Southern Illinois Deer Season 2014

Well first shotgun season was pretty uneventful. I saw 6 deer the first morning (Fri.) and 4 that afternoon. The next day  I saw 4 in the morning and nothing that afternoon. The last day they were calling for rain so I hunting the morning and at about 10 am the rain set in so I called it quits.
Second season started out very wet. The weather person said rain might not move in until the after noon. Nope 6am on the dot the ran started and was pretty steady most of the morning. I think it did let up a time or two and moved out around 1pm. I headed down to the stand about 2pm and after making not one but two pit stops before I got to the stand I was settled in for the hunt. At 3:45 I had a small doe move in form the south. She moved across in front of me and I was resigned to let her walk. She even stopped about 20 foot in front of me and looked up at me trying to figure me out. The wind was hitting me on my right so she couldn't smell me. As she moved on to my right and pass me I look back in the direction she came and was surprised to see a large body buck about 50ish yards out. I wasn't sure what kind of headgear but since it was second season and this was clearly the largest buck I have see so far, I leveled off the Mossberg and dropped him in his tracks. When I walked up on the buck I noticed that I hit him in the neck. I suspect that I my shot went high as he was quartering away from me. I shot the deer at a little after 4 so my the time I got down and saw what I had, the already overcast day was starting to get darker. I texted Kristi to see if Carl could bring down his 3 wheeler but Carl was down hunting and with in 15 min he had walked up on me. As he went to get the 3 wheeler, I commenced to field dressing. Carl had a job to get his 3 wheeler back to where I was. There have been so many trees that have fallen that it is like a maze to get to the south part of the property. Once w got him loaded up we headed out only for the 3 wheeler to flood out 50 yards from the field. After a little tinkering we were back on our way to the house. We got back to he house and after the ceremonial photos we check in the deer by phone and headed to the processors. We got home around 7:45 pm. I know by preliminary number the deer harvest is down yet again this year. I guess I should be thankful for my success.