Well, well, well. By now you may, or may not have heard that Mr. Cody Altizer got the job done on a dandy Virginia buck.
It was just any run of the mill deer either – Cody and his family had been following this buck for awhile. I got ahold of the young whipper snapper and got him to fill us in on the details!
From Cody:
Going into the 2011 hunting season, I was as ready as ever to arrow a big buck on my Virginia hunting property. Going into the fall my food plots were flourishing and I was confident that come the rut, there would be shooter bucks chasing does like crazy through the funnels and pinch points leading from my food plots to known doe bedding areas. I had worked hard during the offseason, and was prepared for my best hunting season to date. I remained humble, but I would be lying if I told you I wasn’t confident in my chances at taking a big buck by mid-November.
Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other ideas, as she often does. She force fed me a healthy dose of humble pie, starting opening day. I one lunged a doe just two hours into my 2011 season. It was a tough pill to swallow, but I had to keep moving forward. I hunted mostly evenings throughout October, close to my food plots. I had several good trail camera photos of a couple good bucks using my food plots at night, and I didn’t want to over hunt them, and pressure them off the property. Slow and steady seemed like the right strategy, and it was a strategy I was comfortable adopting.
By the time November rolled around, I was ready to hunt rutting whitetail bucks. Giant rubs and scrapes were popping up all around my food plots, so I knew it was just a matter of time. Right on cue, however, Mother Nature kept me humble. A full moon, high winds, warm temperatures and dumping rains brought rutting activity to a screeching halt. In fact, this was the slowest rut I have ever experienced in my 22 years of hunting Virginia whitetails, but I kept hunting hard.
By the Thanksgiving Holiday, I was exhausted. I had been hunting harder than ever, just trying to cross paths with a shooter buck. I knew they were there, but the poor hunting conditions just had them moving exclusively at night. All that changed on the morning of November 25th. I was perched in my favorite stand on the entire property. At 7:00 am, I spotted a good buck walking on a trail that would eventually take him right under my stand. He stuck to that trail, and when he entered my shooting lane I stopped him with a soft grunt, and placed my cross hairs right behind his shoulder. A short tracking revealed my trophy, a 127” 11 pointer than I had hundreds of trail camera pictures of after the 2010 season feeding in my food plots. Sure enough, I caught him going back to his bed after feeding in the exact same food plot he enjoyed so much during the winter. He was one of the bucks I was most excited about hunting this year, and after a lot of hard work, persistence and good fortunate, I was blessed with an opportunity to take him. Big buck down, mission accomplished! Bring on the late season!
No comments yet.