Bowhunting.net
Bowhunting Iowa Bucks
By Steve Bartylla
Mar 16, 2005, 09:51
Day 1
My 2004 Iowa bow hunt really began in the spring of 2003. When Jake & Justin Roach asked if I’d be interested in working with them on a couple of their Iowa properties, I couldn’t wait to jump in.
After a weekend scouting and stand hunting trip, I couldn’t wait to hunt the property. With huge rubs and assorted trophy buck sign littering the woods, I located over twenty deadly stand sites for them in the one weekend alone.
Unfortunately, Iowa’s draw system resulted in my hunting being pushed to the 2004 season. Last summer, I met up with Tyler Tisue, the new hire that would be guiding for www.performanceoutdoors.com. Together, we revisited the stand sites I had found and hung several that I would be sharing with his clients. Now, all I had to do was wait until Late November came.
With the moment of truth finally at hand, I crawled into a stand Tyler and I had hung on a creek bottom. With the drainage separating family group bedding areas, it was a no brainer that the bucks would be filtering back and forth, checking on the status of the does. Sure enough, within 30 minutes of daylight, I caught the movement of a respectable buck skirting the other side of the creek.
A couple of grunts was all it took to pull him in. The buck was a healthy 10 point, scoring in the low 130s. Though I decided to hold out for something better, successfully calling him in was fun. It was even more fun watching him work over the branch I had laced with Exite on the way in.
Still needing to check my other stands and hang several more, I pulled out shortly after he left. Though I had hunted less than 2 hours, I had already passed a P&Y qualifier. Not a bad start to the hunt.
After shooting the breeze with Tyler, he decided to come with me to check and hang stands. Normally, I prefer to do things solo, particularly during season. It is hard enough to minimize disturbances by myself. Two people make it that much harder to go undetected. However, having been in the woods with Tyler before, I knew he also went the extra mile to reduce odors and disturbances.
Arriving at the other farm, we sprayed down with Scent Killer, threw on our Scent Lok Suits, slipped into pairs of Elimitrax and headed in. With the late November temps reaching into the lower 70's, I knew most movement would be occurring after dark. To help up my odds, I decided to move in on a family group bedding area that was located deep in the middle of the woods. This high intrusion tactic would only allow for a couple sits before the risk of educating and shutting down deer movement would become a concern. However, successful or not, two sits was all I was going to give it.
With the stand up, we returned to camp to throw a few arrows. Confident I was hitting well, I jumped in the shower and headed for another bottleneck stand we had hung that summer.
The stand was located along a river, at a point where the woods narrowed. With big woods, huge woods by Iowa’s standards, on both sides of the bottleneck, I knew when I first found it that it would be good. Though Tyler had only put a few hunters in my stand, their experiences backed that up nicely. It seems they were in bucks every sit, including one that resulted in the harvest of a beautiful 8 point.
As one would expect with high temps in late November, the woods were dead until about 20 minutes before dark. That was when I heard the thrilling sounds of a buck in hot pursuit. I immediately shifted into position.
The doe came racing down the bottleneck, with a spike hot on her tail. Reaching one of the two mock scrapes I had made, she skidded to a stop. No longer concerned with the young buck, she sniffed the scrape, squatted and made a deposit of her own.
While the little guy stomped his front hoof repeatedly, trying to inspire her to resume their game of tag, she continued her investigation until she was satisfied it had nothing more to tell her.
As she finally scampered away, I made a rookie mistake. For the 5 minutes or so they were around my stand, I had been continually glancing back to see if a big boy would emerge. Since one never had, I turned to watch the two resume their chase away from the stand. That was when I heard a twig snap.
Coming to full draw as I spun around in my stand, I barely had time to catch a glimpse of the incredible monster that shot after them, through the bottleneck. That one glimpse was all it took to confidently see that he would go somewhere between 160-200 inches. He was a brute.
However, not being prepared robbed me of anything but a desperation shot. Luckily for both of us, I resisted the temptation. If I hadn’t been staring at the doe and spike, the odds of being able to stop him still would have been slim. That didn’t stop me from wishing I had kept my head in the game.
As light faded, I left my equipment in the tree and crawled down. I would be back in the stand the next morning. Chances were that the brute would have the doe holed up somewhere else by then, but I was to find out for myself.
For a fantastic Illinois or Iowa bow hunt, contact www.performanceoutdoors.com via the web or at 800 996 0477.
For a comprehensive guide to cutting edge stand hunting methods, check out Steve Bartylla’s new book.
A personally autographed copy of Advanced Stand Hunting Strategies, can be purchased by sending a check or money order, for $22.50, tax and shipping included, to the following:
Steve Bartylla
909 N Chestnut Ave.
Marshfield, WI 54449
Be sure to include your name and the shipping address.
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