I had a very interesting afternoon as well. On the way to my stand I took a detour down a firebreak around some 4-5 year old planted pines and was checking out some scrapes and rubs leading into the downwind side of my stand. As I got to the back side of the planted pines which falls off into hardwood drain and creek bottom, I began hearing a series of quick grunts and the sound of movement coming up from the bottom. I quickly jumped up on the bank of the pushed fire break to get a better view into the drain. Less than 50 yards away was a tall rack 8 point tending a doe. I watched them circle around that drain for a good 10 minutes and sized up the buck as 3.5 year old through my binos.
Then it happend!!! The buck mounted the doe and I became a vouyer. I stood there a minute just amazed as this was the closest I had ever been to deer breeding. It was all very shortly and I quietly slipped back into the fire break and eased on to my stand about two hundred yards away. As soon as I had climbed up about 30 feet in a tree and was getting ready to pull up my gun I hear those quickening grunts again and here they come right down the same fire break I had just walked, passing 20 yards underneath my stand. They bound out of sight and I pull my rifle up and start getting settled in when I look up and see a tall rack coming up from the creek bottom on a trail that comes out 50 yards in front of me. He steps out with his nose on the ground, a tall, long beamed 7 point...another 3.5 year old. As he steps out into an opening and turns to head toward a clover field 100 yards away, I blow on my grunt tube. It startles him and he bolts a few yards, stops and turns around coming back my way. He and I had a good game of cat and mouse for a good 20 minutes. Everytime he would start to walk off, I would hit that grunt tube and he would stop, walk around in circles and look all over for that grunting buck. A great afternoon of hunting in the deer woods.