"OMG it happened so quick"

I am not sure I can describe the feeling I had when we walked up on this deer.

As you have read, the text I got stated the abbreviation I loath! What is even better is we are always joking with him on his texting abilities. To us, when we got the text it was hilarious! The next text he sent was to my other buddy who was in a stand 100yds from where this buck fell. It read as follows "I just shit, a buck may be headed ur way!". Again afterwards we laughed for hours at these exchanges. All in good fun!

The morning started with him losing his release, getting in the stand an hour late and debating on an all day sit in his spot. My buddy fried a 12" pan of bacon at 4:30 in the morning, we all know how this goes. It looked like Cheech an Chong were in that cabin. Not gonna get into the exchanges about the bacon but I wasn't impressed.

About 10:00 I got a text stating he (shooter) was gonna sit till 11 and find a different spot. Him not being too familiar with that area I said I would climb down and help him get set up. My plan was to be in and out, back in the stand in an hour. I had been seeing a lot of deer and had an encounter with a buck I called Big Goofy. At around 10:20 I climb down and head down the hill. I decided to stop and check a cam that was below and behind the finger he was sitting on. 33 pics in a day ( on a scrape) so I pulled the card and walked up and out to the cabin. As I sat down to drink a pop my phone vibrated, I read the aforementioned text, followed by "hit branch. Deflected. Hit re quater". I thought I knew what he was saying but with him you just never know. I sent text after text tryin to get a response and got none. Shortly after I get a call, he tells me he is out of the stand and walking down the road. I wish I had taken a picture of the look on his face.

All he said was it was a decent buck, out to his ears. That's all he knew. He said he had ranged the 2 trails and they were 18 and 30 yards. The buck came in on the lower trail, nose down at a steady walk. He saw it was a deer, knew the yardage and drew his bow. He tried to get the buck to stop but he said he didn't even pick his head up. At this point he had one shot, he settled his pin and when the deer's shoulder got behind the tree he squeezed the shot off. The buck ran on a straight line crashing through some downed trees and acrossed a pipeline into a nasty thicket. He said he saw a limb shaking like maybe his arrow hit it. After the buck crossed the pipeline everything got quiet. He tried climbing down but said he got the shakes so bad he had to settle himself before trying to get down. We had our decoy on the porch so I had him show me the angle of the shot and where he saw the arrow sticking out of. He was 100% sure of the location but not of how much penetration. With what he told me I said "That deer is dead."

We tried to figure out which buck he had shot but all kept saying was he is decent and it was out to his ears. I showed him a super wide, short tined non-typical and he said it could be that one. It was still up in the air on how big the deer was.

About an hour or so had passed so I said if we get up there and find and sign of guts, we are backing out and waiting. He takes us to the trail and we begin the search. He went to his stand and told us to back up about 5yds. When we did I could smell the deer and mentioned something to my buddy about the "rutty" aroma. As I looked down I saw where the deer kicked out an found a clump of hair. I trained my eyes on the trail and 10' away the ground was painted crimson. Definitely liver and lung mixed. I said "well, he's dead, take the lead and go get him". The blood trail was easy to follow but I asked him to slow down and keep his eyes ahead of him.

As we hit about 150yds I can see the deer is struggling and the excitement is building. Down into a little dip he went and as we were coming up out if it I looked ahead of him and saw what I thought was a light colored limb. It took a millisecond to realize that was the beam of a buck! I swim moved my other buddy and jumped on the shooters back. The hoots and hollers that followed had to be something to hear. All we could do was laugh! I said "dude, you just shot a giant!" He never said a word, just stared at it. He really didn't have any idea what he had just pulled off. This was his first ever buck, bow or gun. He had a button buck as his first bow kill. I got a little emotional and we yelled down for my dad to come up with the bike. I wanted to see the look on his face when he made the turn into the thicket. He looked at my buddy and told him in 45 years if hunting that area that's the biggest buck he had been a part of and he was happy that it was him that killed it. That to me meant everything, the fact that this deer died behind the old homestead, where as a 7 year old boy, I dreamed of big bucks like this one all started, well, it was something pretty awesome!

A few more pictures

How we found him


Bladed tip

On the BLD scoring system I had 156 7/8" as an 8pt. Beam measurement were 28" on the left beam, 25" on the right beam, 22" inside and carries 5" of circumference out to the blades tips. He will have plenty of deductions but those mean nothing to me, this is a once in a lifetime buck for most hunters.