Goofy looking deer

[gatorfan]

I was sitting by 0500 and after a long quiet wait at 0638 I hear crunch crunch crunch. Load the release and catch movement down hill to the left. Cool! It's up wind and moving towards me. 15 yards and I get a great look at a 4" spike. Damn! It was cool to watch him though, he rubbed on a sapling and then licked a branch like a whitetail. He kept on his path and got down wind of me, stuck his head in the air and then changed course and went down hill. I wanted to take a picture but it was too early and I didn't want to spook him. Nothing else happened so at 0800 I stand up to shed some clothes and hear immediate movement behind me. I look and see a big-bodied buck run out of the brush and towards me. His right antler went down instead of up and curled back towards his arse. I didn't take time to count points because I had to get my release back on but he ran on the other side of the rocks about 20 feet from where I was sitting and kept on going. never presented a shot. About a minute later I hear more crunching in the same area from where the buck came from, catch movement and sure enough I identify one California deer hunter trying to stalk in the driest leaves you can imagine and I also start to hear another guy talking on his cell phone. Oh well, that's public land. I go back to the truck, cruise down the road and take a detour to look where I saw the big buck last week. Get about half way to the spot (I'm in the truck) and pop, pop, pop heads start popping up. 6 doe and Mr. Big Horns! They're only 40 yards off the road and the buck is broadside staring at me. I stop the truck, kill the engine, strap the release on and grab the bow. The entire time I am watching the buck and he is watching me. The does start to walk away and the buck starts walking towards me! Then I catch movement a little to the left and there's another doe. He was coming back to get his other girl. I decide to take a chance and open the door to get out. Guess who forgot to take the keys out of the ignition! I hear (and the buck hears) an immediate dong, dong, dong that Ford thinks is a cool sound for "you forgot your keys in the ignition" and the buck takes off with all of the does!

Before anyone asks, no I wasn't on a major road.

I think this buck has an established area and now I'm gonna put that theory to the test.

[el Toro]

Nice. I had a hot morning Friday with 7 deer all within range of the stand. 2 spikes and 5 girls. One spike was licking the first metal step on my tree! The other spike was a monster. His horns were 14"+ and he had a huge body. We have a huge spike problem up there. I've seen 6+ this year all withing easy range of my stand. Frustrating. Yesterday was a total zoo up there. It was a hot, beautiful day and that brought the tree hugers out in force. Then the second opening added to the problem. I had two hunters walk through my set up and heard lots of hikers, bikers, horseback riders, barking dogs, etc off in the distance. I only saw one doe. I'll hit it again mid week.

[gatorfan]

Unfortunately Uncle Sam doesn't afford me very many weekdays so I have to put up with whatever happens. I usually go up the night before and sleep in the truck. Last night I went up and parked at a normal spot, turned the lights on and started to make my "bed". All of a sudden I hear laughter and voices real close. I put the key back in the ignition so my headlights and bedlight would turn on and there's a guy standind by my back driver's side door. I roll the window down and he asks me what I'm doing. I told him I was going to sleep in the truck and then hunt. He's says "your hunting?" and I say yeah, he says no your not. I thought it was going to get ugly and all of a sudden a girl walks out from behind my truck and says "did we scare you?". I said hell yeah, what do you think, it's 2200, pitch black and all of a sudden there's a dude in my mirror. He proceeds to tell me that it's not a good spot to hunt and that they all live up there (like I wasn't supposed to be up there in "their" woods). He also asked me where I was from so I told him CV. We go back and forth (they were all pretty lit) with the Q&A for a minute and he finally leaves. I decided to go park somewhere else and turn the truck on and make a U-turn. When my lights hit them I could see that there were about 10 of them partying it up so I rolled the window down and said "have fun guys". Some yahoo says "have fun driving back to CV". Oh how I wish I would have drilled one of "their" deer and had them see it today. Had it been me, I would have invited them over for a beer.

I have no idea why I'm telling you guys this, it was just a little strange situation that I thought I'd share.

[el Toro]

That sucks. What a bunch of kooks. You have more tolerance than me.

[aeon]

ugh people suck sometimes. Cool that you got to see a buck with freaky antlers. Spent all last season trying to kill a buck up here that had caribou antlers only saw him once at 200yards. we see a lot of strange bucks on the game cameras.

Bill