Big Bucks don't get big for no reason!

This week I got the opportunity to hunt Tuesday and Thursday morning. Man! It was great to be outside, we had some cold fronts sweep through the area which really got things moving. I saw some fresh rubs and have seen more non-nocturnal buck activity recently. Tuesday morning I headed to my stand on the east side of the 120  acres I hunt on my families property, and boy is it thick! The leaves are still on the trees and I only had a few shooting lanes available. At about 7:00a, a nice 10-pt buck walked into the clearing. I froze, not wanting him to spook of movement, and slowly reached for my gun resting on the side of the stand.

A quick gear recap: I was using a Traditions Muzzleloader E-bolt 209. The gun is "ok" for a midline black powder rifle, but I have had some problems with small parts breaking on it.

It seemed like every inch my hand drew closer to the muzzleloader, the the buck stepped closer to the edge of the shooting lane. As I swiftly shoulder the rifle the buck walked out of the lane and away from my stand. He slowly meandered throughout the trees searching for acorns as I remained silently frustrated. As the buck reached farther from my view, I began to replay all the mistakes I had made. First, my gun was hanging from the tree on  a screw-in gear hook. Secondly, I was briefly reading the newspaper from my iPhone. I began to convince myself that if I had been more careful, that buck would be on my wall and not searching for hot does.

A thought creep'd into my head just as the deer left my sight. "What if I get out of the stand, gun in hand, and slowly stalk this buck?" I knew if I didn't make a decision now, I would regret my choice the rest of the week. SO WHAT DID I DO?!  At this point I had somehow convinced my mind that I was able to perform such a stalking method and put this 10-pt in his coffin! After all, I had done this same technique last year on a last-day-of-the-season hunt out of the same stand. The results had yielded deer meat, and a ugly spike buck thinned from the herd. It was a fools errand, and I walked back to my stand after 30min of getting my scent everywhere and no buck to be seen. I stayed in the stand for several more hours, but finally headed to the truck after no more deer sightings.

I will go ahead and post my adventure from Thursday tomorrow.