I am extremely happy to say at the young age of 42 I have finally connected with a P&Y quality whitetail.
We have trail cam pics of this deer back in 2018, in fact my brother actually called me off of shooting this deer. With the great neighbors we have, they all put him on the don't shoot list and he made it through the season.
Fast forward to the summer months of 2019 the trail cams kept coming in with him being a protein baby. He made some antler gains, but had put on even more weight, this deer was just a big boy for our area. As season approached he was placed number one on my list due to his age, we have a deer that scores more but is only a 4.5 year old.
This Saturday morning he finally made a mistake. I had a young doe with her two fawns at the feeder around 7:15. The doe suddenly decided that north was a good direction for her to go and I watched her hastily walk out of sight. I turned my attention back to the fawns and the nubbin buck quickly turned to the south and went bounding off that way. I glanced out the window and saw something I wasn't prepared for. The ten was at 35 yards and closing fast. As I turned around to grab the bow I started to shake and not just a slight shake I'm talking, making the arrow rattle on the bow type of shake. I haven't been that shook up since my early hunting years.
The ten made his way around to the north side of the feeder and into my shooting lane. As I drew back I seemed to calm myself a bit, completely focus on the next 5 seconds. At full draw, time stopped and so did he. I found my pins. I found my spot. Anchor spot set, finger forward, and just simply squeeze. The recoil of the bow snaps me back into reality. The arrow hits the buck and zips through him like hot knife in butter. The buck never jumped, or flinched, he just seemed to hit turbo speed into 1 second. I watched him speed out of sight and then an earthquake is the only thing that I can logically think of that happened next. The stand went to shaking, the phone that I had in my hand was not understanding the gibberish I was trying to type in it. I FINALLY managed to get a text sent to my wife and my brother before simply trying to calm down.
What a high!
My brother called and we talked about 10 minutes, thank goodness he called cause I don't think I would have stayed in the stand if he didn't. After that conversation, I slipped out of the stand to retrieve my arrow as I walked into the clearing I noticed something didn't look right to the north of me. There was a limb that was not there the day before.
Looking through the binos....That was not a limb.
I had just done something that my father dreamed of but never got to do. Killed a perfect Ten.
The deer:
Weighed 174 lbs (Live Weight)
Gross B&C - 134 2/8"
Net B&C - 131 3/8"
That is a mere 2 7/8" of deductions. I know they can get closer than that but not by a whole lot!!
This is a bunch of firsts for me:
First buck over 130
First P&Y
First Texas Big Game Qualifier
I am one happy son of a gun!!
PS - Thanks Chad E for talking me out of shooting him last year!!!!
We have trail cam pics of this deer back in 2018, in fact my brother actually called me off of shooting this deer. With the great neighbors we have, they all put him on the don't shoot list and he made it through the season.
Fast forward to the summer months of 2019 the trail cams kept coming in with him being a protein baby. He made some antler gains, but had put on even more weight, this deer was just a big boy for our area. As season approached he was placed number one on my list due to his age, we have a deer that scores more but is only a 4.5 year old.
This Saturday morning he finally made a mistake. I had a young doe with her two fawns at the feeder around 7:15. The doe suddenly decided that north was a good direction for her to go and I watched her hastily walk out of sight. I turned my attention back to the fawns and the nubbin buck quickly turned to the south and went bounding off that way. I glanced out the window and saw something I wasn't prepared for. The ten was at 35 yards and closing fast. As I turned around to grab the bow I started to shake and not just a slight shake I'm talking, making the arrow rattle on the bow type of shake. I haven't been that shook up since my early hunting years.
The ten made his way around to the north side of the feeder and into my shooting lane. As I drew back I seemed to calm myself a bit, completely focus on the next 5 seconds. At full draw, time stopped and so did he. I found my pins. I found my spot. Anchor spot set, finger forward, and just simply squeeze. The recoil of the bow snaps me back into reality. The arrow hits the buck and zips through him like hot knife in butter. The buck never jumped, or flinched, he just seemed to hit turbo speed into 1 second. I watched him speed out of sight and then an earthquake is the only thing that I can logically think of that happened next. The stand went to shaking, the phone that I had in my hand was not understanding the gibberish I was trying to type in it. I FINALLY managed to get a text sent to my wife and my brother before simply trying to calm down.
What a high!
My brother called and we talked about 10 minutes, thank goodness he called cause I don't think I would have stayed in the stand if he didn't. After that conversation, I slipped out of the stand to retrieve my arrow as I walked into the clearing I noticed something didn't look right to the north of me. There was a limb that was not there the day before.
Looking through the binos....That was not a limb.
I had just done something that my father dreamed of but never got to do. Killed a perfect Ten.
The deer:
Weighed 174 lbs (Live Weight)
Gross B&C - 134 2/8"
Net B&C - 131 3/8"
That is a mere 2 7/8" of deductions. I know they can get closer than that but not by a whole lot!!
This is a bunch of firsts for me:
First buck over 130
First P&Y
First Texas Big Game Qualifier
I am one happy son of a gun!!
PS - Thanks Chad E for talking me out of shooting him last year!!!!
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