I was fortunate to get on a solid lease 3 years ago that mainly has whitetails but has some mule deer on it. Year 1 I got a few pictures of some decent bucks but one particular buck got my attention. He was a mature main frame 8 point with no forks. The lease manager saw this buck in person and could have taken him that year but decided to pass. I hunted the rest of that season and never laid eyes on him. Late summer of 2017 the buck showed back up on camera sporting a forked g2 on one side. I hunted him hard all of the 2017 season and actually got to lay eyes on him twice but never could get within bow range. Fast forward to this summer and we get a few pictures of him on the protein feeders which revealed matching forked g2s! However, once fall rolled in this buck was eluding all cameras. Finally he showed up late one mid-November night on camera which gave me some hope. December rolls in and he’s eluded the cameras once more. I decided on a spot to go early one morning in hopes of seeing him but all it revealed was does and a javi that I had to run off 3 times before him finally leaving. After getting out of the stand I decided I’d ride around some before calling it a morning. I was driving on a high point on the ranch when I spotted 2 deer eating at a cotton seed station. I figured it was going to be small bucks but decided I better glass them to confirm. The first one was a small buck, I then moved over on the second one and immediately saw a large forked g2! I quietly drove the truck down to a low spot and started the stalk. Luckily the wind was perfect for the plan I had envisioned. I slowly worked my way through the brush as quietly as I could. It seemed it took forever to close the 300 yards needed to get into position. I got around 40 yards out when the small buck heard me rake some brush as I was crawling. This got the big guy on high alert. The bigger buck actually thought I was another buck in the brush and walked over to a small mesquite tree to proceed to destroy it! This got the adrenaline rolling as you could image. However, I had way too much brush between us for a shot. I crawled another 20 feet or so and eased up coming to full draw. He started to slowly walk parallel to me at around 42 yards. I put my pin right on his shoulder and squeezed off the release. I watched my arrow in disbelief as it hit him square in the hind quarter. I quickly followed up with a second shot right in the pocket as he was quartering away around 45 yards. The Grim Reaper Whitetail Specials did an exception job! This is the longest I’ve ever chased a particular deer and I’m blessed to finally get him.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Comment