High time to close those gaps on a nice mature buck. Will put some time in the stand later this coming week and hoping cooler temps will pay off. Good look to all the THF pursuers out there and Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year too!!!

Good luck to you on getting that mature buck.

Merry Christmas and best of luck

May not happen this year at the home place. Gonna give it a go the week after next for a few days.

Saw my first mature buck of the season last week and spent close to 2 hours trying to get a shot with my recurve. Once he got into position i raised my bow to draw, he heard my fleece jacket rub against my arm and he got nervous and took off.

May try for a cull buck next week before the ender.

I am done for the year for deer. Spent a few days before Christmas butchering 3 deer. I will hunt some coyotes until Feb and then do a draw hunt for javelina

Unless something new shows up, a couple more doe and I'm done. My target showed up missing most of one side...

frustrating but now you have a buck to think about all year

Thought I might regret not taking the buck I saw first thing opening morning. I was up on the property to put new struts on the mule but it was too wet so I decided late in the day to walk back to one of my stands that was holding a lot of doe thinking maybe a secondary rut buck would show up. It was already 4:20pm (shooting hours over at 5:35) and halfway to the stand I stopped to put scent in a dripper that was empty at another stand on the way that I would hunt the next morning. Put a few drops on the bottom of my boots too. Moving on toward my destination I pushed a doe but she did not spook wild. I slowed way down, probably a couple hundred yards from the stand and in heavy timber/brush. Trail cam at the feeder I am going to sends a pic to my phone brutally reminding me that I didn't mute my phone A tall, square racked 8 point had busted a bunch of doe at the feeder, I had seen him on cam several times this year, as had the neighbors that I knew were hunting for him. Not super wide or heavy, but tall and symmetrical, one of the better deer for this area. I was about 50 yards from the edge of a creek bottom and decided to move to the edge and watch the bottom but before I got there another pic showed him walking toward me from the other side of the bottom. Although short of the edge I stopped at a tree where I had a fairly good view of the creek bed and there he was crossing 75 yards in front of me trailing at a fast walk. There was 1 opening that he would cross in the next few seconds and then there would be no shot.....

Nice one. Appreciate the blow by blow. Dark at 535-wow.