Pre-Rut In Georgia

Pre-Rut in Georgia

First Impressions

Growing up, I never really had any experience with hunting. It just wasn’t something my family did. Some of my friends would go, and I thought it was pretty cool, but I didn’t know much about it.

Last year, we spent Thanksgiving with my wife's family on their farm in Sparta, Georgia, and I spent a few mornings and evenings in the deer stands.

I really, really enjoyed it. I thought it was beautiful, and I liked how visual the hunting was compared to fishing. You're constantly scanning for deer, and it felt different. You never take a shot without seeing the deer whereas fishing can be a lot of blind casting.

I only saw a single doe in three or four sits, but I really enjoyed the experience and was excited to get back out there.

The lack of action made me appreciate things–if my heart skipped a beat at every squirrel that jumped on a leaf 20 yards away, what would it be like to sight a buck?

Pre-Rut

This time, we were there in mid-October, which Jay (FIL) and Trace (BIL) said would be a great time—right before the rut.

During the rut, deer start mating, and the bucks get aggressive, throwing caution to the wind covering a ton of ground.

Trace explained that we were in the pre-rut, or staging patterns, where bucks were establishing their territory. With that knowledge, we headed out to see what we could see.

Rifle Range

My first hunt was Tuesday evening, and Trace put me at a stand called Rifle Range. It’s a big, open field surrounded by woods on three sides.

To the west, there’s dense brush; to the south and east, canopy pine woods that slope down into a creek bed running from southeast to northwest.

Directly north is a wide, open field that ascends onto a hill, with tall, dry grass at the edge—a result of a very dry summer and a long drought.

I had a full 360-degree view from my swivel chair. Not bad at all.

A Good Start

Trace dropped me off at a quarter til 5, and it was pretty toasty— 90 degrees. Not bad relative to TX, but I nodded my Smith shades down my nose to keep em from fogging.

About an hour in, I started hearing some movement in the thick brush to the west and another bit at the top of the hill to the east.

It felt like I was counting every minute while watching the sun set to my left, casting longer shadows across the field.

I figured the hunt would pick up once the shadows got three-quarters of the way across the field, and sure enough, things started happening after the wait.

The first doe I saw was a small one near a feeder deep in the pines midway up the wooded hill to the east, just north of a dirt road that crossed it. Not long after, another doe popped out there.

I thought, “This is a good start.” They made their way down the hill into the creek bed, which met the edge of the field in thick brush. I heard some other rustling there earlier but couldn’t see much because it was too dense.

Dancing

Around 6 p.m., I spotted a doe to the northwest, at the upper left corner of the field—no sound, just there grazing.

Then a second doe eased out of the tall grass and before long, three more joined. I thought, “Alright, this is getting good. The dance floor's set.”

Two does dancing with a third joining the party from the tall grass.

Packing the dance floor.

As someone fairly new to hunting, I try to stay fully engaged. Some people bring books or watch games on their phones, but even when it seems like not much is happening, there’s still a lot going on. It’s like watching a movie—you don’t want to miss any part of it because if you do, none of the rest of the movie makes any sense.

The Pre-Rut Strut

From there, I heard rustling to my left in the deep brush to my west and all of a sudden out popped a buck from the thick stuff halfway up the hill in the field. My heart dropped below my stomach and the two started doing somersaults to see which would make me throw up first.

He was following the doe just kind of casually walking up to her like a hotshot on the dance floor, not in any sort of hurry. He was grazing a bit and just sort of making his way up to the does while letting them have their distance.

From what Jay and Trace had told me, like this was the pre-rut strut.

Again, after only seeing one doe last year, I had already labeled this hunt a resounding success once the does showed up in numbers.

But now that a buck had come out, he was in shooting range, and he was definitely a shooter, this was a 10 out of 10 hunt. My head was throbbing and my heart was racing even faster.

I heard even more rustling in the thick brush to my left and thought, “Oh my gosh, there could be an even bigger buck in there”, but I was so impressed with this one here that I didn't want to waste any time.

Cat & Mouse

As I was setting up for the shot, the buck, who was probably 60 yards up the hill, heard me tink the legs of the bipod against the windowsill of the stand.

He spooked and made his way up into the tall grass in the northwest corner at the top of the hill.

And I just thought that I had absolutely blown it. I was 90% sure that I had blown it, but 10% of me said, “Hey, he might still be up there.”

So I zoomed out on the scope, and boom, there were the does. Their tiny little heads were just above the tall dry grass up there.

And I thought, “Wow, you know, that buck is probably still in there with em." And so I scanned and lo and behold, I saw antlers swaying and dipping and nodding in the grass.

Big Moments

And then he picked up his whole, wide neck above the grass. And then he was dead still, nose in the air, sniffing or pointing or something. And he was broadside.

I thought, “Oh my gosh, this is a long shot for me, but I have a clear shot, and I might not get another one." And so I turned the gun off safety, cozied up to the scope, zoomed in a touch, and I took the shot.

The buck buckled under the shot, but I didn't see him pop out of the grass anywhere or go down.

Silence

I was shooting a 6.5 Creedmoor with a silencer that I was confident in after shooting at the range by the house with Trace.

Some of the does scurried a bit, but they didn't spook. They were still up there in the grass. My heart was racing, my chest was thumping, and my head was pounding. My system was just all out of whack, I had the shakes, and I thought, “Oh my gosh, I might have just downed my first buck."

Trace has some sort of spidey sense–from wherever he was on the other side of the property, he texted me immediately with, “was that you?”

I have no clue how he knew I shot because, again, I shot a silencer and the does that were standing right next to my buck barely moved an inch.

But here's Trace in my text messages.

And I go, "Yes."

And he texts, "He is down!"

He knew because he had heard the same thump of the bullet making contact with the buck that I had.

Big Moments

So that gave me some confidence, but I still hadn't seen the buck. And so I put another bullet in the chamber and climbed down the ladder, which was easier said than done because my feet were twitching like a crackhead’s.

I walked across the field diagonally to the northwest corner to the dirt road right on the property line. I hit the road, turned in to the tall, dry, grass, and boom, buck down, no more than five yards from where I had last seen him.

My first buck, an 8-pointer downed in the tall grass.

The feeling of relief and accomplishment and gratification swept over my body at once in one of the biggest exhales of my life.

I felt incredibly thankful that I was out there with family in a place they consider so special.

Rifle Range in the background from the tall grass.

Circling the Wagons

So I made my way back up to the stand to wait for the guys to finish their hunts. I heard the mule after last light making its way over the hills and through the woods, and Jay rolls around with little baby James who's almost two. Marsh, the farm manager, and his sons Jack and Eli also came out to lend a hand.

They picked me up, we made our way over, and took the buck back to the barn for cleaning. We'll all be back at the farm around Thanksgiving, so it'll be great to share fillets, backstraps, and venison sausage gumbo.

James, Jay, and I loading up. Shoutout to Jack, Eli, and Marsh for all the help.

Emerald

After a Wednesday full of quail hunting and fishing sandwiched between slower sits at wooded blinds, the last morning of the trip was here in a flash.

Fishing with James!

Trace wanted to get up earlier than normal that morning which I was completely in for.

I was in a tree stand they call “Emerald” in a nice lush green field in the back corner of the property. There was a feeder 30 yards or so off the stand and it was well before first light.

The view from Emerald with the feeder covered by the right branch after first light.

Early Rise

It was pitch black dark and I took a nice little morning nap. There was no light, so I was just using my ears and figured I’d close the blinds.

So I was there napping and while I was one foot in, one foot out on being awake, I could make out the sounds of deer in the woods. Directly behind me nonstop.

Even though it was still pitch black out, I thought, “Wow, this is going to be an amazing hunt.”

Wildlife Watching

That being said, I had accepted the fact that I wasn't going to be shooting after Tuesday’s madness. I was just excited to take it all in, learn more about these deer, and watch them go about their day.

So with that frame of mind, I started hearing noises pretty much under my feet that were more methodical than your run-of-the-mill jumpy squirrel of chipmunk.

I opened my eyes and the first thing that I saw were the leaves right in front of my face. They were polka-dotting my view, and I could tell where each leaf started and ended against the backdrop of the slightly lighter field.

As I scanned just a bit to my left, I saw a giant black blob where the leaves were, and I thought, “Oh my gosh, that's got to be a deer.” No more than 10 yards from the base of my tree, and it was a big blob...

I couldn't make out any antlers, but I could make out its head as it lifted up and down and continued to graze. It moved off before first light, but I was sure I’d be in em thick come daylight.

Doe Spray

So come sunup, I had already seen something like five deer grazing in the woods under me and in the corner of the field directly in front of me. And it was interesting because that was the only part of the field that they were in.

I thought it had to be because of the doe spray that I'd sprayed at the base of the tree after I had climbed into the stand. So that stuff definitely works.

First Light

First light came around, illuminating does already in the field. The feeder went off a quarter after seven, and there was a doe making its way casually across the field to the feeder.

This was the first deer with enough light to video, and since I was all but committed not to shoot, I took out my phone. I was just videoing this doe when I hear a bunch of rustling in the far thicket.

Young Buck

And boom, like a, like a bullet out of nowhere pops this young buck, and he starts galloping across the top part of the field after this doe. He gathers himself and just starts walking proudly across the field and starts eating at the feeder.

First Sighting of the Emerald buck

I think, “Whoa, that was awesome. I got that all on video.” And so I texted the video to the group text, but the service is too bad out there for it to go through.

I keep watching the buck and he's coming closer and closer until he's probably, you know, 15 yards off from my stand. Then a button buck comes out 30 yards to my left. The big buck charges him halfheartedly, and the button buck keeps his distance from there.

Emerald buck up close.

“Is It Uneven?”

I watched this buck in the field for over an hour, taking pictures as he stayed 20-40 yards from me. I send one to Trace and I say, “Nice buck–has a nicer rack than the buck from the other night, but he seems skinnier. Going to let him walk.”

Trace asks, “Is it uneven?”

And I go, “Four on one side, three on the other.”

And Trace immediately goes:

“Shoot him, we have been trying to get him” “He was my target last night” “He is uneven, bad genetics” “Good to fire at will” “He is four and a half years old”

So much for "young buck"...

Shooting

So I field this flurry of texts and my nature expedition comes to an immediate and unexpected close.

I go, “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I am shooting, I am shooting.” Everything in that moment flipped on its head as a flood of adrenaline left no stone in my body unturned.

I slowly stretched for my rifle. Luckily, I was prepared and had one in the chamber.

As I grabbed the rifle, the carrying strap nicked the stand. The buck they all called Trident jolted up and made his way up the field.

I had seen him spook like this a few times throughout our morning together. The deer were so thick in the woods behind me that he had heard them a few times and kicked back up the hill.

But after registering every sound, he’d come cruising back down. Those deer saved me this time and provided some cover. He made his way back down to 40 or so yards, and was broadside, pointing at the road in the bottom-right corner of the field where Trace had dropped me off hours ago.

Tracking Trident

As soon as I hit him he buckled stiff. I thought he was going to go right down like the other buck must have. He surprised me and went barreling off into that far right corner through the brush.

He crossed the dirt road and went scampering off parallel to the creek bed.

I thought, “What went wrong?” I thought it was a perfect shot, he was much closer than the previous night’s.

Trace, despite the silencer, once again knew I had fired and told me to sit tight so as not to push him further down the creek bed with his adrenaline pumping.

Jay, Trace, and little James came by. We scoured the field where I had shot him for blood but found nothing.

Not wanting to scent up the place, we moved over to where I had last seen him on the edge of the road. We found blood, marked a twig with tracking tape, and kept looking.

Surgeons That Hunt

We were probably 30 to 40 yards deep into the woods when Trace said, “The blood drops are getting thicker. It seems like you double-lunged him. He's got to be somewhere like right there” and he looks up and points down the creek bed and takes a couple steps, and sure enough, there he was.

Trident down in the creek bed.

Coming up on the buck was an amazing moment of relief. I was really thankful that we had a successful outcome on this second hunt, but at the same time, I couldn't help but wish that Trace had been in that stand and gotten his buck on a bow.

All in all, it was an absolutely amazing couple days of hunting. I couldn't believe my luck aside from justifying it as the beginner's flavor.

It was a nice change of pace after fielding the opposite end of the luck stick all summer– tough tarpon fishing, tougher marlin fishing, and getting tight on a Bluefin on topwater that broke off...but I digress...

We dragged him up the creek bed, loaded him on the mule and weighed him back at the barn at a stocky 185 lbs. Marsh aged him at 5 ½ years.

We got back to the farmhouse and Trace taught me how to skin a buck– I've never been happier to have a trauma surgeon as a brother-in-law and hope I never find myself happier about it than that.

Perspective

Heading back to the house, I asked Trace to put my week in fishing terms because I feel like I just went four for five on blue marlin in a day.

He shook his head incredulously, looked off and said, “Yeah, you just went four for five on blues in one day with a 500 and a 600 pounder.”