Hunting out of state is always an adventure; one part excitement, one part uncertainty, and a whole lot of work in between. It starts long before the season ever does. Hours spent e-scouting, marking potential bedding areas, and guessing which ridges or funnels might hold deer. You do your best to build a plan, but you won’t know EXACTLY what to do until you get out there.
That’s exactly what made this hunt so rewarding.
I rolled in and set up camp in the morning, with intentions to get into the tree early; it was late October and the bucks were chasing. Public land can be a gamble, but it also has a way of making a hunt feel pure and earned. After setting up camp, I headed to the woods… with wind providing cover noise, the walk in felt perfect. The sign looked promising; fresh tracks, a couple rubs, and a classic pinch point along varying types of cover. It felt like the kind of place a buck might cruise when the pre-rut chasing phase kicks in.
By the time I eased into my stand that afternoon, the woods had that unmistakable electricity to them. The pre-rut was in full swing, I knew scrapes were hot, does were around, and you could almost sense bucks running circles somewhere just beyond view. Everything in my gut told me it was going to be a good evening for movement.
What I didn’t expect was how fast things would unfold.
About 90 minutes after settling in, I picked up my rattling antlers, smacking them together as loud as possible. Earlier that day, my dad had mentioned rattling until your arms hurt… so, that was my plan. About 30 seconds into this first rattling sequence, I catch movement! Glimpses of tines, a flash of legs, he wasn’t just coming - he was charging in.
Two bucks materialized like ghosts breaking through the timber, bristled up and looking for a fight. My heart slammed in my chest as they closed the distance, and the intensity of the moment made every second feel stretched and sharpened. The first buck led the charge and was a bit smaller, so I let him pass by, just yards from my tree. The second buck followed the exact same path and I “meeped” him at 16 yards - the arrow hit the mark.
That’s the magic of hunting new ground: you can plan and prepare, but sometimes the experience takes over and leaves you with a story far better than anything you imagined.
I climbed into that tree expecting movement. I rattled expecting curiosity. But I never expected a buck to come barreling in less than an hour and a half after settling in. That’s the wild unpredictability of the chase; one moment you're alone in the silent woods, and the next you're in the middle of a scene that gets replayed in your mind for years.
Out-of-state hunts demand work, patience, and a willingness to embrace the unknown… but sometimes, that unknown delivers in the best possible way.
