Yep, it was a squirrel...I heard "a deer" coming from behind me about 4:00. I eased around and was looking, but couldn't see it. Next thing I knew, the "deer" had climbed the ladder and was about to come through the shooting house window. It scared the chit out of both of us!!! He ran down the ladder and barked at me for about 10 minutes. SMH

Congrats on the buck, swam4au!

Had a great morning on Cahaba, as it starting to go off. At 7:00am I grunted and then rattled. Heard grunting in front of me and something sliding down the hill from the road, but also heard a crash behind me. Since I heard the grunting in front of me I focused solely there. After 10min and no movement I reached for the rattle bag and a 6pt ran back up the hill, tried to get the scope on him but I am borrowing someone else's gun and it wouldn't focus well with the fog and the fine adjustment, by the time I decide to shoot anyways, he gets back up the hill on the road and gives me a great blow job out of sight. Thinking that every deer in the area knew my whereabouts I cussed to myself, looked to my left downwind and there stood a beast. Couldn't get a great look at the rack, but messed with the scope again and by the time I get it situated he trotted up the hill away from me. Lots of mass and well outside of the ears. Got down from the stand around 9:00, made a circle downwind of the direction the big one went, but no luck but did see where he crossed a road. Then I opted to circle where I saw the first one go and no luck. At 11:10 I decided to move stand locations and remain there for the rest of the day, but thought I should look down in the clearcut while I was walking the road and spotted a buck down in the valley working his way up the other side. After missing the other two opportunities I took him. I've only killed 9 other deer before in 17 years of hunting, 2 in Alabama and 7 in Wisconsin(5 last year). All does or spikes, but nothing with an actual rack. He has 4 points on the left, but his brow on the right didn't come in fully and was lacking a g3 on that side too making him a 6pt. Not a giant, but my biggest yet and tomorrow I hope the missus lets me go out with the bow so I can go after the giant before I leave for a week and miss all the action.

Dang 1-inch tree! Alright...so this is more of less my first year deer hunting, aside from climbing up trees with a bow as a kid. After my first deer and finally going to have a good stretch of time to get in the woods pretty often. In-laws offered to watch my kid for the night, wife is out of town, so I made a mad rush to the woods. Went to an area where we saw deer earlier in the week, but have not had a chance to do proper scouting. Basically, leaned up against a big tree about 50 years from a large clearcut. Very thick in the woods too, but had one area (upwind) where I could see decently. Had been sitting there for about 45 minutes when I hear what sounded like a goat coming up from behind me. A few minutes later a small buck is coming through the thick brush. I suppose he heard me moving since I had to turn a bit with him approaching from behind my left shoulder. He was 15 yards away, could see most of his body, but there was a tree right in from of his vitals. Of course my heart was racing. He's there for about a minute while I'm running through my mind whether or not to take an obstructed shot. Decided to pass since he would (hopefully) be walking into a more open area. He starts moving again, but by the time he's in the open area he's going too fast for a shot (75 yards). Perhaps I should have made some type noise to get him to stop. I'm getting closer!