Opening weekend of bow came and went with excitement and disappointment.  We had pictures of a bachelor group of bucks hanging out in what we call the “panther plot”.  My husband and I didn’t get a look at any of the big boys on Saturday night, but we watched many smaller 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 year old bucks.  The next night the mom in me had us packing to head home before the evening hunt.  The girls had basketball tryouts the next day and 11 pm was too late to get home.  My brother assured me the “hunting gods” would reward me for being a good mom.

The second weekend we headed back up north.  Saturday night we had an ecounter with a 10 pointer we call Mr. Clean for his symmetrical rack.  He was at 45 yards and I knew that was too far of a shot.  My husband reassured me there were more bucks to come and to be patient. We watched three sets of bucks sparing in the field that night, but never had a shooter in range.  The next night was September 26th, the same night I had shot my 10 pointer the year before.  After setting our oldest daughter up to hunt, we headed back to our stand on the corner of the panther plot.  My husband told me “watch to the East, they’ll be coming from there”.  He was right, shortly after 6, Mr. Clean and a much bigger buck we think was Oden had shown up!  My heart was pounding! After feeding on soy beans for 20 minutes, Mr. Clean decided to step out at 30 yards.  He stopped to eat a few more beans with me at full draw and a branch in my way.  After over 50 seconds (which felt like a year!) he turned to scratch his ear and I put my Easton right through his pumper.  WOW!  We watched him run about 60 yards, turn to look back, and tip over.  How could this be was all I could think, another buck on the September 26th? After getting our daughters we recovered the buck as a family.  To us hunting is all about spending time with family and friends.  A lot of hard work goes into successful hunts  We plan and plant food plots, clear stands, look at maps, hang cameras, and the fun part, share endless stories of hunts that have all of us laughing and excited to hit the woods again.

All in all, it was an awesome night and a date I will never forget to hunt.  Two years in a row in the same corner has earned me the title of  “corner killer” by our hunting group, it’s a name I’ll take proudly!

Ann Altmann

After a long hot day of hanging tree stands and planting food plots, some of them twice, opening day was finally upon us. Friday night consisted of heading up to the Seiler’s for a good fish fry, lots of laughs, and tons of anxiety.  I woke up at about 4:30am to  heavy rain and thunderstorms.  Keeping a positive attitude, Brandon and I headed to an Antler King food plot where a Shack blind awaited us.  After a pretty uneventful morning, a quick lunch, and a few shots with the Mathews, we headed back to the same spot for the evening hunt.  Temps had dropped and a high pressure was rolling in.  The deer were moving early and we knew it was going to be a good night.  Sure enough as the food plot was filling up with small bucks and plenty of doe, out stepped a stud.  A buck that we named Slick.  Tara had filmed this buck during the summer out of the same Shack blind.  He was a deer that we were unsure of his age.  Not being able to tell, I elected to let him walk.  As he worked his way closer and closer, he got bigger and bigger, and more and more mature.  Right as I was thinking about maybe taking a shot at him, all the deer in the food plot went on alert and were staring hard past the blind.  I peaked out the back window and saw just what I was looking for.  A mature giant 8 point.  After the buck made three scrapes he finally made his way into the food plot and I put my Mathews to work.  And just like that my season was over.  Hours and hours of sweating, plotting, coming up with a master plan, had all paid off in a matter of hours.  A true giant hit the dirt and I got to share it all with my best friends.  I couldn’t have been happier that night as we told stories of our first day’s hunt and all I could say was, “That was quick”

Jeff Kaye