This gun deer season was very hard and tested me as a hunter. There were many ups and downs along the way. Weather played a BIG factor this year. Both weekends I hunted it was windy, snowing, or raining which made it hard to hunt as well as see deer.
I only saw a handful of deer the 5 days I hunted, which most were fawns and a few does. I was pretty discouraged Saturday night November 26th. There was 1 day left. I was not sure what I was going to do. Should I even go out? The answer to that is YES. My whole attitude for this year was to never give up and to hunt as hard as I could no matter what happened. Well, on the last morning that definitely worked for me. Here is the story.
We had a north wind blowing 10-20 mph. There is a 5 acre pine plantation that we planted 10+ years ago that is 100 yards long and 50 yds wide that blocks the wind from the west and borders the highway. The trees are now 12-15 feet high and very thick. We did not go through this area all week. Being the last day we decided to make 1 drive through there and see if there was anything in there. I got on the North west side of the pines and was across a cut corn field that borders the pine trees. There is a peninsula of grass that is about 5 feet tall that I was hiding in so that if anything came out it would not see me. Deer most of the time, like to run into the wind so we knew this would be the likely direction deer would run if they were in there. After I got set up my brother Al circled around to the south and started to make a slow push North through the pines. I saw him go in and got my gun in ready position. After only about 1 minute a single deer comes out of the pines into the field and is running right in my direction. I get the scope on it and see that it is a good buck about 150 yds away and coming my way. I let him come closer and closer. He is about 60 yds away and turns slightly broadside, that is when I take the safety off, put the cross hairs on him and squeeze. He dropped in his tracks right there. I was super pumped up and glad that it all came together in the end.
This buck ended up being a mainframe 8 with a sticker at the bottom of the right antler making him a 9 pointer. This was one of the better bucks I have gotten and could not be happier with him. 
Picture #1 is our property. The red line is the property line. The total is 240 acres. The orange is where we made the drive and where the deer came out.
Picture # 2 is a close up of the pine tree plantation and where the deer came out. The orange dot is my location and the red line is the path the deer took.
It’s great when a plan comes together and when you get to benefit from all the hard work you put in 10 years ago when you planted the pines. 
