I'm not real big on hunting the velvet hunt because of the heat, mosquitos, ticks, plus I like big rutty necked, hard horn bucks. I figured Friday, being cool I might just try it out. Why not? I'd been watching some bucks over the last month in a few fields down the road and even though they weren't where I could hunt, it wasn't far away so I thought I might get lucky. So Friday morning came and I went to my hang on where I killed a couple 130s last year and I knew it was a honey hole in November, and hoped it would show something in early season. I didn't think much would happen but it felt good to be in the stand again. As I was sitting there about an hour in to the hunt I caught movement 200 yards out the field in the tree line. The cane on the edge began to move and they stepped out 4 8 pts, 2 being 120 plus. I knew for a fact the 4th deer was one I'd been seeing a mile down the road because of his wide rack. So as I'm watching them they start to head away, not knowing what to do to turn them I remembered seeing a single doe in my area the last few mornings on the way to work. I pulled out my doe bleat and hit it twice they looked in my direction. It took a few minutes but they walked back in to the way they came and I lost them. I wasn't sure if I had made a mistake hitting the bleat but 20 minutes passed and I caught movement again above me this time in a thicket. They were circling me to catch my wind. Luckily the wind was light and heading the opposite direction. I could tell they weren't coming toward me but I may have caught their attention enough to make them curious so I hit the bleat again, three times. They came on a rope and as luck would have it the one I wanted was in the back. He got to 32 yards and I pulled back and shot. I wasn't sure how good the shot was but knew I hit. He ran 40 yards up the hill with the other bucks. They all stopped not knowing what happened. Then the buck started to wobble. He went down. I couldn't believe it. I later found out I hit perfect behind the shoulder, piercing the bottom of his heart and made a clear pass through coming back out low on the other side. I set still for about 30 mins or so taking in what had happened. This was my biggest bow buck, my only velvet buck, and I had shot him in the first 2 hours of the season. He ended up as a solid 8 with 20-21 inch beams 18 3/4 wide inside and mass measurements were so good at the bases I couldn't get my fingers around. I'm not sure what he scores I'm thinking 130 but I couldnt care less, he's a trophy to me. They're hard to come by in these sevier co mountains but the good Lord blessed me again.
