Having arrived at Sugar Creek Outfitters in Schuyler County, Illinois, in midsummer, I scoured the topo maps for promising stand locations. With limited time and over 6,000 acres of prime land teeming with trophy bucks on which to hunt, I knew I couldn't foot-scout my way to success. Instead, knowing that I'd be hunting the peak of the breeding phase in November, I relied on my topo maps to reveal the best funnels.

The approach worked well. After two days of putting up stands, I left with eight stands hanging in extremely promising locations. That promise did not go unfulfilled. My work later paid off with one of the best rut hunts of my life. Even though it was unseasonably warm for November, and even though the biggest bucks were predictably locked down with does, I passed up shots at P&Y bucks every morning and afternoon except one!

Now I found myself with only two days left before Illinois' first shotgun season would open, and I knew I had to make something happen. Sure, I'd passed on 15 bucks ranging into the upper 140s, and I had seen several true giants, but head guide Chad John had shared a dizzying array of scouting pictures that revealed gagger buck after gagger buck, and I wasn't going to settle for less. What's more, knowing that the real gaggers were locked down, I knew I needed to find a hot doe.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT SPOT
The problem was that I hadn't scouted on foot and I didn't know where the does were bedding or where the big boys were holed up with them. Owing to a healthy age structure and tight buck-to-doe ratio, both hunting funnels and blind calling had worked to perfection for me on the subordinate bucks because those bucks were desperately fighting for "scraps" overlooked by the dominant boys.

In almost any other setting that I might normally hunt, I'd have arrowed several of the subordinate bucks I'd seen and been thrilled to do so. But here, in this place, I'd drawn a line in the sand and pledged to take a true "slobberknocker" or else go down fighting. The bar had been raised. I just needed to find my spot to get over the hurdle. That's when I decided to play my hole card.

At first glance, the stand site wasn't unlike many of the others where I'd hung stands that previous summer. The dry creekbed snaked through the flat bottom, flanked on both sides by sharp walls leading up to the ridge tops. I had no doubt that the tops were where the action was. Filled with numerous pockets of nasty thick brush and thorns, the tops were certainly where the does were bedding. And I knew that somewhere up there, Mr. Big was pulling sentry duty over his prize. I just didn't know where!

This particular stand covered the spot where three points tapered down to the bottom, creating by far the easiest spot to transition from one top to the other. Furthermore, the dry creek had high banks. The two existing creek crossings had been clogged with brush back in the summer in hopes of diverting the deer, and the sign revealed that the deer traveling the bottom had in fact become accustomed to using the narrow passageway that went right by my stand.

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