Today was great day in the deer woods here in Missouri. The cold temps have got the deer on there feet. In the last 3 days i have finally seen something here that resembles “rut activity”. The previous weeks of warm temps and high hunting pressure have really affected deer movement for me, for instance I sat 3 times and saw 4 deer, to my usual 15 to 20 deer. With that being said I have been in a bit of a funk, scrambling to even find a deer! But today it all changed, this morning I spotted a dandy of a buck with a doe. Although I wasn’t able to hunt him until this afternoon I felt confident I could get on him. With a southwest wind of about 10 to 15 mph the conditions would be perfect to put a stalk on this brute. I jumped out of the jeep, packed all my camera equipment from Campbells camera, grabbed the Elite, snapped on the Hide a Bow and got after it! I traveled slowly down the brushy fence row to where I last saw him bedded. And as I slowly closed the distance, there he was! He had caught some of my movement, but did not seem to care, at this point I was pretty sure it was over as quick as it had started. As I waited patiently for him to get his mind back on the ladies I ran some plans through my head on how this was gonna go down. He finally dropped his head and went back towards the ditch away from me. This was my chance, so i quickly moved through the tall crp grass towards him. So now I have closed the distance to about 50 yards from where I last saw him. I carefully scanned the area, and he was no where to be found! As i sat there for what seemed like an eternity, I decided it was go time, so I began to move forward slowly, this proved to be the wrong choice for I was quickly busted by one of his lady friends and you guessed it,Game over! Although I did not get to harvest this stud of a buck it was exactly what I needed to get me back on track. He may have won tonight but I will return for round 2! So until next time, Bend it and Send it!