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Persistence pays off

bigmac

Member
After having missed 4 deer seasons do to bad knees I had both of them replaced . I was counting the days until I could finally get back into the timber. I acquired my first trail cam a couple of weeks before the bow season started. After following the advice of some of the members of this forum I started picking up some great pictures. Plenty of does and a few smaller bucks at first. That all changed as the rut started. At the end of November I had both daytime and night shot of four different Ten pointers and two big eight pointers. One who put even the big 10 point to shame. My landowner tag allowed me to hunt both gun seasons. I was confident that I wouldn't need the second season. I did pass up on some bucks that I would have taken when I was younger. I began hunting deer with my dad before you has to take a hunter safety class to get a licence. This year I decided early on that I wasn't pulling the trigger on my TC until I could take a mature buck. The first season came and went. On Friday afternoon I ran across a scull of a nice 8 point that was bleached out.
I kicked around in the leaves and found the entire skeleton. I was hoping that this was a sign that my luck would change. If I had heard the story of what happened 15 minutes later in a bar somewhere, I would called it another big fish story. I was headed west and the sun was low enough that the ridge of the hill 100 yards ahead of me was sky lined. I caught a flash of sunlight off of an antler. I was standing next to a big cottonwood and when he dropped his head to feed I took one step in front off the tree in order to hide my silhouette. Over the 30 minutes I watched in awe as seven bucks came over that hill. It appeared to me that the smallest came first and the racks were getting bigger as they came. I had a crosswind to them and I knew that as long as they didn't hear my heart pounding in my chest, I was going to get a shot. At 75 yards they milled around for a while and I watched as four of them paired up and began fighting. Then all of them stopped, raised their heads and and in unison turned and looked back at the ridge. The sun glaring off of six racks as they turned will be burned into my memory until the end of my days. Over the hill came the grandfather of the timber. I don't know how to score a rack. I do know that he dwarfed all of the others. High and wide and I could clearly see 6 on each side and a couple of kickers to boot. I truly felt blessed to have witnessed this event .I glanced around when I caught movement in the corner of my eye. one of the smaller buck had move down the trail and was standing still at 50 yards looking directly at me. I thought sure I had been busted when he stomped the ground not once but twice. I looked back at mister big as he stepped behind a tree at about 75 yards. At the same time all of the deer except the big one started moving at a right angle to me . The third one down the trail was stopped behind a small oak broad side to me with just his rack showing and his head was down. I counted 5 points on his left side. It was then I decided 2 more steps and your mine. He took one step and raised his head and looked around. It seemed like it took him forever to take that next step. As he did I shouldered the 50 cal. As I put the cross hairs on his shoulder I realized there were three deer standing nose to tail. I lowered the scope just enough to confirm I was on the one I wanted. I re positioned the scope as he turned to see what the movement was. I took the shot and total pandemonium broke out as the deer scattered in every direction. He didn't go down but I could see that he was starting to struggle before I lost site of him at about 75 yards. I reloaded and moved to the trail to take a look. I found blood but not a lot. As I moved to where I last saw him I found a blood trail but not what I had hoped for. He was piled up at what I guessed was 125 yards from the point of impact. I hit him just behind the shoulder. The 300 gr. Nossler SST passed thru both lungs and exited without breaking a rib.
When I dressed the deer most of the blood was still in the chest cavity. This is the third deer I have taken with Nossler bullets . The other 2 were with 240 gr. all using 2 pellets of 777. Next year I am trying something different. I am open to suggestions.2019 buck.jpg end of the hunt.JPG
 
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Congrats on a great buck. Head over to the muzzleloading forum and theres tons of threads on bullet choices but the most talked about is the Barnes TMZ in 250 or 290 grains. Have had amazing luck with them
 
Great story and buck. Thanks for sharing. Another hornady bullet you might want to take a look at is the 300 grain FPB. They don't need a sabot and load like a dream. They shoot great out of my CVA optima pro and all shots on deer have been pass throughs and big blood trails that had I needed to follow them I could have easily and I'm color blind.
 
E902E65C-5A0B-4596-B445-7485BD29EC21.jpeg Nice buck! I’ve had great luck shooting hornady 240 gr hollow points with 150 grain 777 pellets. The entry holes are unreal. This is one of the bigger holes. Most are smaller than this. It just explodes the ribs.
 
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