my wife hinted that she may like to shoot a buck of her own.

Last weeks 10 pt:
I saw it on a perimeter road ~100 yds from my ladder stand. He came out of the woods walking away from me. I noticed he had a nice wide rack,so I flipped off the safety. He turned broadside and began to trot out of the road towards the woods. I shot as he was leaving the road. I made a poor shot and hit him in the spine,he wheeled around and headed back where he emerged from the woods. I waited 15 minutes and got down out of the stand. I found no blood,but did find a patch of fur. I entered the woods and heard some crashing. I ended up tracking the deer around 150 yards into a swamp thicket where I finished him off. He was not a monster-around 150 lbs, but had a respectable 10 pt rack with a 17" inside spread. I was proud to take him. BTW, I was using a Win 70 Classic .270 with 130 gr. power points.

Opening day buck. Thanks TCarr-hope this works.

Hey Chainsaw, Best of luck to you this Season. Do you have to be concerned about CWD in MN?

Hey mrfudd, Seems like the current trend from a few tree-huggers is to be critical of pictures. So, let me say that I'm "shocked" that you took the time to comb your hair before taking this outstanding picture of your fine Trophy Buck.

GREAT FLICK!!!

I always like to examine an Entrance and Exit on Deer, especially when something goes a little side-ways. I even stop by the Processor's Shop and observe other folks Deer and ask about what they used, distance, angle, etc.

Fill your freezer, this is a renewable resource that we all need to enjoy to the MAX. How `bout blasting a couple of Does to go with the Buck? We are focusing on Does wide open in the Carolinas to regain some balance within the herd.

Best of luck to you (and mess up your hair on the next flick ).

Hot Core- My club only allows 2 does per member/year. I will wait a few more weeks and concentrate on a bigger buck. BTW-that's hat hair-matted from sweat from dragging bambi.

Hot Core, CWD is something that a select few sensationalized, so they could make a buck.(pun intended)

It is now in my homestate of Wi. but is not suspected to be in our neighboring states.

Not that this threat should be disregarded, but the "fear" that those who demanded "research money" put into this state and it citizens, is truly despicable. Now the sales of hunting licenses is down 23% and the "fear" tactic has caught on. So much so that our DNR is advertizing to get hunters back in the woods.

Like the Bovine Tuberculosis and Lyme Disease scares, perpretrated by the sky is falling crowd, we will survive this with a little common sense being applied.

Take Care My Friend---------Chainsaw

Hey Chainsaw, Learned more by reading your post than ALL the other articles I've seen on it.

I'd spotted a small blurb in the NRA American Hunter that Ted Nugent was recommending the states with CWD open the Deer Season Year Around and let the hunters get in there and take enough Game to reduce the spred.

Your post makes me realize that I really know ZERO useful information about the situation at all. Thanks.

Went hunting a couple of times yesterday. Saw some REAL FAT Squirrels on the morning hunt that may eventually get a "1-way" trip to my freezer.

Got in the Stand for the afternoon hunt and after a short while I could hear a fellow disking up his small garden behind his house. He was too far away to bother me, or so I thought.

After an hour or so of disking a 10minute garden, it finally got quiet. 15min passed and he had a bush-hog going that sounded like it either had hammers flailing away at the housing or he was hogging rebar. Too late to get down and move to another Stand, so I silently laughed to myself.

Not sure if it got to dark for the old fellow to see or if he ran out of fuel, but finally it got quiet. I had maybe 15min of legal shootable light left.

Finally spotted what "appeared" to be a Buck trailing a Doe way off in the distance. I scanned in the direction he was headed and spotted a White Streak twice which was probably the Doe looking back to see if he was hot on her trail.

Looked back toward where the "apparent" Buck had been and couldn't see a thing. He could have been standing right there and it was just too dark to see him, he could have gone back in the woods, or maybe he was headed toward the Doe. Don't know.

Do know we put a BIG Tower Stand over were he was earlier this year. It would have been about a 125yd across-the-railing shot from that Stand.

Best of luck to you all.

Hot Core, Dan Lamoreux the fellow that I hunt with in Mn. is a veriable wealth of information on CWD.

If you would like to receive some info on it, Dan has a file about 1 1/2" thick which he condenced into a two page mini seminar.

Let me know, I'll try and dig it up---Chainsaw

Hey Chainsaw, Thanks for the offer, but I'll pass for right now. No reported cases near us and they had stopped importing Game from other states for right now.

Appreciate the offer though.