Well some folks have seen this deer in the San Angelo area thread but I figured, I'd do a small write up on him. I've been through a small "trophy drought" since I shot my 2012 buck on our place... I've shot some mgmt deer, does, passed several deer through those years, had some nice deer on camera with the stars never aligning for me to get an arrow in them.....and some it was just bad luck. But....I just kept plugging along because I knew my time would come...and I really enjoy the camplife and watching deer so I wasn't really that frustrated. Must be getting old..LOL
in 2015, we passed this deer named Woodford (by Humper, after his favorite whiskey, a couple of years ago) in hopes that he would be something special for us. Several of us on our north fenceline saw him during the year and didn't pull the trigger. I watched him for 45 minutes one day and asked myself several times, "WTH was I doing?"..
So fast forward to 2016. One of our members saw him on camera in velvet and we determined he was on the list. However, I had a very consistent deer with tall brows in one we called Cowboy at my other stand and I figured he'd go mid 30s and a great deer to end my drought on. Woodford hadn't been seen at my favorite stand so it was an easy call to put all my effort into Cowboy.
Opening morning found me in my Slacker blind hoping to get a look at Cowboy and he showed. I drew on him and as I was setting my pin, another mature buck came bounding out of the feedpen almost of top of him spooking him and he just walked off and never came back...
. He was a no show that evening. My buddy Nick had brought a cold with him and guess who started getting sick? I was coughing and my lungs filled up with crap. I tried to make it a go but I scared every deer that showed. Needless to say my weekend was ruined hunting wise because I couldn't breathe, I couldn't stop coughing and I felt like crap. Two weekends later, I was still coughing every now and then but I felt like I could hold it while hunting. It did not work. I spooked Cowboy as he was walking in because I coughed with my windows up.
So now after helping FND with a few fishing events and re-introducing myself to my wife after being gone 7 out of 9 weekends helping him, dove hunting and bow hunting lol, I set off this past Wednesday with Nick feeling great and looking forward to hunting with no cough. So we checked cards and guess who has showed up at my favorite stand? Woodford! And Cowboy had become on and off. I immediately changed my "target deer and now I'm going down to my Seismic stand. Thursday AM I am in the stand and decided to not throw any handcorn....I wanted nothing new introduced with a mature deer like Woodford hanging around and figured that would be my best bet to keep him consistent. After sitting in the pitch dark for 1.5 hours, I opened up the window at 7am to see Woodford and another great deer we call Splitter at 12 yards
. It is still way too dark to shoot or even see through my peep but I can see them through my binos and know its them. They head on over to the alfalfa and start munching down. All I needed is 15 minutes and I can shoot.....I now wished I had at least handcorned a little, even just a handful or two because the feeder wasn't set to go off until 7:40. I was hoping the alfalfa would help them just stick around until then. At 7:30 those guy meander off to the left side of the 60 yard pen out of my sight. I thought, well they are just hanging out over there until the feeder goes off and It'll be go time when it does. Well....they didn't and all I saw were two small bucks and several does. I was extremely disappointed. I was hoping they didn't smell me and left but I had no idea.
So Thursday afternoon finds me roasting in a 85 degree hot box and me watching 4-doe and 2 good up and comer bucks. They were very spooky as I am sure I was stinking up the place. I had been telling myself all hunt how I was never hunting a plus 80 degree after noon again...my big arse sweats too bad and I scare all my deer....no deer come in, heat sucks, no mature deer will ever show yada yada yada lol. 30 minutes after that quiet mental tirade, I look up and I see a great buck crossing my left sendero. I throw my binos up in time to think it might be Woodford. I start focusing on my right sendero that is 50 yards to the right and out he pops. He turns and walks straight down to my feed pen fence and jumps right in. I was like holy **** this is going to happen! He doesn't have a care in the world or he hadn't smell me yet. He walk in and makes an immediate left to my water and drinks there for almost two minutes. My water is 30 yards away and my Krivoman directional feeder is in line with it so I wasn't going to shoot anyway. So after getting his fill he comes to the corn and mills around facing me. I'll let the video do the rest of the talking with the hunt/shot but he eventually gives me the perfect opened door, front leg forward, shot and I tucked it under his left leg in the pocket lodging it in the offside shoulder.....I thought.....
He mule kicks and hauls arse outta the pen hitting the woodline and I didn't see him cross either sendero. I saw liquid shooting out and thought he's dead, he's leaking like a sieve but I also, in the back of my mind, started questioning my shot being too low.. I immediately started beating myself up saying, "why did you aim for the usual **** heart shot on a deer like that when you could have easily taken out both pie plate lungs at 15 yards?"....and I really can't answer that. If you have read my past writeups or watched my videos I seem to have a reflex to aim for the heart and while I do hit it....I need to work on moving up a bit to up my percentages I guess. It's probably a lot easier on the nerves too afterwards after you read the next part here.
So I climb out to to go check out the liquid. Brown pile with corn and water and no blood...
I immediately start freaking out and go back to watch the video. I did hit a little to the right of my aim point by an inch but I felt like I was high enough to take out the heart and I buried it the offside leg. I am still freaking though because there is no blood. I walked to the woodline 25 yards outside the pen and see nothing but bile.....and still no blood and I can't see the deer in the woods. My signal this year at Seismic is crap too. I have absolutely no service there now when in the past, I have actually done live hunts in that hole. But now, I cant even get Out of Network or Edge. So I am PO'd at ATT at this point because my fat *** has to run up the **** hill 250-300 yards to call my buddy/member Stephen in Angelo to come help me out. He thought i was dying and I needed saving, but I had to tell him I had just ran up that **** hill to get signal...LOL It was still plenty daylight so I was hoping to get him out there to get his opinion too. The boy can flat out find deer and I wanted more than one set of eyes on what looked like a now suspect shot due to the contents on the ground. I was also in no hurry to push the deer if he was, in fact, still alive. We discussed getting a dog but decided to give it a short go first when he got there and then make a decision on a dog.. So then I called another member, txbowhunter4life, Rick to tell him and he settled me down by telling me he thought he deer was dead and the bile was from esophagus or rumen with the heart destroyed. I concurred but was still a nervous wreck thinking about losing a deer of that magnitude. We decide I should walk back down and look a little further to see if I could find some actual blood. So on my walk down the hill, I round the corner close to end of my senderos and I see an object in a dead cedar tree!! What the hell?...It was my buck!!!! he had jumped in the tree as he died I guess. Holy ****! I found him! 60 yards and down!...I let out a loud "Thank you Lord!!" and then remembered I have to run my fat *** back up the hill to tell Stephen he can stay and eat with his wife....Son of a *****!! LOL..! After an autopsy, the Grim Reaper destroyed the bottom third of his heart. I had absolutely zero margin for error lower that that. I am very thankful to have hit clipped the heart and will definitely be aiming a tad higher next time..
What a huge range and flip of emotions. I could tell he was my best bow buck already and I told the guys I didn't care what he scored....the drought had been broken and he was going on the wall. Buddy Nick showed up and after several high fives and a big victory hug, we loaded him up to take LDPs, gut for a shoulder mount and run into my taxi. Thank you too all the folks for the congrats texts, phone calls and posts....I really appreciated them. It was an awesome feeling breaking the "trophy" drought and doing it with my best bow buck ever. I am still on cloud nine as I type this. Somebody had other plans for me by having those few things go wrong with Cowboy. I would have been very thankful for either deer but I'm glad I got an arrow in Woodford! The stars finally aligned!
We put a tape on him and got 141 7/8" gross. His mass carried him for sure but his tine and brow length was deceiving with his mass. I couldn't believe it when the total came up. We re-measured a few points to double check and re-added it and came up with the same. I am ecstatic! Couldn't be happy. Finally in the 140 bow club... Thanks for reading folks... sorry this is so long....I am long winded and still on cloud nine!
Some TC pics
After some pro editing above my pay grade, my buddy cleaned up the pic pretty good... the Dodger Ram is no longer visible...lol Thanks to Dallas Keith!
No fancy souped up video like in years past. That's a lot of work lol. I did some small editing work and here is the video of the pre shot and shot..
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBJXkh2IaWE"]Woodford Video - YouTube[/ame]
in 2015, we passed this deer named Woodford (by Humper, after his favorite whiskey, a couple of years ago) in hopes that he would be something special for us. Several of us on our north fenceline saw him during the year and didn't pull the trigger. I watched him for 45 minutes one day and asked myself several times, "WTH was I doing?"..
So fast forward to 2016. One of our members saw him on camera in velvet and we determined he was on the list. However, I had a very consistent deer with tall brows in one we called Cowboy at my other stand and I figured he'd go mid 30s and a great deer to end my drought on. Woodford hadn't been seen at my favorite stand so it was an easy call to put all my effort into Cowboy. Opening morning found me in my Slacker blind hoping to get a look at Cowboy and he showed. I drew on him and as I was setting my pin, another mature buck came bounding out of the feedpen almost of top of him spooking him and he just walked off and never came back...
. He was a no show that evening. My buddy Nick had brought a cold with him and guess who started getting sick? I was coughing and my lungs filled up with crap. I tried to make it a go but I scared every deer that showed. Needless to say my weekend was ruined hunting wise because I couldn't breathe, I couldn't stop coughing and I felt like crap. Two weekends later, I was still coughing every now and then but I felt like I could hold it while hunting. It did not work. I spooked Cowboy as he was walking in because I coughed with my windows up.So now after helping FND with a few fishing events and re-introducing myself to my wife after being gone 7 out of 9 weekends helping him, dove hunting and bow hunting lol, I set off this past Wednesday with Nick feeling great and looking forward to hunting with no cough. So we checked cards and guess who has showed up at my favorite stand? Woodford! And Cowboy had become on and off. I immediately changed my "target deer and now I'm going down to my Seismic stand. Thursday AM I am in the stand and decided to not throw any handcorn....I wanted nothing new introduced with a mature deer like Woodford hanging around and figured that would be my best bet to keep him consistent. After sitting in the pitch dark for 1.5 hours, I opened up the window at 7am to see Woodford and another great deer we call Splitter at 12 yards
. It is still way too dark to shoot or even see through my peep but I can see them through my binos and know its them. They head on over to the alfalfa and start munching down. All I needed is 15 minutes and I can shoot.....I now wished I had at least handcorned a little, even just a handful or two because the feeder wasn't set to go off until 7:40. I was hoping the alfalfa would help them just stick around until then. At 7:30 those guy meander off to the left side of the 60 yard pen out of my sight. I thought, well they are just hanging out over there until the feeder goes off and It'll be go time when it does. Well....they didn't and all I saw were two small bucks and several does. I was extremely disappointed. I was hoping they didn't smell me and left but I had no idea.So Thursday afternoon finds me roasting in a 85 degree hot box and me watching 4-doe and 2 good up and comer bucks. They were very spooky as I am sure I was stinking up the place. I had been telling myself all hunt how I was never hunting a plus 80 degree after noon again...my big arse sweats too bad and I scare all my deer....no deer come in, heat sucks, no mature deer will ever show yada yada yada lol.
30 minutes after that quiet mental tirade, I look up and I see a great buck crossing my left sendero. I throw my binos up in time to think it might be Woodford. I start focusing on my right sendero that is 50 yards to the right and out he pops. He turns and walks straight down to my feed pen fence and jumps right in. I was like holy **** this is going to happen! He doesn't have a care in the world or he hadn't smell me yet. He walk in and makes an immediate left to my water and drinks there for almost two minutes. My water is 30 yards away and my Krivoman directional feeder is in line with it so I wasn't going to shoot anyway. So after getting his fill he comes to the corn and mills around facing me. I'll let the video do the rest of the talking with the hunt/shot but he eventually gives me the perfect opened door, front leg forward, shot and I tucked it under his left leg in the pocket lodging it in the offside shoulder.....I thought..... He mule kicks and hauls arse outta the pen hitting the woodline and I didn't see him cross either sendero. I saw liquid shooting out and thought he's dead, he's leaking like a sieve but I also, in the back of my mind, started questioning my shot being too low.. I immediately started beating myself up saying, "why did you aim for the usual **** heart shot on a deer like that when you could have easily taken out both pie plate lungs at 15 yards?"....and I really can't answer that. If you have read my past writeups or watched my videos I seem to have a reflex to aim for the heart and while I do hit it....I need to work on moving up a bit to up my percentages I guess. It's probably a lot easier on the nerves too afterwards after you read the next part here.
So I climb out to to go check out the liquid. Brown pile with corn and water and no blood...
I immediately start freaking out and go back to watch the video. I did hit a little to the right of my aim point by an inch but I felt like I was high enough to take out the heart and I buried it the offside leg. I am still freaking though because there is no blood. I walked to the woodline 25 yards outside the pen and see nothing but bile.....and still no blood and I can't see the deer in the woods. My signal this year at Seismic is crap too. I have absolutely no service there now when in the past, I have actually done live hunts in that hole. But now, I cant even get Out of Network or Edge. So I am PO'd at ATT at this point because my fat *** has to run up the **** hill 250-300 yards to call my buddy/member Stephen in Angelo to come help me out. He thought i was dying and I needed saving, but I had to tell him I had just ran up that **** hill to get signal...LOL It was still plenty daylight so I was hoping to get him out there to get his opinion too. The boy can flat out find deer and I wanted more than one set of eyes on what looked like a now suspect shot due to the contents on the ground. I was also in no hurry to push the deer if he was, in fact, still alive. We discussed getting a dog but decided to give it a short go first when he got there and then make a decision on a dog.. So then I called another member, txbowhunter4life, Rick to tell him and he settled me down by telling me he thought he deer was dead and the bile was from esophagus or rumen with the heart destroyed. I concurred but was still a nervous wreck thinking about losing a deer of that magnitude. We decide I should walk back down and look a little further to see if I could find some actual blood. So on my walk down the hill, I round the corner close to end of my senderos and I see an object in a dead cedar tree!! What the hell?...It was my buck!!!! he had jumped in the tree as he died I guess. Holy ****! I found him! 60 yards and down!...I let out a loud "Thank you Lord!!" and then remembered I have to run my fat *** back up the hill to tell Stephen he can stay and eat with his wife....Son of a *****!! LOL..! After an autopsy, the Grim Reaper destroyed the bottom third of his heart. I had absolutely zero margin for error lower that that. I am very thankful to have hit clipped the heart and will definitely be aiming a tad higher next time.. What a huge range and flip of emotions. I could tell he was my best bow buck already and I told the guys I didn't care what he scored....the drought had been broken and he was going on the wall. Buddy Nick showed up and after several high fives and a big victory hug, we loaded him up to take LDPs, gut for a shoulder mount and run into my taxi. Thank you too all the folks for the congrats texts, phone calls and posts....I really appreciated them. It was an awesome feeling breaking the "trophy" drought and doing it with my best bow buck ever. I am still on cloud nine as I type this. Somebody had other plans for me by having those few things go wrong with Cowboy. I would have been very thankful for either deer but I'm glad I got an arrow in Woodford! The stars finally aligned!
We put a tape on him and got 141 7/8" gross. His mass carried him for sure but his tine and brow length was deceiving with his mass. I couldn't believe it when the total came up. We re-measured a few points to double check and re-added it and came up with the same. I am ecstatic! Couldn't be happy. Finally in the 140 bow club...
Thanks for reading folks... sorry this is so long....I am long winded and still on cloud nine!Some TC pics
After some pro editing above my pay grade, my buddy cleaned up the pic pretty good... the Dodger Ram is no longer visible...lol Thanks to Dallas Keith!
No fancy souped up video like in years past. That's a lot of work lol. I did some small editing work and here is the video of the pre shot and shot..
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBJXkh2IaWE"]Woodford Video - YouTube[/ame]
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