ChromeKype
Lil-Rokslider
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2017
- Messages
- 112
Got my Euro mount back from the taxidermist, thought I’d share the story.
My public land journey started in 2016 as I was tired of hunting the super small properties I had permission on and watching great deer walk 100 yards away and not be able to set up on that trail or try to get after him. I also had to share the medium size property I had that was awesome with a bunch of other folks in the owners family ( which is fine, but it was getting crowded), so I made a conscious decision at the end of the 2015 season to hunt only public in 2016 and to see if it was as bad as people made it out to be. If it was, I’d go back to private, but I had never deer hunted on public before and was excited to go all in!
In 2016 I focused on 2 areas near Greater Cincinnati and for sure these public pieces had their fair share of hunters, but I found that if you hunted during the week you could actually have a decent hunt. I learned a ton that year and ended up with a solid 8.
2017-2018- It was extremely hard to put the time I wanted to in the woods as I started a new job one fall and had a kid the
next. I did miss a buck each of these seasons though, which made me practice much more prior to 2019. I work way to hard packing in my mobile set up over a mile every day to miss!!
2019
I had the time and had scouted a ton of the public in Southern Ohio over the past 2 years and had dialed in a couple areas that were prime.
The morning of November 1st was awesome, and I had high expectations, sitting in a large CRP field in a small tree island that was littered with rubs and scrapes, I knew this was a great bedding area. The morning was slow as expected as I believed most deer would be slowly coming back into the area late morning. Soon a doe skirted through and I saw more movement deep in the CRP a couple hundred yards away. The binoculars confirmed my hopes, absolute monster walking right towards me. He was every inch of 160 and I started shaking soooo bad! He walked to within 75 yards of me and I was ready. Picked my lane, brought my heart rate down, and started my mantra. But hey this was public land and unknown to me, it was the opening day of rabbit season, I heard a jingle to my left and sure enough a beagle was making a beeline for the buck. I looked back over my shoulder and there were half a dozen more in hot pursuit! Two rabbit hunters came over, waved to me, and proceeded to blast rabbits out of that CRP all morning.
Nov. 7th
Torrential downpour, but great day to move my stand to an area that would be better for the north wind coming Friday. I knew a spot that needed a perfect north wind and snuck in there before daylight to hang a set and got out quick.
Nov 8th
Reached the set early, and was amazed by the cold beautiful morning. This set was over a perennial scrape, with CRP to the west and thick honeysuckle to the East, with the scrape right on the edge. Well that morning was insane with bucks running everywhere and I soon started second guessing my decision to hunt over the scrape as the bucks were obviously chasing. I heard crashing to my right in the thick honeysuckle, and then a grunt. The grunting and crashing continued for a few minutes when I heard another buck grunting in the cover as well. The action was hot and the crashing continued for almost 20 minutes. Everything settled back down but I could hear a deer walking slowly in the thick stuff so I decided to grunt a few times, even though the deer was only 30 yards from me I couldn’t see him at all. It all went silent for a few minutes and then more footsteps, I decided to grunt again, this time the buck quickened his pace and burst through the honeysuckle, he walked to the scrape at 28 yards and began licking the branch. In my haste I had hung the stand too high and the tree branches on the scrape tree were covering the bucks vitals so I crouched down as far as I could into a deep squat and took the shot. 10 ringed him! Went about 30 yards in the CRP and hit the dirt.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
My public land journey started in 2016 as I was tired of hunting the super small properties I had permission on and watching great deer walk 100 yards away and not be able to set up on that trail or try to get after him. I also had to share the medium size property I had that was awesome with a bunch of other folks in the owners family ( which is fine, but it was getting crowded), so I made a conscious decision at the end of the 2015 season to hunt only public in 2016 and to see if it was as bad as people made it out to be. If it was, I’d go back to private, but I had never deer hunted on public before and was excited to go all in!
In 2016 I focused on 2 areas near Greater Cincinnati and for sure these public pieces had their fair share of hunters, but I found that if you hunted during the week you could actually have a decent hunt. I learned a ton that year and ended up with a solid 8.
2017-2018- It was extremely hard to put the time I wanted to in the woods as I started a new job one fall and had a kid the
next. I did miss a buck each of these seasons though, which made me practice much more prior to 2019. I work way to hard packing in my mobile set up over a mile every day to miss!!
2019
I had the time and had scouted a ton of the public in Southern Ohio over the past 2 years and had dialed in a couple areas that were prime.
The morning of November 1st was awesome, and I had high expectations, sitting in a large CRP field in a small tree island that was littered with rubs and scrapes, I knew this was a great bedding area. The morning was slow as expected as I believed most deer would be slowly coming back into the area late morning. Soon a doe skirted through and I saw more movement deep in the CRP a couple hundred yards away. The binoculars confirmed my hopes, absolute monster walking right towards me. He was every inch of 160 and I started shaking soooo bad! He walked to within 75 yards of me and I was ready. Picked my lane, brought my heart rate down, and started my mantra. But hey this was public land and unknown to me, it was the opening day of rabbit season, I heard a jingle to my left and sure enough a beagle was making a beeline for the buck. I looked back over my shoulder and there were half a dozen more in hot pursuit! Two rabbit hunters came over, waved to me, and proceeded to blast rabbits out of that CRP all morning.
Nov. 7th
Torrential downpour, but great day to move my stand to an area that would be better for the north wind coming Friday. I knew a spot that needed a perfect north wind and snuck in there before daylight to hang a set and got out quick.
Nov 8th
Reached the set early, and was amazed by the cold beautiful morning. This set was over a perennial scrape, with CRP to the west and thick honeysuckle to the East, with the scrape right on the edge. Well that morning was insane with bucks running everywhere and I soon started second guessing my decision to hunt over the scrape as the bucks were obviously chasing. I heard crashing to my right in the thick honeysuckle, and then a grunt. The grunting and crashing continued for a few minutes when I heard another buck grunting in the cover as well. The action was hot and the crashing continued for almost 20 minutes. Everything settled back down but I could hear a deer walking slowly in the thick stuff so I decided to grunt a few times, even though the deer was only 30 yards from me I couldn’t see him at all. It all went silent for a few minutes and then more footsteps, I decided to grunt again, this time the buck quickened his pace and burst through the honeysuckle, he walked to the scrape at 28 yards and began licking the branch. In my haste I had hung the stand too high and the tree branches on the scrape tree were covering the bucks vitals so I crouched down as far as I could into a deep squat and took the shot. 10 ringed him! Went about 30 yards in the CRP and hit the dirt.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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