Twenty minutes passed and out of the corner of my eye I caught movement. The little doe that had been eating ran off but never out of my sight and then she came back in reluctantly but eventually calmed down and went back to feeding. I kept the crosshairs on her and as soon as she stopped in a clear path I dropped her in her tracks. She was very nervous and stomped with almost every step. Finally, a mature doe started working towards my area so I raised my rifle and readied for the shot. Shortly after sunrise the same little baby doe came in and started feeding. I quickly dispersed my alfalfa hay and corn then crawled into the blind and waited.
AXIS SPIKE DEER FULL
When I walked in by the light of the full moon I spooked off a little doe. Tuesday morning came early and we were again out to our stands. Sure seemed to me that I heard a whole lot more shots than that… I believe out of the 20 hunters on Monday evening there were 8 or 9 animals killed and 2 wounded.
Of the 4 hunters in our drop off truck there were 3 animals killed and one wounded – all axis. She proceeded to work into my corn and fed till dark with no other deer sighted. I convinced my self quickly that it was a fawn doe and took my rifle off the rest. Shortly after 5:00pm I saw a whitetail working towards me so I positioned my tripod for the area the deer was headed and looked at it through the binoculars. I climbed back into the stand slightly dejected from what had already transpired and hopeful that something would show up that I could harvest. Frustrated, I went to spread out my corn and unfortunately I spooked off 2 doe while doing it. By the time twelve minutes had passed they were gone. Eleven minutes and now there are only a few left in my shooting lane. Ten minutes had passed and some of the axis had moved out of my line of sight. I had my tripod gun rest set up, a bullet ready to chamber, and already ranged the animals. I anxiously waited and watched the clock ticking away the minutes.
AXIS SPIKE DEER DRIVER
During orientation we were told that we could not load our gun until 15 minutes after then driver dropped us off. When we walked up to the blind I had drawn there was a group of around 20 axis off in the brush about 120 yards. On the first afternoon the park officials walked the hunters to the blinds to show us the shooting lanes and explain where they have been seeing animals. 243 my daughter missed the two doe with the previous weekend was still sighted in properly and I had high hopes of getting a shot at an animal. After orientation we drew for blind assignments and had time to kill before the first taxi route to the stands was to leave so Wes and I both stuck our rifle on the bench rest and made sure the scopes were sighted in properly. We met some of the other hunters and talked about other draw hunts that we all had experienced.
AXIS SPIKE DEER REGISTRATION
We arrived at the park in time for registration and then had the wait for orientation. The last time I shot an axis was March of 2000 and considering the population of animals on Garner SP I was excited to get another chance at some axis meat. These public hunts have been great to us and a source of some true hunting memories. Having missed our draw hunt at Richland this year, I was eager to make this hunt with Wes. Fortunately for us, Wes’ lease is literally across the river from the park which gave us a comfortable place to stay during the hunt. Wes and I were selected for the antlerless/spike hunt at Garner State Park and along with the bag limit came 2 axis.
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