Sorry in advance for the long read, but this is a pretty good story. Sometime in the middle of October of this year my daughter and son-in-law, who live on my property, came roaring up the driveway holding a little digital camera. They said you're not going to believe what we have on camera! Well, they were right. The picture was grainy but you could clearly see it was an unbelievably huge buck. After they both swore it wasn’t a joke I decided to put some cameras out and see if I could get more pictures. I have been hunting this property since I was 5 years old so I have a pretty good idea of the deer trails and areas they use at different times of the year. I put out two cameras on hand corn and checked them a week later. Bam! I had two pictures of him at night. I immediately placed a stand in a tree that I've hunted out of for close to 27 years. The timber necks down to about 100 yards wide here with a 6 acre duck slew on the South side and 60 acre CRP field on the North. It's an awesome pinch point to be in during the rut. But, I haven’t hunted here in 6 years. My son and I got on a lease in Oklahoma and very seldom hunt at "the house" anymore. I made the decision to lay the longbow down and pick up the 25-06 for this deer. I knew it will be hard enough to see this deer and even harder to see him inside of 15 yards. I started hunting him on opening weekend of rifle season. I saw lots of activity from young deer, but no big boy. Over the next two weeks the rut was starting to get crazy and I got several daylight pictures of him. I started spending a ridiculous amount of time in the stand. On Monday the 19th of November I was 30 foot up my oak tree around 9:00 am when a small four point walked under me. I was watching him when I heard a deer running in water. I looked to the North and saw a deer walking through one of the many holes of water in the area. It was him! I started breathing way too hard to make a shot, but the cover was so thick I couldn’t even think about shooting. All I could see was his rack. He was watching a doe out in the CRP field. He stood there for at least 5 minutes then started walking. I looked in front of him and found a clear spot. He stopped there and all I could see was his shoulder. By this time I'd calmed down and felt good about the shot, so I squeezed the trigger. At the shot, he ran about 10 yards and stopped completely out of my line of sight. I knew, he had either fallen or was just standing there. I waited 10 minutes and decided to sneak down. I didn’t make it two foot down in my climber when I heard a deer running through the water. I really thought it may have been the doe he'd been chasing. I got down and eased up to my house to meet my son and give the deer a little more time. We went back down there to where he should be laying and found nothing. My heart sank! There was hair in the water where he was standing and nothing else. We walked the perimeter of the water that he'd been in and didn’t find a speck of blood. We decided to back out just in case it was a gut shot. We came back that afternoon and grid searched until dark and never found any sign of the deer. I was sick! I went to my lease and pulled every camera I have and put them out all over the property to just see if maybe he was still alive. I watched for buzzards and had neighbors watching for buzzards, nothing. On the 28th, my son called me at work and said he just saw Big Boy chasing a doe. He said it happened so fast he couldn’t get a shot, but it was him! I took off from work the rest of the week and was back in my stand for the first time since I'd shot the deer on the 19th. I hunted the next three days without seeing a deer! Hot windy conditions make for long sits. On Saturday morning at around 7:00 am my son, who is hunting about 600 yards from me, texted me and said he just had big boy chase a doe by his stand. A few minutes later I heard a deer running toward me. For some reason it seriously didn’t cross my mind it could be him……….but it was. He was in a trot when got to an opening 22 yards from my tree. I went in auto-pilot with the Remington 30-06 my grandfather passed down to me and found the deer's shoulder in the scope and dropped him. I immediately put another one in him just to make sure. My phone started blowing up. My wife and son had heard the shots and was asking if I'd got him. I could barely respond I was shaking so bad. I took a short phone video of the deer from the stand and then the next thing I knew I was on the ground and I took another video as I walked over to him. Those two videos are priceless to me. I can relive that moment over and over. After looking the rack over real good I found where I'd shot him 12 days earlier. I'd shot right over the spine. In fact, I can't see how it didn’t knock him down. The remainder of the day was spent with family and friends at my shop. It was a pretty steady stream of people coming to look at the buck. One of the things I was thankful for was that my son was on vacation and able to be there for the whole ordeal. Again, I'm sorry for the long read, but this deer is so special to me. Bucks like this are anything but the norm in our area. Only took me 47 years of hard hunting to get him. I know some may read this and think sounds like a couple of idiots that can't shoot. That’s not normally the case………………until you put a deer of this caliber in front of us. Then, yes, we are a couple of idiots with the shakes. haha
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Great looking deer, Congrats! -
Wow! Congratulations, happy for you!Comment
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Holy moly!
Awesome buck sir, way to get it done
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Daaaaaang! What a buck! CongratsComment
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Wow. That is a toad!
Congrats.Comment
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Incredible deer, congrats!Comment
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That's a great deer Todd, congrats.Comment
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OMG! Nice!Comment
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Great story and even better buck!Comment
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That's an awesome buck!!!Comment
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Wow. Unbelievable buck. Big congrats. Second chances on bucks like that dont come that often!Comment
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That’s an incredible deer! Congratulations!Comment
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**** nice buck. Congratulations!
GaryComment
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Whoa! Congrats!Comment
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