November 23 - Jeff Lindsey

Hunter: Jeff Lindsey
Animal: 132" 4 1/2 Year Old Whitetail
Location: Iowa
Weapon: PSE X-Force GX

It seems I have spoken with many of my buddies all over America the last couple of weeks about the sport we love and the one question they all seem to bring up is “What happened to the rut?!?!” What happened to the magical time of year when the boys are chasing the girls and doing their thing in the deer woods. I wish I knew, sweet November hasn’t been too sweet and I am going to blame it on mother nature’s record high temps it threw it our face for about 3 weeks straight, throw in tons of standing corn in the equation and sweet November tastes a little bitter.

We had gotten back home late Sunday night from Illinois and was going to go out 1 more morning before taking off a couple of days to spend with the family eating some turkey. I couldn’t decide to go to the big timber or a creek crossing in the middle of a big CRP field on this warm Monday morning. I decided that since it was going to be cloudy, we were going to the crp field since the timber has been dead as a hammer when the sun wasn’t shining and we would be able to see farther in hopes of calling one in. At first light I knew we had made the right decision as we had 3 bucks pass within 50 yards making their way through the grass. Their attention soon turned to an old cull buck coming down the draw we call “Whacky”. He was going to be dealt with if he kept coming but he had a change of plans and went the other way. As soon as he was over the hill, Bobby my cameraman, let me know 2 does were running up the other side of the draw 200 yards away followed by a big 8. I immediately grabbed the new buck growl/wheeze prototype and tried to call him down the hill. It was like springtime , trying to call a big tom off a couple hens, I used that same approach to calling in this big boy as I would a longbeard at daylight. After a few minutes of cat and mouse we brought the big 8 to within 5 yards of the base of the tree and gave him the business. What a hunt! It was one of the most exciting hunts I have ever been apart of, November got a little sweeter and I thank the Lord I was able to be a part of the show. Now we are off to Kansas to try and find another one we can talk into giving up! - Jeff