Why do we do it?

[wolc123]

On 11/29/2024 at 9:04 AM, wolc123 said:

I’ve taken at least 3, 3.5 yr plus bucks from large blinds, including one from the upper deck of each of my two-story truck cap blinds, and one from an 8 ft elevated 4’x4’ platform with 3rd barnwood walls on 3 sides.  
 

Those were all during the peak two weeks of the rut when they are not thinking clearly or at the top of their wits.  The largest bodied one charged in shortly after I cleared about a foot deep of leaves that had accumulated in the upper section.  There was a fresh scrape nearby and I think he thought that noise was another deer visiting the scrape.  

Certainly they are tougher to fool outside of those two weeks.  

My 3.5 yr buck from big blinds ticked up by one on December 17, 2024 with this one, which was also the first one that I killed from a big blind, outside of the peak two weeks of the rut:

(23)

That was also my first kill from this poplar tree blind, from which I had missed a doe a couple weeks prior and a 2.5 year old buck the year before, due to what I believe was a shotgun/sabot slug/cold weather malfunction. 
 

A dead ash tree had fallen against it and I dropped and processed it into firewood the day before I missed the doe.  She was the only deer that I seen, thru all of shotgun season last year.  
 

I think the chainsaw noise and tractor ruckus the day before coaxed her out of the heavy cover.  That didn’t do me any good though, because I missed her clean.  The buck wasn’t so fortunate though, when he stepped out in the exact same place a couple weeks later.  Fortunately, I had my ML that time.