Got my buck a little earlier this year! down on 10-11-12!

[brock ratcliff]

Congratulations!

 

[Boone]

Great 8! nice.

 

[rgecko23]

holy mass, what a great buck! Congrats!!

 

[bigten05]

Awesome man congrats

 

[1hornwilly]

That's so awesome I can't stand it. Huge congrats!!!

 

[jeremy44230]

That's awesome! He is a big boy for sure!

 

[deerslayer1985]

Yea I've got a few stories about him. It was late last night when I got in, and I've got to get him all taken care of today. So I'll tell the story later on.. lol Thanks for all the congrats.

 

[Curran]

Congrats man! :smiley_clap: That's a hell of a nice buck! Look forward to reading the story on him later.

 

[DJK Frank 16]

Nice job! Congrats!!

 

[hickslawns]

Outstanding! Quite an accomplishment to kill a 5.5yr old buck. Even bigger when you have that history. Great job!

 

[jagermeister]

Congrats, man... That's a brute!

 

[dante322]

Nice!!!! congrats.

 

[RUT NUT]

Congrats on a great buck! I can't wait to hear how it all unfolded!

 

[Rutin]

Congrats

 

[deerslayer1985]

This is one of the first pictures we had have the buck we called Cowlick. He was 2.5 years old here. My Dads computer crashed, and we lost all of the old pictures of him. Luckily he had printed some off at walmart, and cowlick happened to be one of them. You can see he had the chunk missing out of his right ear all along. You can't see the cowlick on the back of his neck in this picture, but you can tell just by the rack that its him. We had a few encounters with him at 2.5. He just wasn't old, or big enough at the time. He might have scored 110-115 that year.

 

[deerslayer1985]

Here is Cowlick when he was 3.5 years old. This year he grew a G4 on his left side. You can still see the chunk missing out of his right ear, and you can see the Cowlick on the back of his neck in a couple of the pictures. We had a few more encounters with him this year. It was mid October, and my buddy and I were trying to harvest a doe on video. We got out of the stand, and got on the four wheeler. On the ride back home there is a real brushy area to the left of the four wheeler trail. I was cruising along, and had to slow down to just a couple MPH because of a little ditch. I looked to my left, and there stood Cowlick at about 10-15 feet to our left in the brush. My buddy, and I just stopped the four wheeler and looked at him for about 30-45 seconds. He never moved. I went ahead, and starting driving hoping not to scare him off. I still knew he wasn't quite a shooter yet. He was only 3.5 years old. He might have went 125 give or take a few inches this year. Dad had an encounter with him also this year. It was the first day of gun season. He hadn't seen much in the morning, but that evening he went to our treestand we call the honey hole. He had Cowlick come in real early, and just hang around the treestand for an hour or so. He was bow range about the whole time Dad said. He just wasn't one we considered a shooter yet.

 

[deerslayer1985]

This year he would be 4.5 years old. For some reason he went back to an 8. We had gotten just a slight few pictures of him, and somehow the pictures got deleted off of the computer. There were no sightings of him this year. The only other evidence we have was Dad finding both of his sheds. He was going shed hunting back in the thicket on the backside of our property. On the four wheeler trail that goes out through the thicket Dad seen an antler. He got off the four wheeler, and picked it up. He turned around, and there laid the other one just right across the four wheeler trail. So we had the matching set of Cowlicks sheds. Heres a pic of the sheds. This year the sheds scored 132 with a 16" spread.

 

[deerslayer1985]

This year Cowlick will be 5.5 years old. We knew if he didn't gain much he was still going to be a shooter this year. They usually peak at 5.5, or 6.5. I got the cameras started out in the usual area where we had got pictures of him in the years previous. It took about a week and a half before he finally showed himself where I expected him to be. You know what they say the older the deer gets the more of a schedule they get on. He was on a schedule alright. We could almost pinpoint where he was going to be at any point in the day. This deer did the exact same thing everyday. He would bed in a thicket right by where Dad found his sheds, and cross the four wheeler trail. Come across two ridges, then cross the four wheeler trail again, and make his way down the hill to the corn we had in front of the camera. We decide we needed to set the blind up right after where he was crossing the second four wheeler trail. We got it all set up in mid September. Hoping he would get used to it by the first of the season. We hadn't seen the deer in person yet. We just had trail cam pics of it. We were going to let my daughter try to shoot it, because we thought it was still about the same size. So Dad, Haylee(my daughter), and me get in the blind on the 29th at about 3:00. I let her bring her Nintendo Ds with headphones so she wouldn't make much noise. lol About 4:30 a little doe showed up, and Haylee wanted to shoot it so bad. I didn't want to discourage her from shooting a deer on her first time out, but I knew that buck would make an appearance. So I kept saying Haylee if we wait a little bit the big buck will prolly come, then I would tell her that was just a baby deer trying to make her not want to shoot it. Finally it left, and she was kinda upset she didn't get to shoot it, but she got over it at about 7:00. I could here walking. I kept telling Dad I heard something to our right. He stuck his head out the window to see if he could tell if it was a deer, or squirrel. He had his head out there for about 2 minutes. All the sudden he pulled his head in real slow, and said Cowlick is right there 10 yards away. He was staring us down. He hadn't noticed Dads head out of the blind luckily, but he must have just knew something wasn't right. He turned around, and walked straight away from us. He didn't really spook, but it was a big letdown, and we were worried he would come again. Also after seeing him Dad, and I decided he was too big to risk not getting him. So we decided to go after him by ourselves, and hopefully be able to get him. So I gave him a couple days without even entering that area of the woods. Then a few days later. I checked the camera. He had been back in there the very next day. So we got all our stuff ready and went the next day. We got in the blind around 4:00. Just Dad, and me this time. We seen 2 small bucks not any more than 5 minutes of being in the blind, but he wasn't with them. It wasn't until 7:00 again that we seen him. He came from the same direction. He had a smaller 9 point with him this time. He did the exact same thing. He came right straight at us where there was no shooting lane, and stopped and stared at us. Then he turned around and walked away. It was starting to get aggravating. This deer just knew when we were there. So we kinda put down a plan. To give him about 3 or 4 days to settle down, and we would rotate our blind around to the way he had been coming in, and clear some shooting lanes. We got up there and had everything cleared and ready by 4:00. We tucked into the blind, and we just had a good feeling. We didn't see anything until 5:30 when 2 does came down from the hill across the valley in front of us about 75 yards away. They went into the valley and disappeared. I happened to look out the window to the right where he had come the 2 times previous. I said "oh my gosh dad here he comes". Sure enough here he came same trail. He was about 40 yards coming straight at us when I first noticed him. He got to about 20 yards this time, and stopped right behind some brush. He started staring us down like usual. Dad had the video camera rolling. This deer literally stared at us without moving for 20 straight minutes. We couldn't mover for that long. I was getting aches so bad from not moving. So the camera rolled on for 20 minutes of him watching us. All the sudden he turned around, and started to walk away, but this time he turned angling down into the valley. He disappeared over the rise. Next thing we know he is on the bank of the hill over where the two does had came down earlier. He kept walking to our left on the bank. He would always stop and stare back at the blind for a minute or two with every series of steps he took. We didn't want him to go to far to the left, because the wind was blowing right towards where he would be. He did anyways though. Evidently the HS soap, and HS scent away along with the scent protection clothes we had on worked, because he stood over to our left about 75 yards away, and just watched us for 10-15 minutes. It was starting to get dark fast. Dad said this deer isn't going to come in until dark. Well we kinda lost him on that bank for the leaves over there. We could here him walking though. All of the sudden I caught a glimpse of him, and he was directly in front of us again. He stopped again, and started his usual stare down. We probably had 15 minutes of shooting light left. At the rate he was going we weren't going to get a shot. Then all of the sudden he broke, and came directly down the rest of the bank, and into the valley right below us. We couldn't see him, but we could here him coming up the bank to us. Then all of the sudden he popped up facing right at us about 20 yards away. He walked towards us another 5 yards, and then started angling towards us. Now I am shaking so bad by this point it is ridiculous. My legs are bouncing like they have a mind of there own. Finally he turns broadside at about 12 yards. I shoot, and I can't tell where it hit, but we just sit silent. He runs for about 7-8 seconds, and then stopped. I looked at Dad like crap. I had though he just ran over there and stopped, because I had missed him. Well a few seconds after he stopped we heard a big crash, and then some thrashing. We knew he was down after that. We called my uncle to come help with the drag, because this deer was huge bodied. We picked up the blood trail, and he had only went about 60-70 yards. He is the biggest bodied deer I have ever killed. We wanted to weigh him live weight, but after dragging him a few feet with the guts in him. We realized we better gut him. lol He weighed 215 field dressed. He had a huge gut pile Dad said the guts that were in him prolly weighed 70-75 pounds. So we are estimating his live weigh around 280-285. I haven't scored him yet, but he has put on a lot of mass, and inch or two of spread, and gaine a little on every tine, and main beam. I am guessing he is going to gross score right around 140. As an 8 point I am pretty happy with that. This was probably the best antlers he was ever gonna have. Well thats pretty much the story of the buck named Cowlick.

 

[150plus]

Great story Jared! Glad we were able to share this hunt!!

 

[DJK Frank 16]

That is an awesome history with that buck! Great story! Congrats again!