As many of you who have been members for the past 5 years or so have seen, I have been fortunate to take some great deer for the Jefferson/Chambers/Hardin county areas over the past years, all on low fence, all with a bow. In years past I have started threads in the Spring, updating throughout the summer and into season with what I was seeing on my game cam. Last year I had a deer shot on the property to the south of one of my properties by someone who did not have permission to be hunting that property and on top of that it was done with a rifle during archery season. Unfortunately the person who did it, had seen the pics of the deer beforehand on the greenscreen, which is why I decided to not post my preseason pics this year.
Regardless, I started running cams in April and had some good, mature deer on cameras. In fact I had more mature bucks (5+ Years old) than I had ever had in years past. Between 5 cameras I estimated I had about a dozen deer that met that criteria. None of them were exceptionally large scoring deer but I had plenty to choose from.
Then late July I get a picture of a deer with good mass, good brows, decent tine length and a great extra coming off his base. Within the next two weeks he had already busted one of his brows off. I started to get him regularly on camera and decided I would make him my target buck. The more and more I looked at him I thought he could potentially reach the 160” mark with his extras.
I have been working out of town and it seemed he would make a daytime appearance about once every 2 weeks and typically during the middle of the week. I knew it was only a matter of time until he at minimum broke that extra base point. This past week I check my cam and see he has busted off the majority of his remaining brow. I’m torn whether I should try to give him another year or just hunt him as he remains. With the threat of being poached, I know I’d rather kill him myself and it’d still be an accomplishment to kill him.
Fast forward to yesterday morning, the fog had rolled in thick and it had been an unusually slow morning, having not seen the first deer for the first hour of light. I decided to spray a bit of buck bomb. I was texting with a buddy about how his duck hunt was going when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Low and behold it’s him. He’s standing at 11 yards, scent checking. He’s on a trail that should bring him behind a bush and when he makes his way past it he should be at 16 yards and slightly quartering away. He stops behind the bush, but instead of continuing the trail he stops and turns facing away from what I can see through the bush. That’s when I noticed a doe standing about 50 yards back in the brush. He starts making his way towards her and I know I have one gap at 27 yards. I draw and when he hits the opening, I make a noise and he turns slightly quartered away and looks back, I put my 20 yard pin a couple inches above middle line and trip the trigger. At impact there was an explosion of blood and it almost knocked him off his feet.
45 minutes and 50 yards later and I find this unique buck. Unfortunately he decided to bust one more tine on his death run and that just so happened to be his big extra base point. I searched up and down the trail for an hour and a half looking for it but was never able to recover it.
Even with his 3 broken tines, he still taped out at 146” and I have to imagine with his two matching brows and the base point he would have gone low to mid 160”. Regardless, I am thrilled to have been able to kill another one of these Swamp bucks.
Regardless, I started running cams in April and had some good, mature deer on cameras. In fact I had more mature bucks (5+ Years old) than I had ever had in years past. Between 5 cameras I estimated I had about a dozen deer that met that criteria. None of them were exceptionally large scoring deer but I had plenty to choose from.
Then late July I get a picture of a deer with good mass, good brows, decent tine length and a great extra coming off his base. Within the next two weeks he had already busted one of his brows off. I started to get him regularly on camera and decided I would make him my target buck. The more and more I looked at him I thought he could potentially reach the 160” mark with his extras.
I have been working out of town and it seemed he would make a daytime appearance about once every 2 weeks and typically during the middle of the week. I knew it was only a matter of time until he at minimum broke that extra base point. This past week I check my cam and see he has busted off the majority of his remaining brow. I’m torn whether I should try to give him another year or just hunt him as he remains. With the threat of being poached, I know I’d rather kill him myself and it’d still be an accomplishment to kill him.
Fast forward to yesterday morning, the fog had rolled in thick and it had been an unusually slow morning, having not seen the first deer for the first hour of light. I decided to spray a bit of buck bomb. I was texting with a buddy about how his duck hunt was going when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Low and behold it’s him. He’s standing at 11 yards, scent checking. He’s on a trail that should bring him behind a bush and when he makes his way past it he should be at 16 yards and slightly quartering away. He stops behind the bush, but instead of continuing the trail he stops and turns facing away from what I can see through the bush. That’s when I noticed a doe standing about 50 yards back in the brush. He starts making his way towards her and I know I have one gap at 27 yards. I draw and when he hits the opening, I make a noise and he turns slightly quartered away and looks back, I put my 20 yard pin a couple inches above middle line and trip the trigger. At impact there was an explosion of blood and it almost knocked him off his feet.
45 minutes and 50 yards later and I find this unique buck. Unfortunately he decided to bust one more tine on his death run and that just so happened to be his big extra base point. I searched up and down the trail for an hour and a half looking for it but was never able to recover it.
Even with his 3 broken tines, he still taped out at 146” and I have to imagine with his two matching brows and the base point he would have gone low to mid 160”. Regardless, I am thrilled to have been able to kill another one of these Swamp bucks.
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