JNRBRONC
Well-Known Member
What do you when you shoot a less than phenomenal buck? You save the story until the "off season" when people are hungry for it. 
I passed on this buck a couple of times during bow season. He was the bully of the property and it was his home. I had him under the bow stand at 5 yards numerous times. I heard him fight another buck one night, went on for like 5 minutes. I thought he would be a good first buck for one of the boys on their first ever deer hunt.
My oldest took a shot at him Christmas Eve, shot low at 100 yards with one of my Savage ML10's. He also took a shot at another buck after that, but I was sitting 50 yards away and did not see what buck it was.
Before season, I took the boys out to a restaurant for a pre-season Pow Wow. I told them that it was their license, they could shoot what ever they wanted, we would hunt when they wanted to. Told them most of all, have fun! Also said if you are cold, tired, not having fun, let me know and we are done.
Sunday, January 4th was a cold day, temps dropping and negative wind chills. I asked them if they wanted to go, they said it was too cold. I'd mentioned to them at the meeting that cold weather gets the deer on their feet.....
So I headed out alone.
At 4:30 pm, I caught movement down at the creek. This buck was leading the herd towards me. I cranked the scope to 9X to look at the deer behind him, hoping one was bigger. He was intent on getting out in the field behind me, only paused once to work a licking branch, then he was CLOSE, guessing between 7-10 yards broadside.
I had been debating on shooting him, still thinking about leaving him for one of the boys, but this close and not sure if the boys were going to brave the cold weather, I let the Impact get a taste of blood. He made it back to the creek, falling into it and busting through the ice.
I had to dead lift him up out of there, he's wet. I was afraid he was going to freeze down to the ground. The temp was plummeting. I walked to the neighbors house, borrowed a plastic toboggan and pulled it a third of a mile to their house.
By the time I got him home, he was froze from the hoof to above the knees. It was a pain trying to get him started skinning. Blood froze to the meat saw as I was cutting. Luckily got him quartered and into a huge cooler I have, put it on the porch of the house to prevent it from freezing solid. I looked at the outdoor thermometer and it read 0°F when I was done for the evening. Cold temps prevented me from taking pics, more in a hurry to get things taken care of...
I took the frozen cape to my taxidermist. He was taking measurements of the skull and was commenting that it is big. The "atlas"? measurement was big as well (around the neck behind the ears). I cut out the incisor teeth and shipped them in for cementum annuli aging. My guess was 6 years old. Got the test back recently, which prompted this post. Matson Labs highly confident that he is 4. Being the bully of the property, probably best that I took him out.
Rough score of the rack grossed 128".
Thanks to J Adam Studio for the mount!
I passed on this buck a couple of times during bow season. He was the bully of the property and it was his home. I had him under the bow stand at 5 yards numerous times. I heard him fight another buck one night, went on for like 5 minutes. I thought he would be a good first buck for one of the boys on their first ever deer hunt.
My oldest took a shot at him Christmas Eve, shot low at 100 yards with one of my Savage ML10's. He also took a shot at another buck after that, but I was sitting 50 yards away and did not see what buck it was.
Before season, I took the boys out to a restaurant for a pre-season Pow Wow. I told them that it was their license, they could shoot what ever they wanted, we would hunt when they wanted to. Told them most of all, have fun! Also said if you are cold, tired, not having fun, let me know and we are done.
Sunday, January 4th was a cold day, temps dropping and negative wind chills. I asked them if they wanted to go, they said it was too cold. I'd mentioned to them at the meeting that cold weather gets the deer on their feet.....
So I headed out alone.
At 4:30 pm, I caught movement down at the creek. This buck was leading the herd towards me. I cranked the scope to 9X to look at the deer behind him, hoping one was bigger. He was intent on getting out in the field behind me, only paused once to work a licking branch, then he was CLOSE, guessing between 7-10 yards broadside.
I had been debating on shooting him, still thinking about leaving him for one of the boys, but this close and not sure if the boys were going to brave the cold weather, I let the Impact get a taste of blood. He made it back to the creek, falling into it and busting through the ice.
I had to dead lift him up out of there, he's wet. I was afraid he was going to freeze down to the ground. The temp was plummeting. I walked to the neighbors house, borrowed a plastic toboggan and pulled it a third of a mile to their house.
By the time I got him home, he was froze from the hoof to above the knees. It was a pain trying to get him started skinning. Blood froze to the meat saw as I was cutting. Luckily got him quartered and into a huge cooler I have, put it on the porch of the house to prevent it from freezing solid. I looked at the outdoor thermometer and it read 0°F when I was done for the evening. Cold temps prevented me from taking pics, more in a hurry to get things taken care of...
I took the frozen cape to my taxidermist. He was taking measurements of the skull and was commenting that it is big. The "atlas"? measurement was big as well (around the neck behind the ears). I cut out the incisor teeth and shipped them in for cementum annuli aging. My guess was 6 years old. Got the test back recently, which prompted this post. Matson Labs highly confident that he is 4. Being the bully of the property, probably best that I took him out.
Rough score of the rack grossed 128".
Thanks to J Adam Studio for the mount!
