I'll share a story to help with your offseason withdrawls

Shockgobbles

Six Pointer
I'm a frequent reader, but not a frequent poster... but I know everyone is itching for the upcoming season like I am, so I thought I would share the story of my kill from last year. He was no trophy buck by most standards, but once this buck started showing up on camera it didn't take long for me to realize who he was. I'm a young hunter, and had always hunted but never had trail cameras until I did some research and persuaded my dad to get me one for my birthday in 2014. I had very little experience with aging deer at that point but was getting pictures of a buck with an odd funky rack that I figured to be 1.5 years old. He had one relatively normal side and another that stuck up like a cow horn with a fork at the top. I got just one set of pictures from that deer in 2014 and never saw him, but I let him linger in my mind because I thought he had potential to develop a unique non-typical rack over the next few years. The next year, I didn't get a single picture of him until after the season. I'd hoped to monitor his growth but didn't have any sightings until he showed up on my camera with a much larger buck on January 12th, 2016. That was the last time I would see him until this year.

Fast forward to muzzle loader season of this year and on one afternoon I was sitting in the woods among some large oak trees when I saw a deer I didn't recognize. He was coming from directly behind me and as I looked through the brush at him I really couldn't tell what he was. I could see that he wasn't wide, or tall, but had really huge, almost weird brow tines and had a really strange rack overall. I never got a shot or even a decent look at him but at that point I had 5 cameras running on our 150 acres and figured I had our herd pretty well monitored and knew most of the deer in the area. I was certain I didn't have any pictures of that deer.

A few more weeks passed by and the only really large deer I had on camera had been shot by a neighbor. I had a few nice bucks on camera with some potential, but really didn't have pictures of any bucks that I was dying to go after, but I continued to hunt because "you never know." One day in mid-November I checked my cameras and there he was, on multiple cameras. I knew after just a few minutes that this had to be the funky looking deer from years back. I showed the pictures to my neighbor, who is a taxidermist and knows a lot more about deer than I ever expect to know. He agreed that he thought it was a mature deer, the same deer, and I decided that given the chance, I would shoot him.

For a man hunting a 5+ year old deer, I got really lucky. The evening of the same day I checked my cameras and got that first set of pictures I sat over a hay field and had no luck. The next morning, I went back into that same patch of oaks where I'd seen him in October, and he showed up. On November 23rd at about 8:00 I had a doe walk by me at maybe 60 yards and he followed. I managed to put a .270 bullet in him and he ran maybe 50 yards and fell. It was a decent drag back to the hay field where I could drive my truck up and haul him back to the house. He definitely isn't my biggest deer, and he doesn't have good genetics. But it was really cool how it all worked out after getting a few pictures of him here and there for the past four years. There are bigger deer in my woods and I may get some of them eventually, but this one is still a trophy.

I've attached the first picture I had of him in 2014, one from January 2016, one from November 2018, and me with him after I shot him on November 23rd, 2018. Hope ya'll liked my story, and best of wishes to you all as this season draws closer.
 

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Teamclark

Spike
Nice story and a nice deer. The trophy is always the story. I’m a firm believer that the reason a deer should be on a wall is only to remind you of the story of how you got him, not to impress anyone else. That deer is a trophy for sure!
 

Shockgobbles

Six Pointer
Thanks everyone! I forgot to mention that his "brow tine" is 9 1/4 inches. I wish the other one hadn't been broken off so I could see what it measured. I think when I saw him in October he had both, and I remember thinking how crazy his brows were. If only I would've known
 

Billy

Twelve Pointer
Contributor
Congratulations on getting your target buck. That is always very rewarding. You sound like a very mature hunter to be so young. Thanks for sharing your very well written story!
 
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