Wednesday evening sitting on my 50 acre parcel in the mountains of Central WV.
I bought it 8 years ago as an abandoned cattle farm on a secluded dirt road.
From my stand its the back right corner gas well that's a favorite of big bucks(at least on camera) and its 707 yards. (I have an old idler wheel off a bulldozer painted white with a read center cap I use as a target placed on that hillside I make friends shoot at to prove they are capable to hunt my property!)
Across this valley I've maintained the trees and preserved the area with oats and clovers pots yet only people ever shot anything over there are the **** locals when I'm not around to stop them.
So with about 30 minutes of light left and I recognize its the biggest 11pt I've seen on my cameras come out ahead a group of 5 doe.
The wind by me WAS blowing 10-4 o'clock at a steady 5-10 mph and snowing at 1" and hour rate.
At this point I have my Zeiss cranked to 25x and adjusting the parallax to crisp-in his image.
I cranked my elevation knob to my 700 yard setting and aimed to his inside front shoulder as he's facing me with a slight quarter to my left AND JUST STANDING THERE FROZEN!
This is where things fell apart.
While waiting and trying to read the wind at his location front came through and the winds picked up to a steady 20 mph with gusts of 25-30 and snow had doubled its rate.
For over 20+ minutes I watched and waited, but I just couldn't get comfortable with the wind and never even took my 300WM off of SAFE.
Big boy eventually walked away with the ladies in tow.
I have nothing but the adrenaline filled memories about what could have been but wouldn't change a thing.
Today was the last day of rifle season, maybe next year.
Sometime you just need to know when to be patient. Maybe next year.
I bought it 8 years ago as an abandoned cattle farm on a secluded dirt road.
From my stand its the back right corner gas well that's a favorite of big bucks(at least on camera) and its 707 yards. (I have an old idler wheel off a bulldozer painted white with a read center cap I use as a target placed on that hillside I make friends shoot at to prove they are capable to hunt my property!)
Across this valley I've maintained the trees and preserved the area with oats and clovers pots yet only people ever shot anything over there are the **** locals when I'm not around to stop them.
So with about 30 minutes of light left and I recognize its the biggest 11pt I've seen on my cameras come out ahead a group of 5 doe.
The wind by me WAS blowing 10-4 o'clock at a steady 5-10 mph and snowing at 1" and hour rate.
At this point I have my Zeiss cranked to 25x and adjusting the parallax to crisp-in his image.
I cranked my elevation knob to my 700 yard setting and aimed to his inside front shoulder as he's facing me with a slight quarter to my left AND JUST STANDING THERE FROZEN!
This is where things fell apart.
While waiting and trying to read the wind at his location front came through and the winds picked up to a steady 20 mph with gusts of 25-30 and snow had doubled its rate.
For over 20+ minutes I watched and waited, but I just couldn't get comfortable with the wind and never even took my 300WM off of SAFE.
Big boy eventually walked away with the ladies in tow.
I have nothing but the adrenaline filled memories about what could have been but wouldn't change a thing.
Today was the last day of rifle season, maybe next year.
Sometime you just need to know when to be patient. Maybe next year.
