It was very cold this morning. I had action right from first light until noon. I saw two giant bucks today, especially for hunting on public land with this much pressure. The only good thing is that it appears Dad and I found a couple of places that don’t get a lot of pressure from other hunters. One of the bucks was going across a winter wheat field in the middle of the morning. I had to look twice because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The other big buck came in shortly after I rattled. He never got closer than 70 yards to me, but his presence got me very excited. Shortly after seeing that buck I passed a nice 8-pointer. I thought about shooting him a few different times, but after seeing the two other bucks I just couldn’t drop the hammer. If I hadn’t seen the others I would have shot him, but after seeing the quality of some of the bucks in there I chose to hold off in hopes of getting a crack at a wall hanger. After the 8-pointer disappeared I had a small 4-pointer make his way down the hill in front of me. He fed by me in the direction of the swamp where I’m sure he probably went to bed down for a few hours after he ate. Besides the bucks I also saw a few does. It was a pretty good morning. The evening didn’t produce the same results as the morning and I just saw three does cross the wheat field in front of me shortly before dark. Dad saw one small buck this morning. He found some huge rubs in the area he’s sitting. It looks really good in there. It’s a classic Midwestern river bottom. Here’s a photo of one of the rubs.
