I decided to sleep in this morning and just hunt the afternoon.  It was an absolutely beautiful day for hunting, a perfect November day.  The sky was heavy with clouds, and the fall colors were in full swing as I arrived at the lease.  As I passed our little target range I saw that Jimmy and Matt were there, so I stopped in and asked them how they had done this morning.  Neither had seen anything.

After chatting for a few minutes I went ahead and signed in for stand 6, grabbed a couple of bags of corn, then headed up to my stand.  As I rounded the corner behind stand 3, I was surprised to see that there was a deer out about 100 yards in front of the stand.  I climbed out of my truck and got my binoculars out of my backpack.  It was a nice doe, and here it was only 1:15pm.  As I watched, another big doe crossed behind the first one.

Excited, I watched them feed for several minutes until they finally saw me and fled.  I got back in my trucked and headed on up to my stand.  I had my camera with me, so I decided to film a little video of the hunt today, just for fun.  I cut a slit in the fabric of my stand that I could poke the camera lens through, then filmed a little introduction of the hunt. 

I then drove down and dumped out my corn, then got a bottle of estrus doe urine and walked down the road about 50 yards, then poured some of the foul smelling liquid onto a rag, which I proceeded to drag up the road, around the bend toward the stand, then I finally hung it in a tree hoping to attract a big buck.  I drove back up the road, parked the truck and got in the stand.

As the afternoon wore on, I saw a flock of hen turkeys come out of the woods to my left.  I got some good video of them coming up the road toward my stand.  As they passed in front of me, I glanced to the right and was surprised to see two deer down 100 yards below my stand.  I quickly shoved the camera into the hole I had cut, then grabbed my rifle.

There were two nice does down at the end of the road, and as I was about to shoot one of them I saw an even bigger doe come out of the woods to the left of the first two.  I readjusted the camera to get all three deer on video, then waited for a shot opportunity.  The three animals were bunched together, and for a minute or two there was no shot opportunity.

The deer that was blocking my shot finally moved enough for me to make a neck shot on the biggest deer, and she dropped in her tracks.  I grabbed my pistol, racked a round into the chamber, then walked down the road to get my deer.  Since it was only 4:15, I decided that I could drag her on back up the road to my stand, then hunt the rest of the day.  The pistol was for insurance, just in case the deer was still alive when I got to her.

She expired as I walked up, so I grabbed her and dragged her 100 yards back toward the stand, then took a few pictures before getting back in the blind to hunt some more.  She was a huge doe, weighing at least 120 pounds and probably more.  The best one of the year, for sure. 

Although I stayed in the stand until dark, I saw nothing else the rest of the day.  I did managed to get the entire hunt, including the shot, on video.  It's available for viewing at this link.