Zooming In 8 (Season 2)
Show 8 – Jeff in Missouri
Jeff’s Missouri bowhunt is a study in persistence. Rather than give up after a week of unseasonably warm temperatures and suppressed deer movement, my brother decided to stick it out for a couple more days. But more importantly, he decided to shift his hunting attentions in a totally different direction.
Jeff had initially been hunting within and on the edges of fairly large tracts of timber. But after eight days of seeing nothing but antlerless deer and small bucks, he and cameraman Matt Tandy made the decision to establish a stand site here along this draw, which consisted of tall yellow grass and scattered spruce trees.
Based on what his scouting had showed him, Jeff figured that the resident whitetails were bedding in this spruce thicket here, and then making their way to this standing soybean field in early evening. My brother knew he’d guessed right almost immediately after getting settled on his stand, as a number of antlerless deer and small bucks filed past him on their way to the standing beans.
Some time later a mature buck came walking along on the trail of several other deer that had passed by earlier. But just before walking into the open, the trophy whitetail spooked and ran back the way he’d come from. As more or less a “just in case” move, Jeff pulled out his Nikon rangefinder and took a reading on the runway the buck had been walking on. The distance was 40 yards.
With the movement pattern seemingly figured out, my brother was somewhat caught off guard when a big 10-pointer suddenly strolled into view right here. Rather than making his way toward the bean field, however, the buck was actually heading back toward the bedding area. As luck would have it, he was walking on the very runway that Jeff had ranged earlier.
Now Jeff knew he had to act fast before the buck got behind a stand of thick spruce. As soon as Matt confirmed that he was rolling on the big whitetail, Jeff grunted the deer to a stop and put an arrow through his vitals. The buck ran only about 40 yards and tipped over within sight, right about here.
As stated, Jeff’s successful Missouri bowhunt was a study in persistence. But my brother’s success can also be attributed to effective scouting, putting his Nikon rangefinder to good use and some great shooting. Way to go Jeff!
Hey, make sure you tune in next week. I don’t know where on earth we’ll be Zooming In, but I do know that you’ll find it informative. We’ll see you here!
