'16 White tail season....

[VaRedneck]

I hit the stand a lil late this mornin. Beautiful day.....low 50's and calm. As I was finishing getting settled I thought I heard something moving in the creek bottom. Too dark to make anything out . Always sounds to me like I'm moving around like a herd of elephants...in reality...maybe not. Dawn broke and the squirrels were not quite boisterous. The Beech...while more yellow than last week, have still not even begun to drop. So visibility from last week hadn't improved all that much.

About 0815 I heard a fawn or doe bleat across the creek. I tried to mimic the pitch...got it wrong....I sounded too big....waited a few minutes and tried again...let out a coupla nice quiet fawn bleats and..........waited.

About 0830 I heard something in the lane nearest the creek. Hadn't been keeping track of any squirrels there so turned my head a bit. Dang...right in the middle of the lane....60yds and while not a wall hanger...definitely a shooter. He checked what breeze there was looked around and started back into the laurel. I took that opportunity to turn and shoulder my ML. Kinda cramped up turning to the right....still haven't improved my stand...maybe next year...heh.

I had the scope on the next lane....and the second he stepped out I realized two things. One, I gotta pay more attention to these lanes because I couldn't see his legs, (The laurel had already gotten above the 2' mark.) and 2, I better shoot quick cause I wasn't gonna see him if he got to the other side. (The lane is about 8' wide.) Quartering away and down hill at 75yds, as the cross hairs passed his near shoulder....BOOM.

A new personal best. 9pt dressed at 195lbs.