--skip to the end if you just want pictures---
3 tags and 3 trophies harvested in jersey with the bow. the journey started this spring with a quick spring gobbler hunt, opening day i passed on two jakes very early in the morning to be rewarded with a nice long beard mid morning who read the script perfectly. came in to the decoys at 12 hards and stuck his head up as i drew my bow. a few seconds later his head went flying and i had my first archery turkey.
scouted this summer and was rewarded with a nice target buck. i knew i was gonna miss opening day as i was suppose to be in South Carolina to use my gator tag i finally drew after 4 years. but mother nature had other plans. i cancelled my gator trip with 100 mph winds predicted for the sc coastline from huricane irma. on top of it work sent me to florida where i ended up working for 15 days helping to restore the power. was an awesome trip but royally messed up my chance at an easy summer pattern buck plus my gator. finally got back late September to find my target bucks had comoletely changed patterns with very few pictures. first sit i was able to shoot my earn a buck doe but my next several sits were slow to say the least. i made the choice to give up for a few days and run down to sc to try to fill my gator tag the last week of the season. got a 7'6" on my last night but thats another story for another post.
anyways i got home just in time for the october bear season. well of course as it always seems like the case the several bears i had on camera decided to disappear. well hunted my but off jumping around my bait site, corn fields, and oak flats which all turned up empty. friday i ran up north and hunted sussex when at the end of the evening a Facebook friend told me his buddy shot a monster. they were short handed to drag a large bear off the mountain so i lended them a hand. wasnt fun but we got the 515lb field dressed about a mile up hill in a few short hours. everyone was grateful, the fed me and let me spend the night in their camp. everyone said i would get a bear on the last day. sure enough i had a buddy call me and said he wouldnt be able to hunt his bait spot and cameras showed bears at least every other day in the afternoon. got to the spot and settled in to a down tree 20 yards away around 10am. he text me at 130pm and asked how i was doing, i answered the bait hadnt been touched since he rebaited two days ago. as i looked up i saw a bear walking in. i must of got a little nervous and was rushing the shot (my first real bear close in 12 days of hunting between last years and this years october seasons) as i watched the arrow hit back and low. my buddy freed up and my father in law came over to help track. we went looking about 3 hours after the shot, found good blood and actually a large chunk of liver on the trail, but after about 75 yards we heard some movement in a thick area down by a creek. with dark approaching we made the hard choice to back out. next morning we picked up the trail and were able to find the bear about 25 yards from where we heard the movement. alright my first bear and got it done with the bow.
now of course we all want to fill our buck tag but i really wanted to complete the nj triple trophy, so i jumped around several areas, kept moving my cameras around, passed up opptunties to hunt larger bucks in Pennsylvania. with not much to show from scouting i ended up hunting my original target buck a nice 8 with one huge brow tine. well around october 18th he showed up with plenty of shooting light, chasing a doe up and down a trail 3 times over a half hour at 50 yards. next night set up on that trail and he showed up again but this time at last light and and 40 yards farther away. obvisouly a doe was coming in early, well several days later i heard a rumor of a guy hunting a few properties over shooting a buck matching the description, bummer but congrats to that hunter. anyways hunted hard passing on several year and half old bucks through the end of october and first week of november. with the time change i had to switch it up if i wanted to hunt after work, decided to hunt a property i got permission to hunt a few years ago, double checked with owner and i was good to go. hunted hard and finally started to see some better racked bucks but always 70-100 yards away and got no attention from grunting or rattling at least not by anything bigger than spikes, Ys and a scrappey 6. always was in the wrong area, if i hunted the bedding area they were out in the open woods, if i hunted the open woods i would see them following does in the bedding area. well finally tuesday with only a few mins of legal shooting light, a decent rack pops up behind me and is walking down a trail roughly 40 yards away. happened to be the same trail i walked in on, and he was smelling every step he took, my worst fear came true when he had enough and he turned to leave. i let hi. get back into the thicket and gave him two grunts. well that did the trick and he turned on a dime and was headed right at me. luckily he veered off a trail and gave me a perfect 20 yard shot. shot was a touch lower than i wanted but worked out as it passed through the heart perfectly. 50 yards was all he made it. a new jersey archery triple trophy complete yeah buddy!
3 tags and 3 trophies harvested in jersey with the bow. the journey started this spring with a quick spring gobbler hunt, opening day i passed on two jakes very early in the morning to be rewarded with a nice long beard mid morning who read the script perfectly. came in to the decoys at 12 hards and stuck his head up as i drew my bow. a few seconds later his head went flying and i had my first archery turkey.
scouted this summer and was rewarded with a nice target buck. i knew i was gonna miss opening day as i was suppose to be in South Carolina to use my gator tag i finally drew after 4 years. but mother nature had other plans. i cancelled my gator trip with 100 mph winds predicted for the sc coastline from huricane irma. on top of it work sent me to florida where i ended up working for 15 days helping to restore the power. was an awesome trip but royally messed up my chance at an easy summer pattern buck plus my gator. finally got back late September to find my target bucks had comoletely changed patterns with very few pictures. first sit i was able to shoot my earn a buck doe but my next several sits were slow to say the least. i made the choice to give up for a few days and run down to sc to try to fill my gator tag the last week of the season. got a 7'6" on my last night but thats another story for another post.
anyways i got home just in time for the october bear season. well of course as it always seems like the case the several bears i had on camera decided to disappear. well hunted my but off jumping around my bait site, corn fields, and oak flats which all turned up empty. friday i ran up north and hunted sussex when at the end of the evening a Facebook friend told me his buddy shot a monster. they were short handed to drag a large bear off the mountain so i lended them a hand. wasnt fun but we got the 515lb field dressed about a mile up hill in a few short hours. everyone was grateful, the fed me and let me spend the night in their camp. everyone said i would get a bear on the last day. sure enough i had a buddy call me and said he wouldnt be able to hunt his bait spot and cameras showed bears at least every other day in the afternoon. got to the spot and settled in to a down tree 20 yards away around 10am. he text me at 130pm and asked how i was doing, i answered the bait hadnt been touched since he rebaited two days ago. as i looked up i saw a bear walking in. i must of got a little nervous and was rushing the shot (my first real bear close in 12 days of hunting between last years and this years october seasons) as i watched the arrow hit back and low. my buddy freed up and my father in law came over to help track. we went looking about 3 hours after the shot, found good blood and actually a large chunk of liver on the trail, but after about 75 yards we heard some movement in a thick area down by a creek. with dark approaching we made the hard choice to back out. next morning we picked up the trail and were able to find the bear about 25 yards from where we heard the movement. alright my first bear and got it done with the bow.
now of course we all want to fill our buck tag but i really wanted to complete the nj triple trophy, so i jumped around several areas, kept moving my cameras around, passed up opptunties to hunt larger bucks in Pennsylvania. with not much to show from scouting i ended up hunting my original target buck a nice 8 with one huge brow tine. well around october 18th he showed up with plenty of shooting light, chasing a doe up and down a trail 3 times over a half hour at 50 yards. next night set up on that trail and he showed up again but this time at last light and and 40 yards farther away. obvisouly a doe was coming in early, well several days later i heard a rumor of a guy hunting a few properties over shooting a buck matching the description, bummer but congrats to that hunter. anyways hunted hard passing on several year and half old bucks through the end of october and first week of november. with the time change i had to switch it up if i wanted to hunt after work, decided to hunt a property i got permission to hunt a few years ago, double checked with owner and i was good to go. hunted hard and finally started to see some better racked bucks but always 70-100 yards away and got no attention from grunting or rattling at least not by anything bigger than spikes, Ys and a scrappey 6. always was in the wrong area, if i hunted the bedding area they were out in the open woods, if i hunted the open woods i would see them following does in the bedding area. well finally tuesday with only a few mins of legal shooting light, a decent rack pops up behind me and is walking down a trail roughly 40 yards away. happened to be the same trail i walked in on, and he was smelling every step he took, my worst fear came true when he had enough and he turned to leave. i let hi. get back into the thicket and gave him two grunts. well that did the trick and he turned on a dime and was headed right at me. luckily he veered off a trail and gave me a perfect 20 yard shot. shot was a touch lower than i wanted but worked out as it passed through the heart perfectly. 50 yards was all he made it. a new jersey archery triple trophy complete yeah buddy!
