Day 2 started earlier than day 1, and dawn found me perched on a railroad tressle glassing for big bucks in the beans.  Not long after the mosquitoes started an all-out blitzkrieg on my face, I caught a glimpse of a deer coming down off a raised roadbed through the field.  One look through my binoculars showed a big barrel-chested buck toting a BIG framed rack.  Too dark to count points, but I would have guessed in the 140s-150s.  Definite shooter!  I hopped off the tressle as soon as the deer went behind a finger of timber and tried to stalk around as quickly and quietly as possible.  Unfortunately, he was moving a little too fast for me, and had entered the woods before I got around the corner for a possible shot.  Look at it this way, making plans for tomorrow morning!

Everybody else got more or less skunked that morning (would be a common theme throughout the week), a few antlerless deer but nothing to cheer about.

Tuesday evening found me perched back in the ‘widowmaker’ stand.  I didn’t get shut out, but I might as well have.  A nice buck came into about 90 yards at 7:40 p.m..  Unfortunately, I had only had enough light to glass him through my binoculars.  My scope was picking up nothing, not even a silhouette.  But with my binoculars, I stayed put for a good 20 minutes straining my eyeballs to learn what I could.  In the end, I estimated him to be a 9 pointer with a symmetrical set of antlers in the upper 120s to lower 130s.  Not a shooter, but a great encounter.  My patience was rewarded, he left the field, and I slipped out without disturbing him.

Interestingly, dad was sitting in his Double Bull blind again with one of the camera guys from Outdoor Insights.  He had an eventful evening with 6 or 7 does coming in range and a 125″ish class buck staying about 200 yards away from the blind for a couple of minutes.  Best guess was an 18″ wide 8 pointer.

The other hunter for the camera crew got close to a great buck, but the encounter ended with a clean miss on a 6 pointer that was close to spanning a 22-23″ inside spread.