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George Zanoni, Dave Canfield and myself headed up to the South Ridge again this morning to try and ambush the two bucks we've been seeing each morning. We waited till 7:00 AM and the bucks never showed. We then headed down to the prairie to work some draws and jump a buck. It worked and a real nice 3 pointer jumped up next to us. He was visable for a split second then dropped into the next draw and disappeared. George still-hunted up the draw, Dave went left and took a stand, and I ran up a hill to glass for him. I never did see the buck from the hill but I caught a glimpse of horn in the corner of the draw. I moved closer and confirmed that the big buck was hiding in the sage-covered gulley at ten yards.
I stalked closer - to five yards and drew my longbow. With the string just about to the corner of my mouth, the buck busted out. I picked a spot, came to full draw, but didn't shoot at the fleeing buck. He bounded up towards George and winded him, then headed up over the hill. Parker caught the whole thing on film below.
We continued up the gulch where the buck headed and spotted this small forky below. If you look closely, as we did, you will see a rack just above the sage to the right of the picture. We looked these over good and decided not to bother, that turned out to be a mistake. When we moved, two bruisers jumped up and all four bucks headed up over the hill.
The first thing we saw was this small buck, then the horns to the right.
As the two small bucks bolted, these two nice bucks popped up. Surprise.
Out of here!!We checked out some cut banks for the rest of the day. We jumped one good 3x3 along with nearly 100 does. While glassing from the South Ridge, Parker spotted a nice buck feeding two miles away. We moved in closer and Dave put on a stalk. It took him nearly 90 minutes but he made a great stalk on the buck (who was also with 3 other bucks) but just could not get an arrow into him. It was a great day!
Fourth Day's Harvest George Zanoni, IL
Max Christ, Bavaria Germany
