Sunday, October 7th p.m.

Wind: Southwest, 8 mph
Temp: 60 degrees
Hunt time: 3-1/2 hours

Tonight I sat on the edge of a small cornfield (combined earlier in the week with some left standing) in an excellent afternoon setup. The stand sits within the timber 30 yards. I’ve watched many bucks hang near this stand as they look over the field and wait for the sun to set before entering. The same happened tonight. I had a very nice 9-point buck, I’m judging about 130 inches, wait 10 yards from the stand for about 15 minutes before entering the field at 7:02 p.m. Always tempting as he had nice G2s and 3s and a pretty-style rack, but he was not yet mature and I’d rather see him keep growing to his potential.

I also saw seven does, two of which walked right by at a 15-yard broadside shot, but on Sunday nights, we call “no-doe night.” We all have work in the morning and recovering and preparing a deer takes a lot of work so on nights like this we’ll only shoot a deer if it’s a good buck.

Total stand time so far this season: 21 hours