A 112-acre cedar thicket may not seem like prime woods for killing trophy bucks, but then again, it depends on where the thicket is. The cedar thicket David Coleman hunts is apparently in exactly the right spot.
To the west is open bean and corn fields that draw hungry deer like pizza attracts teen-agers.
To the south is a cattle pasture. To the north is a major highway with catfish ponds on the other side of it. And to the east is another cedar thicket.
“The deer bed in the thicket to the east and feed in the field to the west,” Coleman said. “To get back and forth, they have to come through me.”
To top it all off, the tract is in deer-rich Lowndes County, and it’s virtually unhunted.
“There’s zero pressure,” Coleman said. “It’s like a preserve in there.”
So Coleman, 39, jumped at the chance to hunt the tract when the owner offered access to him at the end of last season.
“He’s a long-time friend, and he doesn’t hunt,” Coleman said.
An avid hunter, Coleman poked around on the property a little bit last year, and killed a small 8-point. He liked what he saw, and scouted the place diligently before this season.
That effort began to pay off on Oct. 13.
At 3 p.m. that day, Coleman parked his truck on the north side of the property, and walked a half circle all the way around the property so he could approach from the south, and into the teeth of a north-northwest wind.
He used a climber to scale one of the few hackberry trees in the area, and began his wait.
For more than two hours, he enjoyed the scenery of the woods and the cool autumn weather, but his hunt was otherwise uneventful.
Until about 5:50.
That’s when three wall-hanging bucks moved within 15 yards of his stand.
“My heart was about to come out of my chest,” Coleman said. “I was halfway scared to move. I had more than 400 inches of antler 15 steps from me.”
Coleman looked around, and in addition to the three bucks, he had two does to his right. If any one of those 10 eyeballs caught movement from his tree, the jig might be up.
“I slowly worked my bow back, and (one of the bucks) picked me up,” Coleman said.
The deer snorted, and started to bolt.
“The 12-point threw his head up, but it was too late; I was already drawn and on him,” Coleman said.
He fingered his release, and the arrow’s flight was perfect.
“He whirled, and I could see the blood pumping out, so I knew it was a good hit,” Coleman said.
Over the next 15 minutes, Coleman made calls to his father and some friends to share the great news, but could bear the wait no longer. He climbed down the tree, and easily found his arrow and the blood trail.
“A blind man could have followed that trail,” he said. “There was blood everywhere.”
Coleman found the deer 100 yards from where he shot it. It later green-scored 162 Pope and Young.
But Coleman wasn’t done yet.
He knew from trail-cam shots that the 162-inch 12-point had been running with another 12-point, and he was determined to double his pleasure this season.
He needed a north wind to hunt his area, and finally caught a break the afternoon of Dec. 5.
“It was real cold. The thermometer read 41 degrees when I left my truck at 2:30,” Coleman said.
With his Thompson Center Encore in hand, he made his long walk to approach from the south, and finally got settled into his stand around 3 p.m.
The cold weather had the woods alive, and Coleman watched four or five does and a spike move through over the next hour and a half.
Not needing any meat, he decided to pass on those deer, but he wouldn’t pass on the next one he saw.
At 4:45, he looked to the southeast, and saw the 12-point moving in his direction – directly downwind.
“I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, he’s going to bust me,'” Coleman said. “I know he smelled something because at 60 or 70 yards, he just stopped. The wind was hitting the back of my neck, and blowing right to him.”
But then the deer inexplicably started moving again, straight in the direction of one of Coleman’s few shooting lanes.
Coleman pulled back his hammer, and waited what seemed like all eternity.
Finally, the deer entered the shooting lane.
“I touched off on him, and he never kicked,” Coleman said. “He just dropped graveyard dead.”
Although he hasn’t yet measured the second buck, Coleman estimates it’ll tape out around 136.
Be the first to comment