Vermont Whitetail Hunt

I was fortunate to have Hunting tips and tricks member Dennis send in his successful deer hunting story:

Clothing: Under Armour pants and long sleeve shirt, Field and Stream light pants, Field and Stream long sleeve thick shirt, Field and Stream bib overalls, Field and Stream winter coat.

Boots: Field and Stream with thin slate

Gun: New England Firearms 12 gauge pump with a xf choke

Bullets: Winchester 3″ 00 buck 15 pellets

Optics: Simons laser range finder 4x magnification

Shot distance: 35 yards
Weight of animal: 153 lbs.

Deer hunting in Vermont is a lot harder then other places due to the size of the herd as it is a lot smaller. During the bow and arrow season here I wasn’t seeing the amount of deer I usually see in previous years. When rifle season opened and the bucks are in full rut now, I still wasn’t seeing the amount of deer or any buck sign around my tree stand. My stand is a great spot with 7 deer runs coming into it, but without the sign or seeing the deer like I usually do. I decide to go deeper into the woods and follow a heavily used deer run to see if I could maybe jump something or find some buck sign. A lot deeper into the woods I came to two fields that sit side by side and in between them a nice funnel with some thick brush with more heavy runs coming from the swamp. As I was walking through I see some fresh rubs on some small saplings, with the sign only on two small saplings I decide to go further. About 50 yards deeper and now behind one of the fields on the edge of a huge thick swamp I find the sign I was looking for. In a small area I found 4 scrapes and a lot of rubs. I didn’t know much about rubs and tried emailing experienced hunters to see if I could get some more knowledge on the rubs and scrapes I have found. With no real answers of really knowing how big of a buck I was dealing with. I decided to setup some trail cameras, but really liked the area and the amount of sign here so I decided to trade in my stand spot for this new spot and hunt only this spot. I knew it was going to be a waiting game and sooner or later I would catch the buck there again, at least I hoped. Every spare moment I got I was at this new spot waiting to see if I got an opportunity at this buck. On thanksgiving morning I got into the woods early and was at my new spot just sitting, but it was a bit cold that morning so I was going to get up and do a loop around the two fields to warm up.

As I left the new spot and was creeping down threw the funnel of the two fields I looked up and a doe was in the field staring right at me. What felt like forever of staring each other down, finally she put her head down for a second. She kept looking to the swamp, so I was hoping a buck was hot on her trail. She eventually walked up the field and cut over to the thick brush where I was standing. I wait to see if anything was coming up from the swamp but no luck. So I took a few steps and heard the doe walking in the brush but a bit closer to me now and as I looked I saw two sets of legs. I finally got a glance at their heads and the one in the front had a very nice rack and he was a shooter. I setup to take the first shot. I took the shot and the buck ran right in front of me in the field and dropped. I came up to him and discovered it was a very big 9 pointer. The deer weighed in at 153 pounds dressed, but the important thing of this story is if you see the sign it pays to wait it out and if you’re not seeing sign get out there and find it.