On the morning of Thursday, November 9th I found myself 25 feet up an oak tree that I'd hunted several times a few weeks before where some good activity had taken place. To my dismay I discovered someone had stolen my trail camera. The morning hunt produced only a six point that busted me with his nose and a lone doe with no buck behind her. After getting smelled by several deer a few weeks before out of the same tree, I concluded it was time to move on to another area. Luckily, I had a camera that was 1/4 mile closer to the truck and on my walk out that morning I checked it. Two evenings before this bruiser walked through 3 minutes before legal shooting light ended and I was ready to set my sights on him:
At that moment I left my climber on the tree I was going to hunt out of that evening. I arrived back at the tree at 2:15 and was not satisfied with the tree position for the wind we were having. After an hour of clearing limbs and clanking the stand around I climbed up 20 feet and got settled in for the evening. Around 4:30 I caught some movement to my west about 120 yards away and saw him -- an absolute stud. He was simply eating acorns and making his way through the forest. A young spike was hanging around him and they both bedded down for some time. I lost sight of him for about 30 minutes or better when I suddenly saw him appear again, this time he'd cut the distance to me to about 75 yards. With sunset creeping closer I decided I needed to give him an incentive to cross a ditch and come to me. I let out a few grunts followed by a couple turns of a doe bleat can. That was all he needed to come investigate.
I was actually holding my binocs and bow on the left side of the tree and he was making his way in on the right side. Because I incidentally blocked my own view of him coming in he surprised me when I caught movement out of my peripheral on the other side of the tree. He was at 25 yards and now I'm in a slow scramble to get my knocked arrow around the tree without him seeing me. If he moved I moved, and if he stopped I stopped. He slowly moved into a shooting lane where I gave him a "mehhh" to stop him and I released the Rage Hypodermic. I did not have a lighted nock on this arrow but I did hear a loud pop when the arrow hit. I felt great about the shot and could only mutter, "Did this just really happen"? to myself over and over. I called a few buddies and climbed down to find an arrow that penetrated about 10 1/2" before it broke off. Being very confident in the shot but not being able to make visual confirmation of the hit, I decided to simply mark the first spot of blood and back out. Morning couldn't come soon enough.
I found myself back on the trail around 6:45 the next morning, and the blood confirmed my decision to back out was the right one. Very little blood to start out the trail and even when it picked up it was not the "red carpet" by any means that you'd like to see. After about 150 yards the blood started getting very thin. The last 50 yards of this blood trail were hands-and-knees type blood, but I looked up and saw the classic white belly we all want to see. Upon inspection of the buck I realized I had found his left side antler back in March which makes the story even more complete for me. It had been about 1,850 days since my last buck harvest and this guy was worth every day of the wait! Steaks on boys!
-Brandon
His shed I found back in March of this year:
His one trail camera appearance back in early October:
At that moment I left my climber on the tree I was going to hunt out of that evening. I arrived back at the tree at 2:15 and was not satisfied with the tree position for the wind we were having. After an hour of clearing limbs and clanking the stand around I climbed up 20 feet and got settled in for the evening. Around 4:30 I caught some movement to my west about 120 yards away and saw him -- an absolute stud. He was simply eating acorns and making his way through the forest. A young spike was hanging around him and they both bedded down for some time. I lost sight of him for about 30 minutes or better when I suddenly saw him appear again, this time he'd cut the distance to me to about 75 yards. With sunset creeping closer I decided I needed to give him an incentive to cross a ditch and come to me. I let out a few grunts followed by a couple turns of a doe bleat can. That was all he needed to come investigate.
I was actually holding my binocs and bow on the left side of the tree and he was making his way in on the right side. Because I incidentally blocked my own view of him coming in he surprised me when I caught movement out of my peripheral on the other side of the tree. He was at 25 yards and now I'm in a slow scramble to get my knocked arrow around the tree without him seeing me. If he moved I moved, and if he stopped I stopped. He slowly moved into a shooting lane where I gave him a "mehhh" to stop him and I released the Rage Hypodermic. I did not have a lighted nock on this arrow but I did hear a loud pop when the arrow hit. I felt great about the shot and could only mutter, "Did this just really happen"? to myself over and over. I called a few buddies and climbed down to find an arrow that penetrated about 10 1/2" before it broke off. Being very confident in the shot but not being able to make visual confirmation of the hit, I decided to simply mark the first spot of blood and back out. Morning couldn't come soon enough.
I found myself back on the trail around 6:45 the next morning, and the blood confirmed my decision to back out was the right one. Very little blood to start out the trail and even when it picked up it was not the "red carpet" by any means that you'd like to see. After about 150 yards the blood started getting very thin. The last 50 yards of this blood trail were hands-and-knees type blood, but I looked up and saw the classic white belly we all want to see. Upon inspection of the buck I realized I had found his left side antler back in March which makes the story even more complete for me. It had been about 1,850 days since my last buck harvest and this guy was worth every day of the wait! Steaks on boys!
-Brandon
His shed I found back in March of this year:
His one trail camera appearance back in early October:
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