In early light a deer came up, an 8-pt with a gimped left rear leg. He walked with a bad limp. Big bodied too. A smallish, young doe laid down in the plot and watched the gimp buck. I figured they were together. From behind me the Freak 3 buck came up and went to the laying doe and walked around it with it’s head inches from the doe. The doe stood up and I realized I was mistaken, this young doe had buttons.
Freak 3 tried to run off the larger buck, and for a croppled buch it moved very spryly and backed the Freak away and ran him off. Next a bunch of does came to the plot and walked around briefly. They did not stay, there were 12 of them.
A different 8-point came up to the plot. The sun is above the trees now and I can get pictures. So I did.
The gimp buck is busy eating some of the mostly dried up stuff in the food plot. Our other buck is just passing through.
The 8 walks a little closer to me and stops. I get his picture as he looks around.
He checks things out around him.
Then he turns around and, gives that direction a look, and goes into the trees ahead. Those trees are the ones along the gulch.
Soon 3rd buck appeared and got close enough for a picture.
No deer in sight at 8:30. It was 22 degrees this morning. Sure glad I dug out my insulated boots yesterday. My feet are warm but I’ve got plenty of chilly parts right now up above those boots.
Soon I was thinking about leaving and spotted 4 does walking along on the hill to the south. They didn’t come my way.
When I was ready to head for the house and warm up two does showed. They hung around for half an hour and finally left. Once they were out of sight I went home. Fortunately the fireplace had enough hot coals in it to ignite some cedar bark strips and now I’m all warmed up.
AFTERNOON HUNT
Glassed the FP area from the last cover. Nothing. A couple of steps from the blind 4 does and 3 bucks blasted out if the gulch. I hid behind the blind. The bucks were only after one of the does but all of them were running zig zags. It was an 8-point and a Spike.
Suddenly the buck I took pictures of this morning came out of the gulch and one of the does stopped in the food plot watching him. The other does headed for the hill with the other bucks chasing them. The bigger 8-pt walked to the standing doe and circled it. He hut the reject button and circled until he picked up the other doe’s scent and was off.
3 does came through from off the hill. Now a lone year long is standing around.
The 3 does are back now. Soon the 8-point with a limp walked up in the tall grass to the left of my blind. When they saw the buck two of the does ran by my blind on the right side. The remaining doe stood around 15 yards from me, but when the buck got close to it the doe ran. The buck continued in the direction of the hill. He had less of a limp than he did this morning.
