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Back to My Roots - The Wide 10

cotty16

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
It's been 6 years... 6 years since I hunted one of my old honey holes at Mingo Sportsman Club. In those 6 years I have been hunting other private properties and I have had some success, but this year I felt the urge to get back to my roots and do things the old fashioned way.

On all of the properties I have been tinkering around on the last 6 years, I've been running cameras and just driving myself absolutely nuts. I'd get either pics of bucks I wanted to shoot here, no pics there, etc... It lead to a lot of frustration of either not seeing the bucks I was after or thinking there was nothing in the area worth hunting based on lack of picture evidence.

I still have been running cams on these properties and I still spent some time hunting these properties, but my desire to get back to my roots inspired me to focus more on my set in what I call "The Oak Woods" that leads to "The Bowl". You see, "The Bowl" (as my dad named it) has been a spot we focused on since I started hunting back in 1986. My dad killed several bucks out of this area as have I. Some of you have seen my wall in the rec room... 4 of the mounts are from The Oak Woods or The Bowl (they truly are intertwined as the Oak Woods is a corridor between bedding areas in The Bowl and a another are that is dang near impossible to hunt.

So far this season, I sat in this particular stand 3 times. Twice I had buck action and passed a nice 8. I continued to bounce around properties just to keep the scenery fresh and the stands fresh as well.

Saturday evening I found myself in The Oak Woods at 3:00. Throughout the sit I had 6 doe move through at different times, two at a time. The last two moved through at 5:00 and kept looking over their shoulder. The buck emerged out of the creek bottom and at first I wasn't sure I was interested. He was about 40 yards away but I only had a side view. He was starting to head on past me, so I grunted to get a better look. When he turned to look my way I saw how wide he was and at that point I knew it was game on.

He continued walking the way he was traveling, but stopped to make a scrape and trash some trees. As he was pissing in the scrape I hit the grunt again. He looked... thrashed some more... then walked another ten yards to make another scrape.

It started to look like he would walk out of sight when I remembered I had the bleat can in my pocket. I quickly grabbed it and gave one flip... he turned completely around and was now starting to show sign of coming my way. He was staring into the woods in my direction, flickering his tail. I decided to try a snort wheeze to further coax him. That absolutely turned him inside out.

He dropped his head and started my way. Thank God for the smoker because he was now downwind of me! I am now facing the tree that I lean against and I'm watching him through the V in the tree with my release already attached to the loop. I just need to see which side of the tree he is going to come around. He starts to veer to my left and I use the tree advantage to draw my bow as it concealed my movement. I'm holding for only a couple seconds and he emerges into view at about 15 yards. I let it fly and the rest is history.

This is one of the most satisfying deer I have ever harvested because it was done the old way. No cameras... no corn... well, you get the idea. Just good, old fashioned knowledge of using the terrain and natural resources to my advantage. I truly felt like I got back to my roots.

Here's a pic of when I found him.
night.jpg

Pic of the next morning.
daytime.jpg

And a pic of Dad scoring him for the contest. We stopped at the summer campsite on the way out of morning pics.
dad scoring.jpg
 

Dustinb80

#FACKCANCER
Supporting Member
18,172
187
S.W. Ohio
Great write up. Congrats brother, very happy for you. It also helps to see the summer bow shoot site. Getting excited for it already. Did we happen to ride through or near "The Bowl" during our ATV rides?
 

JOHNROHIO

Participation Trophy Winner
2,824
136
Fantastic read Mike! Cameras are the devil, I think I have only one out running somewhere and the battery's are probably dead. The rest are just sitting in the garage.
Congratulations once again on a fine deer.


 
Very nice write-up Mike! It sure sounds like some land with history and sometimes getting back to basics is the best way to remind us where we came from. It's easy to throw out a bunch of bait and put a trail camera over it and think that's how we are supposed to hunt these days. Learning the land and knowing how deer use it has been one of the most rewarding things I've done there in Ohio since we bought our land.
 

CJD3

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
14,630
201
NE Ohio
Really a great story Mike.
I'm happy for ya.
What a great deer! Congratulations!!