Well, I don’t know really where to start. I guess the best place is to give thanks where thanks are due. Thank you Daniel for many a night conversations on talking management and hunting. Thank you for your tolerance my friend when your wife was wondering what else we could possibly discuss on the phone that involved deer! Thank you Colin, Chris, Pete, Pat, Matthew for your support. Thank you Mitch "Krivoman" for sharing so much knowledge with me. You have helped me be a better hunter and we are growing bigger deer. Thank you Sean "Q" for the help with pics.
Three years ago we made a decision to not harvest bucks other than spikes. We are a low fence ranch and this commitment has been difficult because you never know where the deer will go. This was our first year to feed protein and things took off quickly. Our buck population had grown tremendously and we were ready to harvest some mature deer. During the off season feeding protein I mainly saw does and a few younger bucks at my stand. At our other protein station a mere 1000yds away things were covered up with bucks. I began to wonder will I only see does at my stand this year? I knew I wasn’t going to shoot the bucks I had seen at my stand because they were too young. I figured if it is supposed to happen then it will. Around July this mature buck began to show at the protein late at night. He had a distinctive crooked browtine and I nicknamed him appropriately The Crooked Brow 8. Well upon seeing further game cam photos in August I realized he was a 9. The deer began to pattern well in the mornings but was nowhere to be found in the evenings. Preparing for opening weekend I would go to the ranch and make sure all was ready for my most anticipated morning of the year. In an effort to keep this from being a novel I will just say that there was a ton of prep work to get things to come together opening morning as well as many obsessive phone calls about what the season will look like.
I made my way to the stand at 5:30am and a deer blew. I settled in and things were calm for the next hour. I heard another snort at 6:30am and then nothing. At 7am I was covered in deer and all the bucks I had seen on camera were there except Crooked Brow. I waited and waited and around 8am and I began to laugh. This joker that had been so consistent in the mornings hadn’t gotten old by being stupid. He never showed and I thought about not hunting the evening so I could give the stand a rest but then thought he missed his usual morning routine and may come to feed this evening? Well he didn’t show during the evening either and the final hunt of the weekend was rolling around quickly. The alarm clock blared at 4:45am and I began to wonder will this deer show? Has he figured out the game is on? We drove to the stands a different route the next morning in hopes of a better outcome. I snuck into the stand and had a deer trot off just as I approached the blind. No snort no nothing, all seemed well. At 6:15am I can hear deer all around me and at 6:45am I spotted my deer coming with my binos. The feeder rang and he settled in running the place as I had seen on all those game cam photos. There were too many deer initially for me to take a clear shot so I waited and I waited and I waited. I drew 2 different times and the 3rd time was a charm. He cleared the other deer and the arrow was on its way. The Lumenok was shining and off he ran. I heard the arrow hit and as soon as he was out of the pen I could see the blood pumping. I knew it was done. Overwhelmed with joy and so relieved the shot was good and everything had come together, I left the blind for an hour and ate breakfast. When we came back to the stand I found my arrow covered in red and began to track. There were already buzzards ready to eat! The deer only made it 40 yards and when I reached him I was overwhelmed with gratitude from all the support I have received from my friends in letting me hunt here as well as the mentors I have met on TBH. I began to really realize why some folks are so passionate about the deer they hunt when I was face to face with the result of so much hard work and patience. Thank you all that made this possible for me and thank you TBH for enabling these connections to be made!
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl8YXeDObdQ"]YouTube - My Movie crook 4[/ame]
Three years ago we made a decision to not harvest bucks other than spikes. We are a low fence ranch and this commitment has been difficult because you never know where the deer will go. This was our first year to feed protein and things took off quickly. Our buck population had grown tremendously and we were ready to harvest some mature deer. During the off season feeding protein I mainly saw does and a few younger bucks at my stand. At our other protein station a mere 1000yds away things were covered up with bucks. I began to wonder will I only see does at my stand this year? I knew I wasn’t going to shoot the bucks I had seen at my stand because they were too young. I figured if it is supposed to happen then it will. Around July this mature buck began to show at the protein late at night. He had a distinctive crooked browtine and I nicknamed him appropriately The Crooked Brow 8. Well upon seeing further game cam photos in August I realized he was a 9. The deer began to pattern well in the mornings but was nowhere to be found in the evenings. Preparing for opening weekend I would go to the ranch and make sure all was ready for my most anticipated morning of the year. In an effort to keep this from being a novel I will just say that there was a ton of prep work to get things to come together opening morning as well as many obsessive phone calls about what the season will look like.
I made my way to the stand at 5:30am and a deer blew. I settled in and things were calm for the next hour. I heard another snort at 6:30am and then nothing. At 7am I was covered in deer and all the bucks I had seen on camera were there except Crooked Brow. I waited and waited and around 8am and I began to laugh. This joker that had been so consistent in the mornings hadn’t gotten old by being stupid. He never showed and I thought about not hunting the evening so I could give the stand a rest but then thought he missed his usual morning routine and may come to feed this evening? Well he didn’t show during the evening either and the final hunt of the weekend was rolling around quickly. The alarm clock blared at 4:45am and I began to wonder will this deer show? Has he figured out the game is on? We drove to the stands a different route the next morning in hopes of a better outcome. I snuck into the stand and had a deer trot off just as I approached the blind. No snort no nothing, all seemed well. At 6:15am I can hear deer all around me and at 6:45am I spotted my deer coming with my binos. The feeder rang and he settled in running the place as I had seen on all those game cam photos. There were too many deer initially for me to take a clear shot so I waited and I waited and I waited. I drew 2 different times and the 3rd time was a charm. He cleared the other deer and the arrow was on its way. The Lumenok was shining and off he ran. I heard the arrow hit and as soon as he was out of the pen I could see the blood pumping. I knew it was done. Overwhelmed with joy and so relieved the shot was good and everything had come together, I left the blind for an hour and ate breakfast. When we came back to the stand I found my arrow covered in red and began to track. There were already buzzards ready to eat! The deer only made it 40 yards and when I reached him I was overwhelmed with gratitude from all the support I have received from my friends in letting me hunt here as well as the mentors I have met on TBH. I began to really realize why some folks are so passionate about the deer they hunt when I was face to face with the result of so much hard work and patience. Thank you all that made this possible for me and thank you TBH for enabling these connections to be made!
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl8YXeDObdQ"]YouTube - My Movie crook 4[/ame]
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