Ali
Iyoob
Saxapahaw NC
Alamance County NC
September 11 2024
7pm
Barnett 370 crossbow
22 yards
Modified M7 lock on and carbon latitude sticks
200 yards
29
Seen on camera many times. One of my main target bucks!
9 in full velvet
131.25
Afternoon
Had this buck on camera pre-season, and it ghosted me a week prior to opening. Went back to the drawing board and found fresh sign on some white oaks adjacent to a soybean field and put up a camera. He was frequenting the stand along with some smaller bucks right at the edge of legal light but always from the downwind side. Walked in what I thought to thought to be a safe time, 6pm, with his earliest appearance being 7:28pm via cam, and startled up a turkey while still in the beans (what I assumed to be my safest route in). My stomach sank when I saw antlers get up and him trot away, and I dropped down into the bean field so he wouldn’t get a glimpse of me. He knew something was up, but I was downwind and I think he was mostly going off of the turkey’s reaction rather than his own observations. I ended up climbing a tree that was downwind of the oaks and lateral wind of the trail I figured he would use if he returned, risky but my only chance. An hour later he came back around after looping to get back into what he thought was favorable wind, and I was able to get a shot off through a window in the trees. 10 yards farther and he would have winded me, so I’m really glad I was able to get him to stop. Ended up double lunging him and he ran down 70 feet of ravine and across a creek with 6 foot cut banks. I got some creek water/deer blood in my eye that promptly blew up, hence the sunglasses.
