By Josh Mcdaniel

I had a pretty exciting bow season but never could seal the deal. Everything that could go wrong did! I had lots of success with rattling throughout all of bow season, so I figured I would try this again during the gun season.

I felt like at the time that they were pretty much on the lockdown phase of the rut, man was I wrong! They had been doing lots of chasing from what I had seen the week prior to the opening weekend of gun season. There was still one brusier left that wanted to fight!

It was the second day of the Indiana Gun Season. It was a very windy morning, but I still had high hopes of finding my big buck. There was a break in the wind around 9 in the morning. I knew that this was my chance to try to make something happen! I Rattled and Grunted hard for a good three minutes. I sat quietly waiting. Not ten minutes later a 150" ten pointer walked 25 yards from me. He came in all bristled up looking for a fight! I put the crosshairs right on the point of the shoulder and the TC Encore did the rest.

Species: Whitetail Location of Hunt: Indiana Outfitter: Self-Guided Weapon: Muzzleloader Equipment: Thompson Center Encore