This past weekend I was out in Birdsall, New York on our porperty doing some work with my chainsaw trying to open some space for the apple trees we have down there. After cutting all morning and afternoon, at about 2pm, I went back to our trailer and suited up for what I figured to be a pretty uneventful night.
Our property has not been noted for good late season hunting, since we don't really have any food sources. We also don't have any doe permits for the area and are only shooting 3yr old bucks or better there. Add to that the fact that we don't have one trail pic of a shooter buck in daylight there since the gun season opened and you can understand why my expectations weren't high. I decided to go out to a spot on the other side of the property from where I had been cutting, knowing that no one had been hunting there since Jmac shot "Chip" on opeining weekend.
The walk out was very loud since there was frozen leaves underneath two inches of snow, and I know I spooked at least one deer that was close to my stand. I got in my stand and could still smell gasoline on me from the chainsaw and once again was reminded that it was unlikely to be a great night of hunting. But the weather was beautiful, the wind was right, and there was a decent amount of tracks in the area.
After sitting four about a half hour without any movement, I noticed what looked like deer about 150 yards in the timber to the south of me. At first I thought it was only two deer, but after sitting and watching for a few more minutes it turned out to be a bunch more and they were filtering through the woods right towards me. I wasn't too excited because I knew I couldn't shoot a doe and all I could see at this point were slick heads.
When the first of the deer were about 40 yards from me, I noticed a bigger bodied deer in the back of the group and after I got my scope on it, i saw it had horns, big ones! But he was in the back and the deer in front were headed right underneath my stand while he was working his way in directly behind a pine tree.
I kept my scope on him, hoping the does beneath me didn't bust me as he stepped into a small window between some branches of the pine tree and I squeezed the trigger. He dropped right in his tracks, and I just about passed out in disbelief in what had just happened. I got out of the tree faster than a squirrel could and went over to see what I had just shot. Right away I recognized his right main beam and knew I had just shot Hersey, the number two buck on our Birdsall Hitlist! After a few text messages, phone calls, and pictures, I got him cleaned up and in the truck and the rest is history. Enjoy the pics:
