Got lucky - 12/14/23
Monday morning I had to drop the kids off at school so I didn’t pull up to my land until 830. Haven’t had a deer on camera all year I’d shoot but who knows what can show up during the rut and I just wanted to sit and hunt all day anyways. Walking to my stand I looked at my phone to silence it and check the cameras. A buck was on one of the cameras behind a doe and I knew i hadn’t seen him before. They were east bound along the river our land borders. I couldn’t tell much on horns but could tell he was much more mature than we had seen in a while. I thought I’d go get 1/4 mile east of him and sit down and maybe they will come by.
I cut down a fire lane through some thinned pines and headed to my stand. But I stopped when I heard the sounds of a buck chasing a doe in the thinned pines. Crashing through brush, grunting, running wide open then stopping, but it’s so thick I can’t see. Control burn was scheduled for last June but they didn’t make it so it’s THICK. Bad news though as they were already east of me. I backed out and literally ran about 250 more yards east down a lane in an attempt to get to a stand in front of them where I could see. Well they beat me to my spot and I see his horns headed over the top of a hill straight away from me through a food plot. He was heading back toward the river. So I just followed him. They got back into some cutover and he continued to chase the doe within 50 yards of me and at one point I catch a glimpse of the doe and him. About a minute later she ran past me heading back the way I came in from(north) but I didn’t see or hear the buck. I just sat down on the edge of the plot and was watching a fire lane to my south bw two cutover thickets and a large river bottom hardwood block and the plot they’d already crossed.
All the sudden the big sucker walks into the fire lane headed west where they came from. He’d left the doe. I was ready though and popped him in the lungs with a browning a-bolt 2 I bought off here last year. 243 with a hand loaded 95grain partition. He ran 50 yards and piled up. The smell of the smoke upon cycling the rifle on a frosty morning is maybe my favorite part of hunting.
Have had 8 cameras up since July and never got a picture of this deer until the day I killed him. I don’t know why he left the doe. Maybe he bred her, maybe another buck ran him off, or maybe he got spooked but he left her. He was 1/2 mile as the crow flies from where the picture was taken 40 minutes prior to me shooting him.
Biggest deer we’ve taken on our farm (red clay, poor dirt, hill deer) so far. 135 with a 13.5 half inch spread. I’ll take it
![[Linked Image from i.postimg.cc]](https://i.postimg.cc/Y0hJ31N8/IMG-9923.jpg)
![[Linked Image from i.postimg.cc]](https://i.postimg.cc/pTy2wtVW/IMG-9945.jpg)
I cut down a fire lane through some thinned pines and headed to my stand. But I stopped when I heard the sounds of a buck chasing a doe in the thinned pines. Crashing through brush, grunting, running wide open then stopping, but it’s so thick I can’t see. Control burn was scheduled for last June but they didn’t make it so it’s THICK. Bad news though as they were already east of me. I backed out and literally ran about 250 more yards east down a lane in an attempt to get to a stand in front of them where I could see. Well they beat me to my spot and I see his horns headed over the top of a hill straight away from me through a food plot. He was heading back toward the river. So I just followed him. They got back into some cutover and he continued to chase the doe within 50 yards of me and at one point I catch a glimpse of the doe and him. About a minute later she ran past me heading back the way I came in from(north) but I didn’t see or hear the buck. I just sat down on the edge of the plot and was watching a fire lane to my south bw two cutover thickets and a large river bottom hardwood block and the plot they’d already crossed.
All the sudden the big sucker walks into the fire lane headed west where they came from. He’d left the doe. I was ready though and popped him in the lungs with a browning a-bolt 2 I bought off here last year. 243 with a hand loaded 95grain partition. He ran 50 yards and piled up. The smell of the smoke upon cycling the rifle on a frosty morning is maybe my favorite part of hunting.
Have had 8 cameras up since July and never got a picture of this deer until the day I killed him. I don’t know why he left the doe. Maybe he bred her, maybe another buck ran him off, or maybe he got spooked but he left her. He was 1/2 mile as the crow flies from where the picture was taken 40 minutes prior to me shooting him.
Biggest deer we’ve taken on our farm (red clay, poor dirt, hill deer) so far. 135 with a 13.5 half inch spread. I’ll take it
