Captain Jack is a deer that first showed up on our farm back in November of 2010 as a 2.5 year old. His long sweeping beams reminded me of a pirate hook, so I named him after the most famous pirate of the time, Captain Jack Sparrow...
I never laid eyes on him during November that year and he eventually went MIA after a final appearance in our creek bottom on December 1st. Last summer, he spent a great deal of time with my #1 hit list buck Moe in an area I call Hippie Ridge. Even in to the fall, they would run together frequenting the same creek bottom where they both made their first appearances the year before...
Again that fall, he eluded me and I was thankful he did so as I didn't need the temptation of shooting a 3.5 year old with all kinds of potential. A week or so after a small confrontation with his summer time companion, he vanished for several months only to return again after muzzleloader in a thick area towards the end of Hippie Ridge...
I knew going in to this season that he would be my #1 target as he was the first deer I had developed a 3 year history with, and I had high hope those split G2's would get even better! My thoughts were that he would become a 145-150” main framed 8 with split G2's. Boy was I wrong!!! I have no idea what became of that old rack, but he still grew a great rack as a 4.5 year old.
The strangest part about his transformation from 3.5 to 4.5 was his sudden "fear" of trail cameras. Greg and I have a theory that the IR layout on the SpyPoints is part of the problem, but regardless of the cause he avoided my cams like the plague all year long. I was fortunate enough to get at least one picture of him on every camera pull for most of the summer and in to the fall. Once the season arrived, I knew I was in for quite the battle as I was dealing with a mature buck that almost always moved under the cover of darkness and I was yet to lay eyes on him in 3 years. That would all change on Friday, November 9th, 2012. A day that would take the growing legend of Captain Jack and transform it to a whole new level...
With my buck tag notched and my good buddy Bryan (Bloody Nock) looking to kill his first truly big whitetail, I invited him out to the farm to sit in one of my favorite stands. By 8:30 that morning, Bryan had drawn just a few specks of blood and some white belly hair after being forced to hold his draw upwards of 3 minutes as Jack picked him out of the tree on the draw. Shortly after the shot, which I still did not know about, I laid eyes on Jack for the first time in our history together as he worked a loop that a 150” 10-point worked during the rut of 2010. Not only did Bryan have a great encounter, but I got to see him do something I knew would make him killable if not this year, then next. The icing on the cake for all of this would come on Saturday as I went to pull my SpyPoint HD-10 that was on a 2 week soak over a scrape in one of the thickest areas of Hippie Ridge. I purchased these cameras solely for scrape duty and they paid off with perhaps the single coolest gift my cams have given me in a close to a decade of use. This was taken no more than 20-30 minutes before Bryan’s encounter…
[video=youtube;W12IPCQgirk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W12IPCQgirk&feature=g-crec-u[/video]
So at this point, Captain Jack and the story we are building together may very well have taken the #1 spot on my list of deer stories. I can only hope he survives the rest of the season, unless of course he wants to walk in front of my wife!!! But I do hope he makes it to 2013 and that as a 5.5 year old with 4 years of history on our farm, I can write the final chapter on my best deer story to date!!!
I never laid eyes on him during November that year and he eventually went MIA after a final appearance in our creek bottom on December 1st. Last summer, he spent a great deal of time with my #1 hit list buck Moe in an area I call Hippie Ridge. Even in to the fall, they would run together frequenting the same creek bottom where they both made their first appearances the year before...
Again that fall, he eluded me and I was thankful he did so as I didn't need the temptation of shooting a 3.5 year old with all kinds of potential. A week or so after a small confrontation with his summer time companion, he vanished for several months only to return again after muzzleloader in a thick area towards the end of Hippie Ridge...
I knew going in to this season that he would be my #1 target as he was the first deer I had developed a 3 year history with, and I had high hope those split G2's would get even better! My thoughts were that he would become a 145-150” main framed 8 with split G2's. Boy was I wrong!!! I have no idea what became of that old rack, but he still grew a great rack as a 4.5 year old.
The strangest part about his transformation from 3.5 to 4.5 was his sudden "fear" of trail cameras. Greg and I have a theory that the IR layout on the SpyPoints is part of the problem, but regardless of the cause he avoided my cams like the plague all year long. I was fortunate enough to get at least one picture of him on every camera pull for most of the summer and in to the fall. Once the season arrived, I knew I was in for quite the battle as I was dealing with a mature buck that almost always moved under the cover of darkness and I was yet to lay eyes on him in 3 years. That would all change on Friday, November 9th, 2012. A day that would take the growing legend of Captain Jack and transform it to a whole new level...
With my buck tag notched and my good buddy Bryan (Bloody Nock) looking to kill his first truly big whitetail, I invited him out to the farm to sit in one of my favorite stands. By 8:30 that morning, Bryan had drawn just a few specks of blood and some white belly hair after being forced to hold his draw upwards of 3 minutes as Jack picked him out of the tree on the draw. Shortly after the shot, which I still did not know about, I laid eyes on Jack for the first time in our history together as he worked a loop that a 150” 10-point worked during the rut of 2010. Not only did Bryan have a great encounter, but I got to see him do something I knew would make him killable if not this year, then next. The icing on the cake for all of this would come on Saturday as I went to pull my SpyPoint HD-10 that was on a 2 week soak over a scrape in one of the thickest areas of Hippie Ridge. I purchased these cameras solely for scrape duty and they paid off with perhaps the single coolest gift my cams have given me in a close to a decade of use. This was taken no more than 20-30 minutes before Bryan’s encounter…
[video=youtube;W12IPCQgirk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W12IPCQgirk&feature=g-crec-u[/video]
So at this point, Captain Jack and the story we are building together may very well have taken the #1 spot on my list of deer stories. I can only hope he survives the rest of the season, unless of course he wants to walk in front of my wife!!! But I do hope he makes it to 2013 and that as a 5.5 year old with 4 years of history on our farm, I can write the final chapter on my best deer story to date!!!