buckman4c
Spike
Here's our target.
My brother in-law had an encounter with this buck 3 years ago. We believe he will be 7.5 this coming year but possibly 6.5.
He is slick.
Up until last year, day light observations were (2) by two different hunters. Pictures on camera have been minimal. Last year we did much better with the cameras but never saw him while hunting. We are hunting a 250 acre portion of a 900 acre piece of private ground. The property is well managed but heavily hunted. The surrounding properties are heavily hunted as well. Not much different than hunting public land as far as pressure is concerned.
In Feb. 2018 I was invited to hunt the property and began scouting. I focused on bedding areas with the objective of finding his beds. Why? Because hunting traditional travel corridors etc. wasn't working for my brother in-law. We needed to find his bedding.
I believe I found several of his preferred beds and pics on camera would support such a claim. The problem, bucks like this don't get to be by laying up somewhere stupid. His beds are extremely difficult to get close. I found one bed which I believed was huntable. I hunted it (3) times last season without so much as seeing any deer.
His pattern based on last year pictures was to bed on a south facing slope early in the bow season. In mid-season he appeared on another camera about 1/4 mile away at the head of a hollow. One in which we hunt and missed him by two days. Then he appeared a couple times on yet another camera(other hunter on property) almost a mile from the first camera in a thick rhododendron patch. Then, he disappeared. This buck has NEVER been seen during the rut chasing a doe. Based on his rack, we believe he is a recluse, possibly a non-breeder and a non-fighter. Very clean rack and there are some other brutes running around to give him a little bit of a fight. During rifle season we firmly believe he hunkers down either on a steep north facing slope or in a large clear cut. Neither location is hunted by anyone in our group for one simple reason. We don't want to push out the "sanctuaries." Many of the deer in general head for these areas during rifle. They are safe there, we don't hunt there and we don't want to push them out into neighboring hunters laps.
We are running out of time to kill this buck, he won't live forever. Has anyone here attempted to kill or killed a mature buck that displayed such an inconsistent pattern?? What did you do to finally pull it off?
The only strategy we can seemingly come up with is to hunt the south slope bed early in the season. This is very tricky and will be a challenge trying to enter the area within a reasonable distance from his bed. Close enough to kill but far enough as to not spook him or more importantly other nearby deer. We're thinking an afternoon hunt. Any thoughts on this ?
My brother in-law had an encounter with this buck 3 years ago. We believe he will be 7.5 this coming year but possibly 6.5.
He is slick.
Up until last year, day light observations were (2) by two different hunters. Pictures on camera have been minimal. Last year we did much better with the cameras but never saw him while hunting. We are hunting a 250 acre portion of a 900 acre piece of private ground. The property is well managed but heavily hunted. The surrounding properties are heavily hunted as well. Not much different than hunting public land as far as pressure is concerned.
In Feb. 2018 I was invited to hunt the property and began scouting. I focused on bedding areas with the objective of finding his beds. Why? Because hunting traditional travel corridors etc. wasn't working for my brother in-law. We needed to find his bedding.
I believe I found several of his preferred beds and pics on camera would support such a claim. The problem, bucks like this don't get to be by laying up somewhere stupid. His beds are extremely difficult to get close. I found one bed which I believed was huntable. I hunted it (3) times last season without so much as seeing any deer.
His pattern based on last year pictures was to bed on a south facing slope early in the bow season. In mid-season he appeared on another camera about 1/4 mile away at the head of a hollow. One in which we hunt and missed him by two days. Then he appeared a couple times on yet another camera(other hunter on property) almost a mile from the first camera in a thick rhododendron patch. Then, he disappeared. This buck has NEVER been seen during the rut chasing a doe. Based on his rack, we believe he is a recluse, possibly a non-breeder and a non-fighter. Very clean rack and there are some other brutes running around to give him a little bit of a fight. During rifle season we firmly believe he hunkers down either on a steep north facing slope or in a large clear cut. Neither location is hunted by anyone in our group for one simple reason. We don't want to push out the "sanctuaries." Many of the deer in general head for these areas during rifle. They are safe there, we don't hunt there and we don't want to push them out into neighboring hunters laps.
We are running out of time to kill this buck, he won't live forever. Has anyone here attempted to kill or killed a mature buck that displayed such an inconsistent pattern?? What did you do to finally pull it off?
The only strategy we can seemingly come up with is to hunt the south slope bed early in the season. This is very tricky and will be a challenge trying to enter the area within a reasonable distance from his bed. Close enough to kill but far enough as to not spook him or more importantly other nearby deer. We're thinking an afternoon hunt. Any thoughts on this ?