Days Five and Six

Day Five
Unbelievable. So the wind switches completely opposite so Tuesday morning it's out of the northwest, which means I'm not going back the blind that gave me the encounter the night before with the big 8. I'm pretty bummed. Shaun wants me to sit in a stand that he's "... hardly seen anything in." Great. I reluctantly agree and sit find my way through the dark, only guided by oral directions from the truck a half mile back. "I'll find it.", I figured. Eventually I did. I slipped into the blind and noisily started my sit. It was going to be another all day hunt. At about 8:30 I saw two yearling does and then about ten minutes later they went back where they came from (I didn't put this together in my head until later that night). After that, I did not see one deer until four o'clock. A doe and a fawn came from my left and walked across in front of me at about 110 yards (again not piecing this together). A short while later a lone doe came from my right and walked up against the face of the hill across from me and stood there for what seemed like forever. She was staring to my left (the west) behind the brush. Then she stared into the brush, then back, then back, and again. All of a sudden I heard a loud grunt come from the brush so I reached for my rifle. With my rifle out the window, I see a doe come out of the woods going left to right on the same trail as the previous doe and fawn (110 yards). I'm watching her watching her expecting to see the buck come behind her. I raise my binoculars to look closely at the doe's tarsal glands, and when I lowered them, I saw the buck tearing up the hill towards the first doe. By the time I got him in the scope, my crosshairs couldn't catch up to him and they were gone. Dang. He was really wide, really heavy, and a definate shooter. I stayed quiet and saw a spike come out that had broken one antler off, and a button buck that was grunting, it was pretty funny. Lots of action, just within the last 40 minutes of light. I leave the blind and pack up my stuff and I get back to the road and after I cross the fence, I feel my chest and realize I dropped Shaun's cell phone. Well I figured I'd go tell the guys in the truck first before we go backtracking. As I get to the truck, still frustrated with my missed opportunity, I peek into the bed of the truck and sure enough, there's a buck... wait, two bucks in the back! I couldn't believe it. Just then Joe goes, "Check out the drops!". Double droptine 10 point (12 total). Seriously unreal. Shaun's buck was a very respectable 125-130" 8 point. So Joe's on cloud 9, as he should be, and then I tell them we nearly had a triple. My heart still drops when I picture that buck running up the hill away from me with his nose in the air. Dang, Bill. Well, the wind stayed the same, so I am determined to sit there again. We got Joe's prize all caped out, gutted, skun, and Shaun's too. To listen to Joe retell the story is priceless and so I won't cheapen it by blogging about it.
Day Six
So I wake Shaun up. Joe, of course, is sleeping in this morning. Well-deserved, I might say. I get dropped off and I hike my way to the same blind in hopes of getting another crack at this wide heavy buck. By the way, the night before we had Richard (Shaun's neighbor) cape Joe's buck. I was telling him the story of the buck I got a glimpse of and he said, "I know that deer. That's a book deer." And to hear Richard say that means that he's had several good looks at that buck. Our descriptions lined up and so my adrenaline is off the charts as I sneak into the blind. 7:08am I'm hunkered down and quiet. I saw deer every hour, making 12 before noon, including one little fork. It got slow after 1:20pm until about 3:10ish. This yound doe was walking around trying to get a drink from the frozen slough. She walked behind some trees and rubbed her hocks together and peed. She started getting figitty and she bounced down the hill towards me a bit. Sure enough, here comes a buck. My rifle is already out the window at this point (I told myself no more binoculars). Through the scope it was obvious this was not the buck from the night before, but he was nice. A big 8 point. 10-11" G2s, 9" G3s, narrow, but pretty heavy. Probably gross high 140s. I decide that there's only one day after this, so I'm gonna shoot. I bring my crosshairs to his chest and baaa so he'll stop. On a dime, he yanked his head up. Bang! He ran up the hill like he was late for a meeting. I did not feel good about that. At this point it's about 3:40pm. I've gotta go check to see if there's blood. I'm skeptical. I hike over there and sure enough I find hair. lots of short white hair. Briskut. I shot low. No blood. So I head back to the blind because I've still got an hour before dark, but I didn't see any deer. Tonight the wind has changed again, which puts me in a predicament. Back to the Dead End Blind? We'll see in the morning. Canadian weather forcasts have been worse than the U.S.'s so far, if you can believe that. I'm ticked, but at least it was a pretty clean miss. He might feel a draft.