“This story makes its own gravy…” is a quote from one of my favorite authors and outdoor personalities, Steven Rinella, and it seems like a fitting way to begin a story that took 21 years to develop and 21 seconds to come to a close.
Before I tell you what happened in those chaotic 21 seconds yesterday, I have to set the stage by telling you what happened in November 1999 that started what’s become a full-blown obsession for me and that’s archery hunting for big bucks. That November, my cousin Joel killed a big 8-point that would make the Buckeye Big Buck Record Books and it was the first “book buck” killed by anyone in our family. His buck lit a fire in me and as a goal-driven, highly-competitive person that looked up to his big cousin, I was instantly motivated to one-up him. A month later, my parents would gift me my first bow and in October 2000, I killed my first deer with archery gear and it’s been pedal-to-the-metal ever since. And while I’ve killed some really good deer, including a half dozen mature bucks, my best scoring deer is my 2012 buck at 139”. Reaching the 140” mark has proven to be the most difficult goal I’ve ever pursued and as my good friend @Jackalope put it, “you’ve put in more hours over the years to kill a buck like that than people do to get their PhDs”.
With the stage set and the gravy beginning to thicken, it’s worth pointing out that I had history with this deer that I didn’t realize I had until I sat down to write this story. After looking back through past trail cam pictures, it turns out I have one series of pictures from 2019 on the North Ridge, along with another series of pictures from last year as he cruised along the shelf where I bumped him Thursday and heard him on Friday. In my conscious effort to avoid becoming overly invested in a particular buck, I’d overlooked the fact that this buck went from a random cruiser during the rut in years past, to a homebody that would meet his demise right in the heart of The Farm with No Name.
2019
2020
While luck was certainly on my side yesterday, this buck gave me a lot of information to work with this year. On October 18th, he made his first appearance on camera and would continue to give me intel on multiple cams over the course of the next three weeks. There are still cams in the woods that may reveal even more information about his whereabouts and I look forward to seeing those pictures too!
Saturday's hunt was the result of 40 hours of stand time and scouting from Halloween through Friday, in combination with all the trail cam data. After my hunt on Tuesday morning, as I was scouting my way out, I jumped what I assume was him on my walk out. It was a lone, big-bodied deer that ran towards another camera that captured a video of him running by it a few minutes after I'd jumped that deer. Assuming he was bedding in the center of the farm, it gave promise for what could transpire over the next few days. Wednesday was the day I knew things were heating up and although I missed my first deer ever with a bow that morning, it was a great dark-to-dark sit with 15 deer seen, including 8 different bucks. Thursday morning, I elected to hunt behind our house because the wind wasn't great for any of my stands at the farm and I don't like to hang new stands in the dark. True to my luck, I was somewhere else while he was moving in daylight. In nearly every picture I have of him, he approached from the N and/or the E, so I hung a stand on Thursday that took this into account. With no sighting of him Thursday evening or Friday morning, I felt like he was locked down with a doe again and if I was going to kill him, I needed to get aggressive, so the decision was made to hang a stand on the edge of our sactuary for Friday evening and all day Saturday. After getting the stand hung midday Friday, I didn’t like the wind direction, so I elected to hunt over a food plot in the bottom where I could monitor the hillside adjacent to the sactuary for movement coming in/out of there.
All was quiet until right after 6PM when two does burst out of the sanctuary, followed but the steady cadence of a heavy-hoofed deer walking along the shelf 75 yards away. I heard what I assumed to be a buck cleaning off the scrape that was right in front of a camera and eventually, he moved off towards where I’d bumped him on Tuesday morning. At last light, he and the does were still on the ridge above me and he didn't like the sound of my blind being unzipped, so he blew at me in a way that can only be described as him trying to "intimidate" me. These weren't the usual loud, short blasts a doe will make when alerting the woods to your intrusion. These were long, drawn-out “threats” to let me know he wasn’t scared and that I should be. Once again, he’d given up his location, which I would confirm after pulling the card on that camera…
Saturday dawned crisp and cold with the promise of being a great day in the woods. At 8AM, the buck I missed on Wednesday pushed a doe right underneath my tree and twisted me in knots trying to get a clean shot off before they eventually worked their way into some of the thickest cover around. From there, it got quiet and by 11:30, I was ready to eat lunch and move to my evening location after a wind switch suggested I’d better move, or risk ruining the spot for future hunts. Before eating lunch, I decided to still hunt down an old logging road so I could scout an area that’s held great sign in the past. I felt the intel would be worth the intrusion knowing that if I did bump deer, I’d be bumping them towards where I’d be that evening.
After working a 200 yard loop down the road, across a small ravine, and back down another road, I stopped to check a fresh scrape for tracks. If I had turned around right there, I may never have killed this buck, but I elected to push another 50 yards to check one more trail and it “cost” me because I blew out a herd of deer that were bedded within 75 yards of where I’d originally stopped. All I could hear were deer running, which included the telltale sound of a buck’s rack banging through the brush. Typically, I’d be disheartened by such an occurrence, but I couldn’t help but think that I’d just busted up a breeding party and it could play into my hand very nicely for the evening hunt as I’d be set up over one of the main trails heading into the area they were bedded, and where I’d heard him blow at me the night before. With that in mind, I slowly eased my way back to my stand and enjoyed my lunch at the base of my tree.
As I was packing up to move to my evening spot, I heard a deer running and grunting. I turned to see a spike bounding down the trail and into the sanctuary. Not long after, I heard crashing on the hillside 200 yards across the ravine, followed by more grunting and I suspected that it was some of the deer I’d jumped up from that area an hour earlier. With my safety harness off and all my gear on the ground, I quickly assessed my shooting lanes and realized I still had a great opportunity to shoot a deer using either of the two main trails leading into the sanctuary, and with good cover on the side they’d be approaching from, I thought to myself “this might work”, so I nocked an arrow and got ready for what I hoped might be an exciting encounter from the ground. Little did I know what was about to transpire!
Within a few seconds of getting myself into shooting position a mere 5’ from the base of my tree with half my gear still scattered around me, a small 6-point came barreling down the trail and headed into the sanctuary grunting up a storm. I laughed as he disappeared into the brush wondering what he was so excited about because I hadn’t seen any does. Then, out of the thick brush to my left, I heard a deep, guttural grunt that only a mature buck can make, and within seconds, I caught the movement of his rack busting through the brush. In the moment, I also noticed how shiny his coat was in the bright afternoon sun. As I've since described it, he looked like a "sweaty horse" after you take their saddle off.
I instantly realized he was in bow range and that I'd get a shot opportunity as he worked from left to right, so I came to full draw and started to swing with him as he continued to my right. As I did that, I swung my bow right into the very cover that allowed me to even pull this whole thing off. I attempted to let down and as I did, I punched the trigger on my release and set an arrow flying into a tree 10 yards in front of me. The sound made him stop on the other side of a deadfall that was 30 yards to my 2 o’clock. I had just enough cover to reach down and grab another arrow while he frantically tried to find the scent of a doe (or as I now believe, he was trying to find the does that were with him when I bumped them all out of there). I could sense his urgency and mine was pretty damn similar in the moment!
To be continued...
Before I tell you what happened in those chaotic 21 seconds yesterday, I have to set the stage by telling you what happened in November 1999 that started what’s become a full-blown obsession for me and that’s archery hunting for big bucks. That November, my cousin Joel killed a big 8-point that would make the Buckeye Big Buck Record Books and it was the first “book buck” killed by anyone in our family. His buck lit a fire in me and as a goal-driven, highly-competitive person that looked up to his big cousin, I was instantly motivated to one-up him. A month later, my parents would gift me my first bow and in October 2000, I killed my first deer with archery gear and it’s been pedal-to-the-metal ever since. And while I’ve killed some really good deer, including a half dozen mature bucks, my best scoring deer is my 2012 buck at 139”. Reaching the 140” mark has proven to be the most difficult goal I’ve ever pursued and as my good friend @Jackalope put it, “you’ve put in more hours over the years to kill a buck like that than people do to get their PhDs”.
With the stage set and the gravy beginning to thicken, it’s worth pointing out that I had history with this deer that I didn’t realize I had until I sat down to write this story. After looking back through past trail cam pictures, it turns out I have one series of pictures from 2019 on the North Ridge, along with another series of pictures from last year as he cruised along the shelf where I bumped him Thursday and heard him on Friday. In my conscious effort to avoid becoming overly invested in a particular buck, I’d overlooked the fact that this buck went from a random cruiser during the rut in years past, to a homebody that would meet his demise right in the heart of The Farm with No Name.
2019
2020
While luck was certainly on my side yesterday, this buck gave me a lot of information to work with this year. On October 18th, he made his first appearance on camera and would continue to give me intel on multiple cams over the course of the next three weeks. There are still cams in the woods that may reveal even more information about his whereabouts and I look forward to seeing those pictures too!
Saturday's hunt was the result of 40 hours of stand time and scouting from Halloween through Friday, in combination with all the trail cam data. After my hunt on Tuesday morning, as I was scouting my way out, I jumped what I assume was him on my walk out. It was a lone, big-bodied deer that ran towards another camera that captured a video of him running by it a few minutes after I'd jumped that deer. Assuming he was bedding in the center of the farm, it gave promise for what could transpire over the next few days. Wednesday was the day I knew things were heating up and although I missed my first deer ever with a bow that morning, it was a great dark-to-dark sit with 15 deer seen, including 8 different bucks. Thursday morning, I elected to hunt behind our house because the wind wasn't great for any of my stands at the farm and I don't like to hang new stands in the dark. True to my luck, I was somewhere else while he was moving in daylight. In nearly every picture I have of him, he approached from the N and/or the E, so I hung a stand on Thursday that took this into account. With no sighting of him Thursday evening or Friday morning, I felt like he was locked down with a doe again and if I was going to kill him, I needed to get aggressive, so the decision was made to hang a stand on the edge of our sactuary for Friday evening and all day Saturday. After getting the stand hung midday Friday, I didn’t like the wind direction, so I elected to hunt over a food plot in the bottom where I could monitor the hillside adjacent to the sactuary for movement coming in/out of there.
All was quiet until right after 6PM when two does burst out of the sanctuary, followed but the steady cadence of a heavy-hoofed deer walking along the shelf 75 yards away. I heard what I assumed to be a buck cleaning off the scrape that was right in front of a camera and eventually, he moved off towards where I’d bumped him on Tuesday morning. At last light, he and the does were still on the ridge above me and he didn't like the sound of my blind being unzipped, so he blew at me in a way that can only be described as him trying to "intimidate" me. These weren't the usual loud, short blasts a doe will make when alerting the woods to your intrusion. These were long, drawn-out “threats” to let me know he wasn’t scared and that I should be. Once again, he’d given up his location, which I would confirm after pulling the card on that camera…
Saturday dawned crisp and cold with the promise of being a great day in the woods. At 8AM, the buck I missed on Wednesday pushed a doe right underneath my tree and twisted me in knots trying to get a clean shot off before they eventually worked their way into some of the thickest cover around. From there, it got quiet and by 11:30, I was ready to eat lunch and move to my evening location after a wind switch suggested I’d better move, or risk ruining the spot for future hunts. Before eating lunch, I decided to still hunt down an old logging road so I could scout an area that’s held great sign in the past. I felt the intel would be worth the intrusion knowing that if I did bump deer, I’d be bumping them towards where I’d be that evening.
After working a 200 yard loop down the road, across a small ravine, and back down another road, I stopped to check a fresh scrape for tracks. If I had turned around right there, I may never have killed this buck, but I elected to push another 50 yards to check one more trail and it “cost” me because I blew out a herd of deer that were bedded within 75 yards of where I’d originally stopped. All I could hear were deer running, which included the telltale sound of a buck’s rack banging through the brush. Typically, I’d be disheartened by such an occurrence, but I couldn’t help but think that I’d just busted up a breeding party and it could play into my hand very nicely for the evening hunt as I’d be set up over one of the main trails heading into the area they were bedded, and where I’d heard him blow at me the night before. With that in mind, I slowly eased my way back to my stand and enjoyed my lunch at the base of my tree.
As I was packing up to move to my evening spot, I heard a deer running and grunting. I turned to see a spike bounding down the trail and into the sanctuary. Not long after, I heard crashing on the hillside 200 yards across the ravine, followed by more grunting and I suspected that it was some of the deer I’d jumped up from that area an hour earlier. With my safety harness off and all my gear on the ground, I quickly assessed my shooting lanes and realized I still had a great opportunity to shoot a deer using either of the two main trails leading into the sanctuary, and with good cover on the side they’d be approaching from, I thought to myself “this might work”, so I nocked an arrow and got ready for what I hoped might be an exciting encounter from the ground. Little did I know what was about to transpire!
Within a few seconds of getting myself into shooting position a mere 5’ from the base of my tree with half my gear still scattered around me, a small 6-point came barreling down the trail and headed into the sanctuary grunting up a storm. I laughed as he disappeared into the brush wondering what he was so excited about because I hadn’t seen any does. Then, out of the thick brush to my left, I heard a deep, guttural grunt that only a mature buck can make, and within seconds, I caught the movement of his rack busting through the brush. In the moment, I also noticed how shiny his coat was in the bright afternoon sun. As I've since described it, he looked like a "sweaty horse" after you take their saddle off.
I instantly realized he was in bow range and that I'd get a shot opportunity as he worked from left to right, so I came to full draw and started to swing with him as he continued to my right. As I did that, I swung my bow right into the very cover that allowed me to even pull this whole thing off. I attempted to let down and as I did, I punched the trigger on my release and set an arrow flying into a tree 10 yards in front of me. The sound made him stop on the other side of a deadfall that was 30 yards to my 2 o’clock. I had just enough cover to reach down and grab another arrow while he frantically tried to find the scent of a doe (or as I now believe, he was trying to find the does that were with him when I bumped them all out of there). I could sense his urgency and mine was pretty damn similar in the moment!
To be continued...
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nice job
