Hunter: Carey Vaughan
Points: 8 (4L, 4R)
County: Morgan
Season: 2016-2017
Hunt Story
It was easily in the mid 80s when I got in my stand, and it stayed hot until around 6 p.m. when the sun wasn't shining directly on me. I was 35 feet up a large pine in my climber, and it is another 10-15 feet to the pond bed, so scent wasn't an issue. I watched 12 does feed for over an hour while a young 4-point stalked and chased a couple of the does. As the deer starting leaving the field as daylight waned, 5 does walked right across about 15 yards in front of my stand, then as they passed me I caught movement from the wood line on the opposite side of the clearing. I saw the height was good initially and then scoped the buck and recognized him as a buck I had in game cams at 2 other stand sites on the property. As he approached following the does out of the clearing, I dropped him with one shot about 25-30 yards from my tree. The deer dropped where he stood, no running or even moving after the shot. He rolled straight to his back and stayed right there. I wasn't able to climb down for several minutes because the other deer were still around me and I didn't want to cause further disruption than necessary. This is my first year on a very good property and this is my best buck to date. It was very exciting to get my personal best in my first year on this club. I'm really hoping to surpass this mark as well. If we can get any rain, we should have excellent late season food plots, as all of our guys put a lot of time and effort into quality plots that as of now are still just dust unfortunately. But for now, I was able to find what green was growing and stayed out until the deer were showing signs of chasing - and it paid off. The does were grazing heavy down there, the bucks were bound to follow when the time was right.
