11-19-2011 Sat

11-19-2011 Sat
6:45 AM – 5:00 PM
Weather: N15, snow, 24˚ (snow started falling 9 AM, 10” new snow by 5 PM)
Location: Cabin (Moose Junction, WI)
Bagged/Caught: smallish eight point buck
Partners: Jake, Mark, Mark Jr., Don and Dick

Comments

It was the opening day of the Wisconsin gun deer season and my plan was to sit all day. The morning started out calm with a dropping temperature, the weather man was calling for snow to start sometime in the morning. I was pumped! I love to hunt in the snow and I felt very confident in my stand location.
By 9 AM the snow had started to fall and I had yet to see a deer. I had heard a couple of shots come from the vicinity of Mark’s stand, so I was hopeful that this twelve year old would tag his first deer. I sat in the blizzard until 11:30 and could not take it anymore; I was getting snow covered and wet. But, the main reason I could not stay in the stand any longer was because I now had tracking snow on the ground and tracking in a fresh snow is my favorite and most productive method of deer hunting. I stopped back at the cabin got a quick bite to eat and changed into some lighter and drier clothes.
I took the wheeler two miles down a logging road to an area that had been logged recently and that bordered a large swamp. The ground was solidly covered with four inches of snow and it was still accumulating rapidly. It did not take long to find fresh deer sign, any tracks that were snow covered but still somewhat visible would be fresh. I passed on any smaller tracks and any sets of tracks that appeared to be made by a doe and her fawn(s).
I found one track that was mostly covered and it was a loner deer and it appeared to be good sized. After following the track for one hundred or so yards I lost it in the swamp. The swamp had a creek in the middle and I decided to cross it with the aid of a log that made a natural, but slippery bridge. I got to the other side fine. After not finding any tracks on this side I decided to return back to the log crossing and stay on the side of the creek I knew. Well the second crossing did not go so well; I slipped and one leg got completely immersed. I never hit bottom with that leg, and now my right leg was completely wet up to my waist. The temperature was in the mid -twenties and the snow was still rapidly accumulating. I was definitely not in a very good situation. I knew I had to get my boot and two pairs of socks off and get as much water out of my boot and socks as possible; otherwise my foot would be frozen in a very short time.
I got out of the swamp, found a small tree to sit against and commenced to remove my boot and wet socks, and at the same time I was videotaping myself wringing my socks out. That’s when I got the surprise of the day. As I was talking to the camera I thought I heard a deer grunt. I really did not believe what I had just heard, so I stood up to have a look around. And that is when I saw him (the thirty point buck) just kidding, but he was one of the largest bucks I had ever seen in the woods. The buck was moving at a rather quick pace, but he was within twenty yards of me. I grabbed my gun shouldered it and gave the buck a soft blah. He immediately stopped and looked right at me. Here I was looking at one of the biggest bucks I had ever seen and he was looking back at me. He apparently did not know what I was and just stared at me. I was very excited, here I had Mr. Big fifteen yards away, broadside and I had the crosshairs of my scope fixed just behind his shoulder. For just a split second I was already congratulating myself on bagging such a nice buck. I took a deep breath, concentrated on my shot placement and squeezed the trigger.
Then reality set in. My rifle just went click. My rifle had been snowed on all day with lots of snow landing on the bolt area. After I had arrived at this spot on the four wheeler I had one heck of a time chambering a round before I started out hunting. I had to basically ram the bolt forward in order to get the bolt latched and this took several attempts. Anyway, the buck had now turned and was making tracks fast and directly away from me. I did manage to get several frantic and poorly placed shots off before the buck disappeared.
By the time I got my socks and boot back on and went to the spot where I had shot at him, his tracks were mostly snow covered. I did find some hair at the location of the first shot, which just confirmed what I had already known, that I had hit him with the first shot. I followed what I thought were his tracks for about three hundred yards. I was not one hundred percent certain these were his tracks because there were several other fresh tracks in the area. During the time I was following the track I did not find a single drop of blood, but it was snowing very hard and it was possible that all the blood could have been covered by the new snowfall.
The buck left the sanctuary of the thick clear cut and made his way into the more open woods. I followed the track for another one hundred yards and never found any blood. I had lost all hope of getting this fella. Just as I was coming to this conclusion another smaller buck was making its way through the open woods and towards me. He got about seventy yards away and I decided I was not going to recover the big buck, so I might just as well try to get this small eight pointer. I also stopped him with a blah and took a seventy yard broadside shot. I shot and the deer bolted off. All I could think of was; oh no not again! I immediately picked up the bucks track and started following his escape trail. I tracked the buck one hundred yards to where I found him dead. In that distance I never did find a drop of blood.
The day was a most definite roller coaster day on my emotions. I am still beating up on myself for not harvesting that deer, but I did get a deer and in the conditions I like to hunt. In fact before I left the cabin after lunch I had told the rest of the party that I was almost certain I would be back with a deer.

Observations:

The snow blanketed the ground by around ten this morning. There did seem to be more shooting than usual and Mark T. got his first deer (a nice healthy four pointer). From what I saw and from what the other hunters in the group reported, the deer seem to still be in rut!