I have to say that this was an incredible hunt that Phil generously provided us. Phil and his family are first rate high class people. They are a joy to be around. I was honored to meet them.
Phil Thank you for such a great time. Branden is on cloud 9 with his deer and will be mounting it. For me, this was more exciting than shooting my own nice buck 2 weeks ago. Your conservation/management plan is spot on and your property is fabulous! I didn't have a good opportunity for Branden to hunt this year. Your Uncle Kenny, Dan and yourself are providing opportunities to get youth in front of deer where they will be able to get really involved in our great sport. You are helping them form a lifetime's worth of passion. Thank you all for what you are doing!!
Our hunt started out in the a.m. where we saw cruising young bucks. Branden did a great job understanding how great this property is and that he can be choosy. I gave him the choice though.
Eventually, a really nice 3.5 year old 8 pt. came out at 145 yards. Branden shot twice with clean misses.
After lunch we regrouped and Phil took us to another stand location. This location had "deer traffic" written all over it. However, it was in some real thick stuff. Branden was beating himself up about the missed deer. I could see we were both lacking confidence he'd make a shot threading the needle through branches. Without saying anything to him yet, Branden told me he wanted to back to other stand location.
This was his hunt. I wanted him to be confident in his spot. I wanted him to have fun. So off we went back to the previous spot. It was his decision and boy was it a good one.
We weren't on stand for 15 minutes when his big buck came running across the field with another smaller buck. I gave 3 loud attempts to stop them. They were only 30 yards away. I told Branden "Make sure it's the second one!!" Whaaammm! perfect shot! The buck went 35 yards and piled up in sight. It happened 12 minutes after we arrived there and the action was only about 15 seconds long.
Of course the post shot action Branden missed. If you notice in the picks his nose is smashed because the scope shwacked him real good. He was yelling "my nose! My nose! I broke my nose! My mom is going to kill me! I broke my nose!".... I said " He's down! He's down! You got him! He's down!!!" His light bulb went on, he forgot the nose. He ran! to recover his first deer!
I was really proud of him for overcomming his misses. He refocused his mind and made a quick shot right on the money. Good job Branden! Enjoy your first deer.
Oh,, I forgot. The best we could tell. This buck had some sort of birth defect on it's "male parts" At first we couldn't see his tallywhacker. It was actually comming out with a little "nub" just below his butt hole where you would see the female parts. His testies were inside his belly up high. When he would urinate it came out the back and all over his tail. His tarsal glands were clean because there was no urine on them. It was all over his hind end! This deer prob. could never ever breed with his "configuration". It was very weird.
We like to tease Branden about his "Gomer Buck". This buck was all male though and involved in the rut,,, at least in his mind!! LOL
Thank you Phil. We will never forget these great memories,
Branden and Tom
