About a month ago, a good friend stopped into the shop to drop off a really nice whitetail buck to have us do a euro mount on. We got to talking about how he harvested the buck using a Heads Up decoy and I was intrigued to say the least. I knew I had to try this type of hunting - it sounded exciting, different, and surprisingly effective.
Going back about a year, we had periodically seen a big mule deer buck near our home in central Kansas. It had only been at night and brief glances were all we got before the buck vanished.
This summer we caught another glimpse of him coming home about 10 pm one night. As the hunting season drew closer, we knew there may be a small chance of catching the buck on our property, or the neighbors quarter section, where we have permission to hunt.
In October, the kids and I were going out one morning to check some coyote traps we had set, on a buffalo carcass from the herd across the road, and for the first time got to see this buck in the daylight. This allowed us to pinpoint his bedding location just south of the property we could hunt. Unfortunately, shortly after this, the farmer decided to cut the milo field where they had been hanging out and the buck soon vanished.
About a week later, I was talking to another friend who had found a big mulie about a mile south west of our house in a patch of trees and wasn't able to get permission to hunt it. I sort of disregarded the comment until another week later when I was out looking for a whitetail buck I had seen near our house and ended up watching a herd of mule deer, a long ways off, move about 2 miles back toward where the friend had seen the big buck a week earlier.
The next day, I called a neighbor to find out who owned the milo field that I had seen the mule deer go into at last light the night before. He graciously called the owner for me and was able to obtain permission for me to hunt.
A very long day went by as I was swamped with hunters and wasn't able to get out to try a stalk on the deer.
With about an hour of daylight left, I decided to drive by the field and see if I could spot the deer. Unfortunately the deer appeared to be gone. I had seen some pheasant hunters preparing to hunt the adjacent field earlier in the day and thought they must have bumped the deer, but knowing my opportunities to hunt this buck were limited, I decided to run home and grab my camo and a Heads Up Decoy I had borrowed from the neighbor. With a few zip ties, we had quickly mounted the decoy to my bow before I headed out.
I pulled up to the down wind side of the field I had last seen the deer in and started walking out in the wide open with the wind in my face. Suddenly, I caught a glimpse of an antler rack on the horizon. The buck must have been bedded along the taller weeds in the fence line and had seen me coming from about 250 yards away. I knelt down and waited for him to make a move.
The buck lowered his head and began walking straight at me. As he came down the draw, his does began to appear, bedded in a depression in the cut milo field. He circled around to check them and I took the opportunity to angle back directly down wind of him. The buck soon looked back my direction and locked onto me.
I could hardly believe that he hadn't spooked yet, even from 200+ yards away. My whole lower body was completely visible beneath the decoy. Then the buck lowered his head again and started slowly walking straight to me.
After several sequences of him stopping to rake the milo stalks and me moving to keep him from circling downwind, I found myself staring straight at him 40 yards away. It seemed like he had to spook at any moment, I just about drew my bow and then he lowered his head again and kept coming.
At about 15 yards he stopped. We both froze as the tension had reached a threshold and the buck decided it was time to get downwind of me and figure out why I didn't look quite right. At that moment, I drew my bow and the buck skipped back to about 20 yards giving me a perfect 20 yard shot.
As the buck ran off I saw my arrow hanging out the opposite side by the fletching behind his shoulder. About 80 yards later the buck legs began to buckle and I watched as he tumbled over.
This was the same buck we had watched by our house and had given up on ever getting an opportunity at. What a roller-coaster! Easily one of the most exciting hunts of my life and it only took 45 minutes!
I would highly recommend grabbing yourself a Heads Up Decoy. I plan to put both the mule deer and whitetail decoys on my Christmas list this year!
The best part about it is that the company is locally owned and operated out of Hays Kansas. Check them out and tell them we sent you! https://headsupdecoy.com/
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