WEIRD PLACES I'VE FOUND BIG BUCKS WITH RAY EYE
The Camp House Buck
Editor’s Note: Ray Eye has hunted deer for more
than 30 years and has been a member of Hunter's Specialties
Pro Staff since 1985. This week Eye will tell us about
weird places where he's found big bucks. To take a trophy
buck, you need to locate a big buck in a region where
nobody else is looking for him. Many times these little
overlooked spots can and will produce that dream buck
you've searched for your life. After reading about where
Eye has discovered big bucks, start searching for overlooked
honey holes this season to take the buck of your dreams.
I had an old farm house that I used as a camp house
to host media hunts. Every year I'd bring in writers
to stay there. Then we'd take them from the camp house
to stands we'd put up in the woods. We were hunting
this area with numerous creek bottoms and agricultural
fields and also a good number of big deer. Several pastures
with a lot of open ground in them were right by the
camp.
One morning when I returned to camp after putting out
my hunters, I saw a really nice buck walking right behind
the camp house and the barn where there was a small
patch of trees and a pond. That area was so close to
the camp that I was sure there wasn't a deer there because
a buck could see, smell and hear us in the camp house.
But evidently this buck was bedding in a little patch
of willows right beside the pond. In the mornings after
he saw us leave camp, he'd get out of his bed, walk
along that tree line, cross the road and go into our
neighbor's agriculture to feed. Since we didn't have
permission to hunt
the neighbor's property, the buck was safe there all
day long.
An old fence that was down provided the only cover
to the buck's bedding area to the place where he crossed
the road to go to our neighbor's field. I noticed that
as long as the buck stayed on the edge of that fence
line he was just under the hill where the camp house
sat. Therefore, when we were in camp, we'd never be
able to see him as he moved from his bedding site to
his feeding site. I found a tree along the route where
the buck traveled from his bedding site in the willows
to where he stepped through a gap in the fence and stood
to watch the road in the neighbor's field before he
crossed the road and went into the field. I set my tree
stand up so that the buck would come up behind me. Then
when he walked out in front of me and stopped to watch
the road, he'd be less than 30 yards from my tree stand.
The morning after I set up my tree stand, when all the
hunters left camp to go to their hunting sites, I just
walked from camp, climbed up in my tree stand and waited
for the buck. He did exactly what I needed him to do.
After he came through the gap in the fence, he stopped
and was watching the road when I drew and took the shot.
The buck scored 155 points on the Boone & Crockett
scale.
To me, one of the secrets to getting a tree stand set
up and being able to
get into and out of the area without the buck's smelling
me is because I wash all my clothes with Scent-A-Way
Soap. I keep them in a Scent Safe bag, and I spray down
with Scent-A-Way before I leave camp and right after
I get into my tree stand.
I really believe that plenty of big bucks live within
rock-throwing distance of many deer camps. The reason
is quite simple. They can quickly and easily learn when
and where you hunt and don't hunt. An old smart buck
is better at patterning you than you are at patterning
him. And, many of those older bucks learn that the closer
they live to where you eat and sleep in hunting season,
the less likely you are to find them. For instance,
the camp house buck bedded-down less than 100 yards
from our camp house.
TOMORROW: MORE WEIRD PLACES TO FIND BIG BUCKS WITH
RAY EYE
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