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My 2012 buck

Boone

*Supporting Member*
833
96
N.E. O-H-I-O
If you don't like hunting stories, just skip to the end, haha.

Friday was the last day of my rut hunting vacation. I had hunted each evening since Tuesday with my buddy and by myself in the mornings except for Wednesday. We had headed down to hunt the southeastern hills on Thursday after two relatively unproductive days up north. We were greeted by three does on Thursday in front of one of our stands on the way in. There were new scrapes and rubs everywhere along the field edges since the last time we were down. Seeing this got me hopeful for our sits to come. We weren’t disappointed and saw does and bucks every sit, but nothing worth shooting or in range, until Friday evening.

Friday afternoon I elected to sit in a stand overlooking a field edge bordered by one of my plots on a brushy field that I had worked for hours on during the preseason and a trail inside the woods that paralleled the field and was often used by bucks scent checking the field during the rut. There is only a single ag field within a few square miles of my stand site, and it was a half mile away at that. The rest of the area is a mixture of woods and pasture, so I was hoping for a hungry doe to bring a buck by my setup.

On the way in, I was tying up my bow to the pull rope when I heard a commotion down the hill, in the woods behind me. A doe had burst out of the thick ravine with a basket-racked buck on her tail. They ran off to parts unknown. I was getting warmer than it had been during my whole time off so the sun started to fade into the trees before I saw any more deer. I heard some deer behind me again that worked their way along the ridge bench and away from me again.

Was that a grunt back out in front of me? Yep, there it was again, a low guttural “urrr”. Then, out in front of me, a doe was pushed down the center of the field, the ridge top, towards a stand where my buddy was sitting, on the opposite side of the field a hundred or so yards away. The buck passed by a clearing about 50 yards away and my heart started beating faster as he looked like a shooter to me. They disappeared over the ridge and I hoped they would run by my buddy.

After what seemed like an eternity, the doe darted back the way she came. The buck followed, back across the opening, and away from both of us. Crap. I pulled out my grunt tube, “urrr”, “urrr”. It worked! A few seconds later the buck rounded the corner, back into view, and came straight at me, 50 yards, he’s outside the ears; 40, at least eight points; 30, I like his brow tines; and at 25 yards, he stopped, in a clear lane, slightly quartering towards, ears pinned back, hair on the back of his neck standing up, looking for a challenge. Thunk, I gave him an arrow.

He turned inside out and ran through the brush, his antlers apparently clanking every scrub tree he passed. There must have been other deer besides the doe. I heard many deer running away. Did I hear a crash on the ridge top?

After giving him an hour, we started the search. No arrow. No blood, anywhere. Not even a drop. I know he’s a dead buck. I saw the arrow enter behind the shoulder. After fifty yards of nothing, we decide to split up, with me continuing down the trail and him checking up the hill. Not ten seconds later, he whistles. “Find blood?” I yelled. “Better than that!” was the reply. The arrow never exited the cavity after taking out both lungs. Here he is as we found him. I know, I know, you can’t see the tag I had on his front leg in the photos. I miss the metal tags. You can see it in the contest thread when I post it later after I figure out what measurements are needed, if you are worried about it.
 

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hickslawns

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
39,721
248
Ohio
Great buck and the "hero pose" says it all. Good for you Boone! Way to get it done. Congrats.