I've been trying to decide whether or not to post this or not. I finally decided to go ahead and share.
Not too much of a story behind this deer until this year. Two years ago I first noticed this buck and I had him marked as a cull. His right side was a decent 5 and his left was a real short tined 5. On the left though his G2 split right at the base and then had about a 10" gap until he crab clawed at the end. But he never showed himself when I was hunting for a cull buck that year.
Last year he actually showed a lot of potential and his right side grew quite a bit along with his brow tines.
Fast forward to this year and he blew up to be much larger than ever. His brow tines shot up and he put on some length on his left side along with some trash. His rack almost looks like it belongs to two separate deer with his right side a tall typical 5 and his left being a trashy 8 (if the G5 measures an inch).
Once I saw this deer on camera I immediatly set him as my number one target. And I'm sure you can all guess why..the drop tine. While not much of one, a drop tine is a drop tine.
I hunted this buck every chance I got during bow season and it almost seemed like he knew when I was in the stand. Every time I was in it he wouldn't show. and when I was gone he'd be waiting under the feeder for it to go off. It didn't matter how far I walked to get to that stand or what direction I came in from, he somehow knew when I was there.
So once rifle season came I thought I'd give it a try to tuck myself off in the brush with my .308 and see if I couldn't fool him. Well to my luck it worked. at 8:04 a.m. on November 8th he came trotting through the brush up to the feeder. I gave him about 3 seconds and squeezed off my shot. He made it about 30 yards before piling up.
It felt great to finally get to put my hands on him after countless trips to the ranch hunting this buck but I am going to miss hunting him.
And I really wish he didn't break off half his drop tine!
Not too much of a story behind this deer until this year. Two years ago I first noticed this buck and I had him marked as a cull. His right side was a decent 5 and his left was a real short tined 5. On the left though his G2 split right at the base and then had about a 10" gap until he crab clawed at the end. But he never showed himself when I was hunting for a cull buck that year.
Last year he actually showed a lot of potential and his right side grew quite a bit along with his brow tines.
Fast forward to this year and he blew up to be much larger than ever. His brow tines shot up and he put on some length on his left side along with some trash. His rack almost looks like it belongs to two separate deer with his right side a tall typical 5 and his left being a trashy 8 (if the G5 measures an inch).
Once I saw this deer on camera I immediatly set him as my number one target. And I'm sure you can all guess why..the drop tine. While not much of one, a drop tine is a drop tine.
I hunted this buck every chance I got during bow season and it almost seemed like he knew when I was in the stand. Every time I was in it he wouldn't show. and when I was gone he'd be waiting under the feeder for it to go off. It didn't matter how far I walked to get to that stand or what direction I came in from, he somehow knew when I was there.
So once rifle season came I thought I'd give it a try to tuck myself off in the brush with my .308 and see if I couldn't fool him. Well to my luck it worked. at 8:04 a.m. on November 8th he came trotting through the brush up to the feeder. I gave him about 3 seconds and squeezed off my shot. He made it about 30 yards before piling up.
It felt great to finally get to put my hands on him after countless trips to the ranch hunting this buck but I am going to miss hunting him.
And I really wish he didn't break off half his drop tine!
