Marty Edwards
PMA Member
This is “The Basic 8”. He was another old, grouchy, known bully on the farm. I passed him at 20 yards on the morning of 11/4 and was rewarded an hour-ish later with the buck I posted previously. That said, I nearly picked up my bow and let this guy have it, which I would have been happy & proud to do, I just had a hunch I should leave my bow on the hanger a bit longer that morning. Glad I did.
The Basic 8 is another bus-bodied tank we’ve been watching a couple years to see if he was going to do anything great. He didn’t, mostly just added a bit of mass.
He marched in to 13 yards from my wife’s tree on the morning of Nov. 17th after a rattling sequence. He was the third buck that came into bow range on that particular “rattle” that morning. As he turned to exit, she tucked a perfect arrow into the hard-quartered toad. He tipped over 38 yards from her tree. Couldn’t be more proud of her.
As a side note, this is our 3rd season of ownership in this farm. There have been mega-giants killed within 5-10 miles, and less of us in nearly every direction. It’s been a challenge for us to get anything on cam that will bust the 150” mark. I’ve got 10+ acres of food, excellent cover, I even planted 13.5 acres of switch this year (which blew past my expectations) so in addition to the food, water, cover improvements we’ve made, we have decided to start focusing on eliminating as many of the old, smaller racked, bully bucks as our tags will allow. Three this year. In hopes that we begin to recruit & hold more of the top end youngsters. We’ll see if it pays off. In the meantime, we’re having fun! But, I’d be kidding if I said we aren’t just a wee bit discouraged by our lack of better bucks so far. Farm is only 250 acres & it would be nice if we had neighbors on all 4 sides who were “on the program”. Currently we don’t, but we’re gaining here & there, I think.
The Basic 8 is another bus-bodied tank we’ve been watching a couple years to see if he was going to do anything great. He didn’t, mostly just added a bit of mass.
He marched in to 13 yards from my wife’s tree on the morning of Nov. 17th after a rattling sequence. He was the third buck that came into bow range on that particular “rattle” that morning. As he turned to exit, she tucked a perfect arrow into the hard-quartered toad. He tipped over 38 yards from her tree. Couldn’t be more proud of her.
As a side note, this is our 3rd season of ownership in this farm. There have been mega-giants killed within 5-10 miles, and less of us in nearly every direction. It’s been a challenge for us to get anything on cam that will bust the 150” mark. I’ve got 10+ acres of food, excellent cover, I even planted 13.5 acres of switch this year (which blew past my expectations) so in addition to the food, water, cover improvements we’ve made, we have decided to start focusing on eliminating as many of the old, smaller racked, bully bucks as our tags will allow. Three this year. In hopes that we begin to recruit & hold more of the top end youngsters. We’ll see if it pays off. In the meantime, we’re having fun! But, I’d be kidding if I said we aren’t just a wee bit discouraged by our lack of better bucks so far. Farm is only 250 acres & it would be nice if we had neighbors on all 4 sides who were “on the program”. Currently we don’t, but we’re gaining here & there, I think.