My 2020 OH Buck...updated story

The buck was taken in Gallia Co. and I was in a transition area between a food plot (couple hundred yds away) and bedding. I just put the stand up the day before, 80 degree weather , I found a fresh scrape and rubs all within 30 yds of each other. Saturday morning had a 20 degree drop in temps and rain overnight, I got to the stand about 6:30am and the waiting game began. Since this was the first time I had sat in the stand, I wanted to get ranges of my shooting lanes once it started getting daylight. I ranged all shooting lanes and the mock scrape that was nearby ended up only being 15 yds away. Well a doe came through about 8:30 and I watched her closely, I wanted to see a potential travel route other deer may take. Around 9am I decided to rattle a little bit, nothing aggressive, just some light jostling rattles. The woods were pretty quite at the time, most of the rain had passed through and the drops from the trees were starting to subside. I lightly rattled for about a minute or two. Than sat down to see...at 9:15 I caught legs moving through the brush and a glimpse of antler, I gave a couple soft grunts to see if I could get it to come my way...and he did, a 4 pt!! I was excited he came to the calling and watched him hit the scrape and move on. It's now 9:30 and I just happened to look to my right and noticed a nice buck walking the field edge directly at me. I instantly got ready, at first I thought he was one of the young 8's that we have on the farm, but as he got closer...he got bigger!! I finally recognized what buck it was and knew he was a mature shooter. He came directly at me and when he got behind some limbs at 10 yds I drew my bow. I thought he was going to come right to the base of the tree, but he turned right and went to the scrape. The rest is in the pics! I had 3 years of pics with this deer, but the catch is...he only was on our farm at the end of October. The rest of the time he stayed on the neighbor's farm (we talk and share info). So, the moral of the story is, I set up on sign, used some light calling tactics, and played the weather for this time of year. There's always luck involved, but if you can put a lot of factors in your favor...that will help you be successful in the long run!

This is him below on October 29, 2019 dogging a doe. About 200yds from where I harvested him.

 

Thanks, I replied to Junglekat with the story, the bow is actually a Vertix, this is the first deer it's harvested. I didn't even get my bow off the hanger last year!!