Main Discussion Area > Shooting and Hunting

Mature bucks are a different animal than little deer!

(1/5) > >>

H Rhodes:
  Saturday morning dawned cold and clear for a welcome change.  I paddled into a north wind in my canoe across a cypress pond which is bordered by a thinly timbered briarpatch of a bedding area.  Last year I had placed a ladder stand on an exit trail from the bedding area.  The trail runs a funnel between a small creek and the briarpatch.  I paddled silently and made very little noise getting into the stand for the first time hunting it this season.  I counted 9 does which filed out of that bedding area.  Each doe turned RIGHT and passed me quartering away at 15 to 20 yards.  I knew that this area contained a true trophy, so I waited.  I posted a picture of a huge rub that I believe was his last season.  Some of you may remember it.  That rub was about two hundred yards from where I placed this stand.  I have thought about this buck for a whole year.   The doe parade ended about 8:30 AM.  At 9:15 I saw him.  A mature whitetail buck.  Dark patch on the forehead, wide and tall rack with good mass - dark colored swamp deer - biggest buck I have ever been close to.  Where each of the previous 9 deer had turned RIGHT - he turned left....  He walked in the open for me to behold at a range of about 40 yards.  He stopped in an impossibly thick area twenty yards to my right and stood there looking in my direction for about 15 minutes.  A big buck will stand motionless for much longer periods of time than lesser deer, and this ole boy was good at being a trophy deer.  He was better at being a trophy than I am at being a trophy hunter...  I will never forget him.   A pump .12 gauge would have made it easy - but he deserves better than that.  Our season ends February 10.  I don't know if I will try that spot again this year.  If I don't, I know where I will be in October.       

JW_Halverson:
Hoowah!  You laid eyes on him, that's a whole heck of a lot more than he wanted even if it is less than you wanted. 

Danzn Bar:
Cool story Howard.....Good luck with that big boy!
DBar

H Rhodes:
Thanks JW and Danzn Bar.  I do feel blessed just to have been so close to him.  I am not normally a guy who looks for the big racks - generally I am a meat hunter, but this deer is located in an area that the landowners designate as a big bucks only type of spot.  I do want to stay in their good graces, but to be honest, I was determined to see who made that huge rub, and who has been making these scrapes that are as big as a dining room table.  I have deer hunted all my life and have taken some nice deer, but nothing to compare with this one.  They don't get that big by being stupid.  Here is a picture of my father-in-law with one of his relatives.  This deer was killed in the same area in the last couple of years.  Good genetics along the Tombigbee River.  You never know what is going to walk out on you.   

H Rhodes:
The one that fooled me Saturday was more deer than that one pictured above and would have been the finest buck I have ever taken.  Here is a pic of my buddy standing near his rub last year.  That rub is on a red oak.  That deer had to have some serious attitude, huh?

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page