"Nicole at Spring Valley Outfitters"
Hey everyone! Well needless to say the Driven TV team is having a great fall! Pat and I just got back from hunting with Steve Hess at Spring Valley Outfitters in my home state of Illinois where I killed a nice 9 pointer.
Now this year has been a career year for me and I have killed some nice bucks but this hunt was hands down my favorite hunt of the year! Steve had us set up in a narrow pinch spot that connected us to two large food plots. We decided to take our ol’ trusty decoy along with us (which I nicknamed Cletus). This was the first time I had ever hunted over a decoy so I was excited!
We had seen smaller bucks chasing does but nothing of shooter size until around 40 minutes before dark when we spotted him! He came running out of the woods chasing a fawn. He spotted the decoy and kept looking from the fawn to the decoy and so forth but that was only until Pat snort wheezed at him and he literally took off running towards the decoy! He ran in and circled down wind of the decoy. He started pawing at the ground, snort wheezing and grunting! It was so awesome! He put on quite the show for us! I had never seen anything like this before. What an awesome hunt, we had so much fun with Steve, Preacher and Dennis along with all the other guys in camp!
Good news for me but bad news for ol’ Pat we will be back again this year, because I have a 2nd tag to fill! Until then, we are off to hunt at Sugar Creek where hopefully Pat can fill his tag! We can’t wait to come back to Steve’s place later on in the season and hopefully get another shot at a great buck!! Thanks again Steve for the awesome hunt!! Well, we gotta run were off to our second stop in Illinois! Wish us luck!
Stay Driven,
Pat & Nicole