Three Minutes

It’s always amazed me that three minutes can change the whole dynamic of a hunt. I sat for four days in Ohio without seeing one deer. Sitting on field edges from daylight to dark everyday. Finally, we made a change and I set a stand back in the timber.  The first afternoon I didn’t see an animal. The next morning I saw my first Ohio buck of the year on stand. Then a whole pile of doe worked by me in the afternoon.  On Saturday morning I got in the stand in the dark, far enough from any field so as not to disturb any deer out feeding. An hour or so after daylight I heard that unmistakable sound of rustling leaves, knowing a deer is coming. He was coming in from behind me, I had a decoy out, he stopped off camera, staring long and hard at the decoy, but not coming right in. He started working away from me and I had that split second to decide to take the quartering away shot, at 30+ yards. The arrow hit its mark and I recovered him within a hundred yards from where he was hit. Three minutes from the time I first heard the deer to the time he was shot.

 

Sitting long days not seeing an animal can make you doubt yourself and question your decisions on a hunt, but three minutes can change everything.