I've watched this buck on game cam for three years but have never hunted him until this year, and he's been very elusive moving mostly at night. I had him patterned to be at my stand in the daylight on either Sunday (10-11) or Monday (10-12), but I wasn't able to make it up to my place in NW Oklahoma last weekend. I didn't have any work scheduled for Monday or Tuesday, so I decided to make a quick trip up on Monday to hunt that evening (literally one hunt). But, I HAD to be back to work Wednesday morning, and it's 1100 miles round trip. I left at 5 am to have plenty of time to pick up another ton of corn and refill my feeders before getting in the stand. I had a flat in Paris and ended up with almost an hour delay at a tire store, and then, there were three stops for road construction. By the time I finally got to the co-op, I was very rushed to get everything done before time to hunt.
It was warmer than forecasted when I finally made it to my stand at 5:45, and there was absolutely nothing moving. I was afraid I was going to leave without seeing a single deer, but at a little after 7, I caught some movement south of my stand, and it was the group of bucks my target buck had been running with. They were about 100 yards away and moving slowly toward my shooting lane. They moved behind some trees for what seemed like an eternity, and when they finally came back within view, my buck didn't come out. Just before the end of shooting light, he finally moved into view, and I let a bolt fly. There was a "thwack" and "donkey kick", so I felt good about the shot. It was dark by the time I got out of the stand, and I went to where I thought he had been. Sure enough, my bolt was stuck in the ground with blood tip to tip and a good blood trail. My son (who lives up there) drove up as I was following the blood, and the buck went about 50 yards before piling up.
At this point, my son and I were both pretty much speechless. This buck was bigger than I had thought. I'd guessed him at 171 by what I could see from the game cam pictures, but there was quite a few points that I couldn't see. He weighed a little over 250 lbs (live weight) and gross scored 186.25".
It was warmer than forecasted when I finally made it to my stand at 5:45, and there was absolutely nothing moving. I was afraid I was going to leave without seeing a single deer, but at a little after 7, I caught some movement south of my stand, and it was the group of bucks my target buck had been running with. They were about 100 yards away and moving slowly toward my shooting lane. They moved behind some trees for what seemed like an eternity, and when they finally came back within view, my buck didn't come out. Just before the end of shooting light, he finally moved into view, and I let a bolt fly. There was a "thwack" and "donkey kick", so I felt good about the shot. It was dark by the time I got out of the stand, and I went to where I thought he had been. Sure enough, my bolt was stuck in the ground with blood tip to tip and a good blood trail. My son (who lives up there) drove up as I was following the blood, and the buck went about 50 yards before piling up.
At this point, my son and I were both pretty much speechless. This buck was bigger than I had thought. I'd guessed him at 171 by what I could see from the game cam pictures, but there was quite a few points that I couldn't see. He weighed a little over 250 lbs (live weight) and gross scored 186.25".
Comment