Monday, December 28, 2009

More memorable moments . . .

In one of my last posts I mentioned that my latest hunting trip had several memorable moments (in addition to the encounter with the big 10-point). One of those happened while we were searching for the buck. During the course of combing the woods to find the elusive "Ghost Buck", I stumbled across a pretty nice shed antler. I was walking through an area that was really thick with mesquite, and as I ducked under a low-hanging limb I saw this antler lying on the ground.

This is only the third shed antler I have ever found, and it is definitely the biggest. Only one of the three antlers did I find while actually looking for sheds. The other two have just been by accident. This one is missing the brow tine, but still tapes out at over 40". That's not bad for a mainframe 8-point.

On Tuesday morning my dad and I decided to sit together for the hunt. We both sat on the ground - he on one side of a tree and me on the other. Shortly after sunrise I thought I would see if I could get a response to some antler rattling. After one rattling sequence, I heard my dad whisper, "Rob, here's one." I looked back over my shoulder and a young 4-point had responded to the call and was standing about 30 yards in front of my dad.

Since we got such a good response I thought I would try it again. So I made another rattling sequence and this time we had a nice little 8-point come in. I was able to snap a picture with my phone looking over my dad's shoulder.

These close encounters are what make deer hunting so much fun! This little buck lived to see another day and hopefully I can rattle him in again when he grows up.

2 comments:

Chris said...

Wow this scene surely reminds me of the many hours i spent in the southwest Texas mesquite brush country when i was down in that neck of the woods working on a whitetail deer ranch.

Wow what beautiful, unique terrain.

By the way, mesquite wood cooked down into coals cooks one heck of a meal out of wild boar.

Oh, yeah, wild boar unlike any that i have ever had, very clean tasting meat after cooking all day on this mesquite wood.

Chris
Eastern NC
Quackycalls.com

Anonymous said...

It is always a treat to find a shed antler no matter what the size and that was a nice one. I have a pair of antlers that i use for rattling, I picked them up at a flea market one year.