Last week I arrowed the biggest buck of my life. Let me first start off by saying I am very blessed to work for a boss (Jeremy) that is just as obsessed with whitetail deer as I am, and he has an unbelievable south Texas ranch with incredible deer. It all started mid summer when he sent me a picture of a buck that sparked my interest. We watched him all summer long. He’s a mainframe 10 with split g2s. Not sure what he would finish out, we were guessing somewhere in the low to mid 170’s. To be honest I’ve never really been too caught up in score. I was just looking for a special deer that was symmetrical and pretty..... this deer was all of that.
The buck was coming into the same spot consistently, but he moved to the complete opposite side of the ranch near the end of September (Almost 2 miles away). We had to go set up a krivoman blind because the new feeder he was on did not have a bow setup. I didn’t mind that trip to the ranch because we worked on the hog population a little while we were there. We killed 9 pigs in about 3 hours..... I got to shoot 4 myself (3 with bow).
We weren’t sure how the buck was going to react to the new setup. This 7 year old buck had been around the block. We road fed and let it sit.... To our surprise, the buck was not phased by the new blind. He was in on camera that same afternoon. For a solid week we watched him on the cellular cameras come in like clock work.
It was time to go after him!!!
We set up the date to go hunt him. Bags are packed, we were going to work a half day and leave straight from work to sneak an afternoon hunt in. The evening before our trip I’m out jogging and I get a text from Jeremy..... “Did that sucker break up?”... my heart sunk. I thought he was pulling a prank on me (Which it would have been a **** good photoshop prank). After close examination it definitely was a break on his left G2 split. How does that happen literally the day before you leave for the hunt? Granted a taxidermist could easily fix the broken tine, but I did not want to shoot this deer broke up. I took it as a sign as this buck was not meant to be for me this year.
Jeremy said “Well here’s your options. We can go after him broke up. We can cancel or we can go back to the drawing board and find another buck”. I said “Well I’m not gonna cancel. Let’s find another buck and I can always go after the original buck next year!”
Jeremy had one velvet picture of this buck that fit what I was looking for. Deer would be somewhat easy to identify. Crab-clawed on both beams with a kicker coming off his right G3. Unfortunately that is all he had because he had moved cameras off of that pen to scout other deer. He was still somewhat optimistic that this buck would still be at that feeder because he was not showing up anywhere else on the ranch. Oh and there is no bow stand so we will have to move a krivoman blind right when we get to the ranch. Us both being up for the challenge, now I’m really interested!!!!
On the day of the hunt, let me tell y’all about that half day of work. Half *** day of work is more like it [emoji23]. I was worthless. Noon comes around and we are southbound. We get to the ranch about 3 pm and go set up the blind at the new setup. My expectations of even seeing this deer are very low, but we felt with nothing to lose I would try to hunt the new setup that evening. We hand corn and then head to the ranch house to get changed and shoot my bow. That first sit was action packed. I was covered up with deer. Saw a gorgeous wide 4 year old 9 pt, several does and some young bucks early.
Then the new buck steps out and I see him for the first time. He comes out in the sendero at about 120 yds. He watches the deer eating the hand corn but really isn’t interested. Head on I can tell that the deer isn’t as wide as we were thinking but from the side, this deer was very impressive! The Lamco trough feeder goes off and he jumps in the pen (I’m about 60 yds from the front of the feeder pen so he definitely would have to come in to the hand corn for this set). The buck feeds for a while in the pen and then drifts off back in the brush. I could tell it was not going to happen. Then as light was fading he starts coming back. This time he’s coming right to the hand corn. He’s closing at 45 now settling in at about 35 and broadside. I decide not to shoot. Not enough light and there’s no sense rushing a shot on a deer like this. I had seen all that I needed to at this point. One that he is definitely a shooter and two that he is definitely killable as he will be even more comfortable on the hand corn tomorrow. At least that was my logic. I texted Jeremy and he waited about 20 extra minutes as I watched him through the Swarovski binos feed in the moonlight.
We got back to the ranch house and reviewed my video footage of the buck.
That night we had almost 2 inches of rain. I got to the stand early, so we could road feed and hand corn. As luck would have it, I was covered up with hogs. About 20 or so. Luckily we had put out enough corn where I wasn’t worried about the hogs eating it all up. I was just a little concerned on if my buck would come in with them present. Some does started trickling in with a few young bucks. The feeder went off and I saw an impressive droptine buck (which I noticed was my buck’s running buddy) on the first hunt. My buck was still a no show. But then he steps out on the back side of the pen. He jumps in the pen and eats a while. Jumps out the back of the pen, makes a scrape and runs off a few young bucks. The second feed timer goes off and he jumps back in the pen.
He then acts like he’s done for the morning and jumps out of the pen and walks back in the brush. There’s still a few does and young bucks feeding on the hand corn. The pigs are gone. About 15 minutes later the buck appears. This time he’s on my side of the pen walking right towards the hand corn. It just got real! I flip open the video camera lens and push the record button, grab the Mathews and put it on my lap. I’ve got 4 rows of hand corn and 3 shooting windows. The video camera is pointing out of the far right. I’ve already concluded that if he gets broadside on one of the far right 2 corn piles, I will be able to get him on video. If he goes to the second farthest to the left, that will be iffy and if he goes to the far left I won’t be able to get the shot on video. As bad as I wanted to get this hunt on video, I was not going to let the video ruin my chance of actually getting to shoot the deer. He came in at the 2nd from the right corn row but worked his way to the left. Just as I was about to say “forget the video” he turns back to the 2nd from the right corn pile and walks right in to camera view!!!!!
Now all of my focus is on my bow, my breathing and trying not to think about this being the biggest deer of my life that I’ve had the opportunity shoot. I let him get slightly quartering away. He’s at 25 yds! I draw back and settle my pen. Arrow is released and I see the nocturnal light up and the shot looks good. Clean pass through. I listen and hear what I think could be a crash. I give it about 20 min and go look at the arrow. Blood looks good and I look behind be and I see his rack sticking above the brush. He went 60 yds!
Los Cazadores scored my buck at 176 5/8”. For those of y’all that have not got to see the “TrophyScan” scoring, it is really cool. I am very thankful for Jeremy for so graciously having me at his ranch. This will be a hunt the I will forever cherish!
Here is the Video of the shot
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
The buck was coming into the same spot consistently, but he moved to the complete opposite side of the ranch near the end of September (Almost 2 miles away). We had to go set up a krivoman blind because the new feeder he was on did not have a bow setup. I didn’t mind that trip to the ranch because we worked on the hog population a little while we were there. We killed 9 pigs in about 3 hours..... I got to shoot 4 myself (3 with bow).
We weren’t sure how the buck was going to react to the new setup. This 7 year old buck had been around the block. We road fed and let it sit.... To our surprise, the buck was not phased by the new blind. He was in on camera that same afternoon. For a solid week we watched him on the cellular cameras come in like clock work.
It was time to go after him!!!
We set up the date to go hunt him. Bags are packed, we were going to work a half day and leave straight from work to sneak an afternoon hunt in. The evening before our trip I’m out jogging and I get a text from Jeremy..... “Did that sucker break up?”... my heart sunk. I thought he was pulling a prank on me (Which it would have been a **** good photoshop prank). After close examination it definitely was a break on his left G2 split. How does that happen literally the day before you leave for the hunt? Granted a taxidermist could easily fix the broken tine, but I did not want to shoot this deer broke up. I took it as a sign as this buck was not meant to be for me this year.
Jeremy said “Well here’s your options. We can go after him broke up. We can cancel or we can go back to the drawing board and find another buck”. I said “Well I’m not gonna cancel. Let’s find another buck and I can always go after the original buck next year!”
Jeremy had one velvet picture of this buck that fit what I was looking for. Deer would be somewhat easy to identify. Crab-clawed on both beams with a kicker coming off his right G3. Unfortunately that is all he had because he had moved cameras off of that pen to scout other deer. He was still somewhat optimistic that this buck would still be at that feeder because he was not showing up anywhere else on the ranch. Oh and there is no bow stand so we will have to move a krivoman blind right when we get to the ranch. Us both being up for the challenge, now I’m really interested!!!!
On the day of the hunt, let me tell y’all about that half day of work. Half *** day of work is more like it [emoji23]. I was worthless. Noon comes around and we are southbound. We get to the ranch about 3 pm and go set up the blind at the new setup. My expectations of even seeing this deer are very low, but we felt with nothing to lose I would try to hunt the new setup that evening. We hand corn and then head to the ranch house to get changed and shoot my bow. That first sit was action packed. I was covered up with deer. Saw a gorgeous wide 4 year old 9 pt, several does and some young bucks early.
Then the new buck steps out and I see him for the first time. He comes out in the sendero at about 120 yds. He watches the deer eating the hand corn but really isn’t interested. Head on I can tell that the deer isn’t as wide as we were thinking but from the side, this deer was very impressive! The Lamco trough feeder goes off and he jumps in the pen (I’m about 60 yds from the front of the feeder pen so he definitely would have to come in to the hand corn for this set). The buck feeds for a while in the pen and then drifts off back in the brush. I could tell it was not going to happen. Then as light was fading he starts coming back. This time he’s coming right to the hand corn. He’s closing at 45 now settling in at about 35 and broadside. I decide not to shoot. Not enough light and there’s no sense rushing a shot on a deer like this. I had seen all that I needed to at this point. One that he is definitely a shooter and two that he is definitely killable as he will be even more comfortable on the hand corn tomorrow. At least that was my logic. I texted Jeremy and he waited about 20 extra minutes as I watched him through the Swarovski binos feed in the moonlight.
We got back to the ranch house and reviewed my video footage of the buck.
That night we had almost 2 inches of rain. I got to the stand early, so we could road feed and hand corn. As luck would have it, I was covered up with hogs. About 20 or so. Luckily we had put out enough corn where I wasn’t worried about the hogs eating it all up. I was just a little concerned on if my buck would come in with them present. Some does started trickling in with a few young bucks. The feeder went off and I saw an impressive droptine buck (which I noticed was my buck’s running buddy) on the first hunt. My buck was still a no show. But then he steps out on the back side of the pen. He jumps in the pen and eats a while. Jumps out the back of the pen, makes a scrape and runs off a few young bucks. The second feed timer goes off and he jumps back in the pen.
He then acts like he’s done for the morning and jumps out of the pen and walks back in the brush. There’s still a few does and young bucks feeding on the hand corn. The pigs are gone. About 15 minutes later the buck appears. This time he’s on my side of the pen walking right towards the hand corn. It just got real! I flip open the video camera lens and push the record button, grab the Mathews and put it on my lap. I’ve got 4 rows of hand corn and 3 shooting windows. The video camera is pointing out of the far right. I’ve already concluded that if he gets broadside on one of the far right 2 corn piles, I will be able to get him on video. If he goes to the second farthest to the left, that will be iffy and if he goes to the far left I won’t be able to get the shot on video. As bad as I wanted to get this hunt on video, I was not going to let the video ruin my chance of actually getting to shoot the deer. He came in at the 2nd from the right corn row but worked his way to the left. Just as I was about to say “forget the video” he turns back to the 2nd from the right corn pile and walks right in to camera view!!!!!
Now all of my focus is on my bow, my breathing and trying not to think about this being the biggest deer of my life that I’ve had the opportunity shoot. I let him get slightly quartering away. He’s at 25 yds! I draw back and settle my pen. Arrow is released and I see the nocturnal light up and the shot looks good. Clean pass through. I listen and hear what I think could be a crash. I give it about 20 min and go look at the arrow. Blood looks good and I look behind be and I see his rack sticking above the brush. He went 60 yds!
Los Cazadores scored my buck at 176 5/8”. For those of y’all that have not got to see the “TrophyScan” scoring, it is really cool. I am very thankful for Jeremy for so graciously having me at his ranch. This will be a hunt the I will forever cherish!
Here is the Video of the shot
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
not sure a broken tine would have kept me from the original target though, he should be real special if he makes it to next year.
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