Iowa Whitetail - Dinkasaurus the 1st

[muddy]

Public land here in Iowa from 2011. Kills from further back will take some time to dig up.

This morning I was up and at 'em very early, around 0400. I looked at weather, ate some breakfast, and got stuff loaded up. I opened the garage door and there standing in the driveway in suburbia was a nice little 2 year old buck out crusing for petunias I suppose. I took it as a good omen and hopped in and drove to an out of the way chunk of public land that did not receive a lot of pressure due to it's way out of the way location. I had quite a walk and wanted to get moving.

This set is on an old fenceline that must have been a boarder between two old pastures or fields. The fenceline is thick, but has very large oaks on it. The areas to it's side are now EXTREMELY thick undergrowth and key doe bedding ares. I was positioned on the downwind side on the edge of a steep drop off with a drainage ditch below me. This location is bulletproof for being winded and a location I"ve been wanting to hunt since this springs shed hunt. Sure enough I had several bucks cruise the downwind side of this doe bedding area looking for love, but I was positioned perfectly.

I had a doe, her fawn, and a dink come thru fairly early. Then another couple dinks came thru on that does track. I immediately figured she was close to being hot because they were really dogging her. As I was sitting in stand I noticed another buck in the bottoms and grunted to him a couple times. As I was glassing him all of a sudden to my right the timber just freaking blew up. I looked over slowly to see a very nice looking buck taking his frustrations out on a tree. I can only assume he was following that does track and heard my grunting and came in blind.

He worked that tree over, made a scrape, peed in it and on himself and then started my way. Every step he would grunt loudly and posture and then after a few more steps he would stop and repeat the process. In total he made 5 scrapes and rubs in an EXTREMELY aggressive manner. I don't really know what happened when he got to 30 yards, I drew my bow knowing that he was smaller than any buck I've shot in 5 years but I didn't care. I was shaking on adreneline and this buck was about 30 seconds from taking on a Grim Reaper tipped carbon lollipop. When he stopped at 18 yards I punched him. He took 2 bounds and I was certain he was in deep trouble as he was REALLY pumping blood. I never saw him go down but shortly after he ran away another buck came from the same direction and kept looking back and posturing up at something in the deep brush.

I climbed down and immediately found my arrow and unbelieveable sign. At this point I thought it would be fun to video myself with my camera so I'll just post the video and you can see my reaction about 20 minutes after the shot. I accidentally hit the stop button so the video is in 2 segments.

Part 2 I guess.

Also for fun I decided to try and film the blood trail, I apologize it's a little shaky and also hard to see but you'll get the idea. There's also some footage of the buck when I get up to him, you will see it was indeed "smoke city".

Here are some photos of the blood trail. Freaking best blood trail I've ever had.

The end of the trail

The buck had, in my opinion, some ground shrinkage and I'll admit a twinge of disappointment but it soon faded, especially after I got home to show the kids. Their excitement made this public land buck quite possibly the best bow kill I've ever had simply because they knew daddy had done something cool. The following are some photos of the autopsy and a little tribute to Rancid and his knife.

Entrance lung

Exit side lung

I named him Dinkasaurus just to be odd. He's a great buck and one I'm very proud of. Here's a picture of him cleaned up and positioned a little. Thanks for reading the story of my first archey public land buck.

[CouesWhitetail]

Great story, thanks for sharing your hunt with us!!

[DCS]

Those are some really nice bucks.I hunted around Afton twice,but that was a few years ago.I apply,but it usually takes me about 2-3 years before I draw,thanks for posting your success.