Post by bdeom on Dec 20, 2011 10:40:40 GMT -5
I finally had time to sit down and write my story. It is long and there are several pics, hopefully it isn't too boring.
My story with this particular deer began during the 2009 Indiana Deer Season. I first got pictures of him on October 27th of that year, and he immediately had me looking forward to what he would mature into with another year or two to mature. My cousin and I started to refer to him as “Mass” because of how heavy the mass was on his rack was.
I never did have an encounter with him that year, but did get a few more pictures of him on my trail camera. The 2009 season closed with me harvesting my biggest buck and first buck with a bow on November 5th. Also with hope that “Mass” would make it through the remainder of the season so I could chase after him next year.
The shed season that year was a bust! I never found a single shed on the property I hunt. I have learned over the last 4 years that the deer just don’t spend a lot of time on our property except from October to December, mainly during the rut. So I would have to wait until late summer when the trail cams were back out to see if “Mass” had survived.
I normally put a camera out on this property in late July or early August with hopes of catching a good buck cruising through the area or feeding in our food plot. When that time finally came I was excited and anxious to see if I was going to be chasing “Mass” during the 2010 season. August went by and so did most of September before I got my answer. I checked the camera that last week of September and on the 23rd “Mass” finally showed his face.
I could not wait to get in a stand and start hunting him! Over the course of the next couple of weeks he was very photogenic. I got several pictures of him in the same area as the year before over a scrape. All the pictures were at night, so I was hoping that the rut would bring him out during the day.
As I look back to the 2010 season, my eagerness and excitement to go after “Mass” was its downfall. The property is only about 100 acres and I hunted it every chance I got that year. I know I put too much pressure on the area, causing “Mass” to remain mostly nocturnal. There was one un-confirmed daytime sighting of him I had on November 10th. I had a hot doe in the area that as I saw three different mature bucks in the area chasing after her and I am pretty positive that “Mass” was one of the three.
The remainder of the 2010 was a bust as far as any more encounters or photos of “Mass”. I never saw him again that year whether it be hunting or scouting. I ended up harvesting a decent buck that needed to be taken out of the gene pool on November 20th and was happy to do so. All the hours I spent in the woods that year and only one sighting of my target buck had taken its toll on me.
Shed season once again came and went with no sheds from “Mass”, or any other buck for that matter. No big surprise to me as I now realized the fact that the deer just did not winter on our property, but I still enjoyed being out there for the hunt.
Fast forward to June 2011 and I was anxious to get my cameras back out. My cousin had planted some soybeans in a gas line right of way that runs through our property and the deer were hammering them, so I threw out a mineral rock along the plot and set up a camera. On June 30th I got pictures of a mature buck that had a lot of mass and a very unique rack. It was still early and quite a bit of time was left growing, but in the back of my mind I was thinking that this could be “Mass”. I had over 100 pictures of him over the course of a couple of days, but then he disappeared. As did most of the deer! With the extremely hot and dry conditions we had in Indiana this summer, the deer movement was nonexistent. The only action I was getting on the cameras was coons, turkeys, and squirrels.
July, August, and September went by without any pictures of “Mass” or any other good bucks. October was here and since I had put too much pressure on the property in 2010, I made myself stay out of the woods until the 3rd weekend in October. October 21st finally arrived; I took off work early and made the hour long trip to the property. I changed clothes and sprayed down good and went to check my camera that I had placed on a hot scrape. Several good looking 3.5 year old bucks had showed up along with the mature buck I had pictures of on June 30th. Still the pictures did not prove to me that the mature buck was “Mass”, the deer I was after.
I hunted that evening out of a ladder stand that was placed inside the woods from a neighbor’s cornfield, and in the same area as one of the scrapes the bucks were using. I ended up seeing 2 does and 3 yearlings that evening. The next morning I elected to hunt out of the same stand as the evening before and got skunked. After regrouping and a quick nap at my cousin’s house, it was time to head out for my evening hunt. I decided to sit in a new stand that had been hung a few days earlier that was positioned on the East side of our winter wheat/oats food plot that the deer seemed to be hammering. There was a south wind that evening, which was ideal for that particular stand as the deer seemed to be entering the plot from the west and the south. To the west is a wooded area with nothing but spoil banks that the deer like to bed in, and to the south was an old logging road that the deer liked to use to get from our property to the neighboring property. The neighboring property has a thick north facing hillside that the deer like to bed on also.
It was right at 4:00PM when I caught something out of the corner of m eye entering the food plot. It was a coyote and it was moving fast. By the time I stood up and grabbed my bow the coyote was 40-45 yards away. I stopped him with a lip squeak, drew my bow, and released the arrow. Hit him perfectly right behind the right shoulder and it exited just in front of his left shoulder. He managed to make it out of the food plot and into some thick briars before he expired. I was happy that he made it out of the plot, hopefully now no deer would be spooked by him. I was still a little worried though that the deer would smell the coyote and spook, but my concerns would soon be erased!
An hour passed and I spotted a deer standing on one of the spoil banks straight across the plot from me. It was a great looking young 8 pointer that we call “Lil 12”. He has g4’s started and kickers showing off of both g2’s. Looking forward to see what he becomes! He stood there forever and kept looking back into the spoils. It wasn’t long and he was joined by the “Wide 9”, another young up and comer. They sparred around a little bit and took turns shredding a sapling tree. The “Wide 9” was the first to come out in the plot. He passed by me at 20 yards and continued on past to a stripper pit. He took a drink of water and continued on his way up the logging road into the woods behind me. While this was going on the “Lil 12” had stayed back on the spoil bank and continued to shred the sapling. The next deer to enter the plot was a doe; she came from the south and immediately had the attention of “Lil 12”. He broke for the spoil bank and began to nudge the doe around the plot. It wasn’t long and another doe accompanied by her yearling entered the plot from the spoil banks. This doe actually smelled the coyote and began stomping to warn the other deer, but they paid no attention to her. She done this for about 5 minutes and then came on out into the plot with her yearling right behind her. The “Lil 12” had given up his pursuit and all 4 deer were now feeding no more than 30 yards away from me.
"Lil" 12
"Wide 9"
It was now about 5:45PM and I figured my evening would end with me watching these 4 deer feed until dark. Boy was I wrong! All 4 deer immediately snapped to attention and were staring to the south. I caught movement out of the corner of my eye as something was entering the plot from the south. It was the big mature buck that I had pictures of and he looked a lot better in person. His body was huge, making the other 4 deer look very small. All doubt was erased and I knew I was going to take this buck. He made his way out into the plot and began working a scrape. You could definitely tell he was the boss. The other 4 deer continued to feed, but they did so cautiously, always keeping an eye on the mature buck. The “Lil 12” was really cautious! He actually hung back and let the big buck feed past himself and was careful not to get between the big buck and does. As the does fed past me the 2 bucks stayed back a ways which allowed me to stand up and get positioned to take the shot. Finally the big buck began feeding my way and was going to pass by me at 20 yards broadside! I drew my bow, the buck stopped, and I released the arrow. At this point the adrenaline kicked in! I heard that oh so sweet sound of the arrow hitting the deer and the shot looked good. The buck took off out of the plot like a thoroughbred race horse out of the starting gate. I thought I heard him crash no more than 50 yards away, but he had made it into the spoil banks and I could not see for sure. At this point I had to sit down because I was shaking so badly, I thought I was going to fall out of the tree. I sent a text to my cousin telling him I had a good one down and he told me he was on his way. I finally calmed down enough to climb down without hurting myself. When I got to the ground I walked back to the truck to meet my cousin so we could go find my deer.
My cousin arrived at the same time I did, I shed some gear and we slowly mad our way back to begin the tracking job. I was a little worried as I was unable to find my arrow and the blood trail was minimal, but I knew that I had heard him crash. As I stated before the deer had ran into the spoil banks, which as some of you may know is not a good thing when it comes to tracking or dragging a deer out. They are steep slopes that were left as a result of coal mining and are very difficult to maneuver through. I made my way up to the last point that I seen the deer, which was at the top of the spoil bank that borders our plot. I was really hoping the deer was going to be right there on top just out of sight but he wasn’t. I followed the blood to the crest of the downhill side of the bank, shining my light to the bottom and there he lay! I slid down the slope and was immediately in awe at the size of this deer. It was the biggest bodied deer that I had ever seen or killed. I think this is why the trail camera pictures are so deceiving; his body makes his rack look smaller than it really is. As soon as I picked his head up and held the rack in my hands, a surreal feeling overcame me. This was “Mass”, the deer I had so many pictures of and had been chasing for 2 years. I got goose bumps then, I still get goose bumps every time I replay the hunt over in my head, and I got goose bumps now as I write this story.
It was definitely my most exciting hunt ever. He is the first buck that I have developed a history with and successfully harvested, and a story that I will never forget. "Mass" ended up with 13 scoreable points and field dressed at 214lbs.
My story with this particular deer began during the 2009 Indiana Deer Season. I first got pictures of him on October 27th of that year, and he immediately had me looking forward to what he would mature into with another year or two to mature. My cousin and I started to refer to him as “Mass” because of how heavy the mass was on his rack was.
I never did have an encounter with him that year, but did get a few more pictures of him on my trail camera. The 2009 season closed with me harvesting my biggest buck and first buck with a bow on November 5th. Also with hope that “Mass” would make it through the remainder of the season so I could chase after him next year.
The shed season that year was a bust! I never found a single shed on the property I hunt. I have learned over the last 4 years that the deer just don’t spend a lot of time on our property except from October to December, mainly during the rut. So I would have to wait until late summer when the trail cams were back out to see if “Mass” had survived.
I normally put a camera out on this property in late July or early August with hopes of catching a good buck cruising through the area or feeding in our food plot. When that time finally came I was excited and anxious to see if I was going to be chasing “Mass” during the 2010 season. August went by and so did most of September before I got my answer. I checked the camera that last week of September and on the 23rd “Mass” finally showed his face.
I could not wait to get in a stand and start hunting him! Over the course of the next couple of weeks he was very photogenic. I got several pictures of him in the same area as the year before over a scrape. All the pictures were at night, so I was hoping that the rut would bring him out during the day.
As I look back to the 2010 season, my eagerness and excitement to go after “Mass” was its downfall. The property is only about 100 acres and I hunted it every chance I got that year. I know I put too much pressure on the area, causing “Mass” to remain mostly nocturnal. There was one un-confirmed daytime sighting of him I had on November 10th. I had a hot doe in the area that as I saw three different mature bucks in the area chasing after her and I am pretty positive that “Mass” was one of the three.
The remainder of the 2010 was a bust as far as any more encounters or photos of “Mass”. I never saw him again that year whether it be hunting or scouting. I ended up harvesting a decent buck that needed to be taken out of the gene pool on November 20th and was happy to do so. All the hours I spent in the woods that year and only one sighting of my target buck had taken its toll on me.
Shed season once again came and went with no sheds from “Mass”, or any other buck for that matter. No big surprise to me as I now realized the fact that the deer just did not winter on our property, but I still enjoyed being out there for the hunt.
Fast forward to June 2011 and I was anxious to get my cameras back out. My cousin had planted some soybeans in a gas line right of way that runs through our property and the deer were hammering them, so I threw out a mineral rock along the plot and set up a camera. On June 30th I got pictures of a mature buck that had a lot of mass and a very unique rack. It was still early and quite a bit of time was left growing, but in the back of my mind I was thinking that this could be “Mass”. I had over 100 pictures of him over the course of a couple of days, but then he disappeared. As did most of the deer! With the extremely hot and dry conditions we had in Indiana this summer, the deer movement was nonexistent. The only action I was getting on the cameras was coons, turkeys, and squirrels.
July, August, and September went by without any pictures of “Mass” or any other good bucks. October was here and since I had put too much pressure on the property in 2010, I made myself stay out of the woods until the 3rd weekend in October. October 21st finally arrived; I took off work early and made the hour long trip to the property. I changed clothes and sprayed down good and went to check my camera that I had placed on a hot scrape. Several good looking 3.5 year old bucks had showed up along with the mature buck I had pictures of on June 30th. Still the pictures did not prove to me that the mature buck was “Mass”, the deer I was after.
I hunted that evening out of a ladder stand that was placed inside the woods from a neighbor’s cornfield, and in the same area as one of the scrapes the bucks were using. I ended up seeing 2 does and 3 yearlings that evening. The next morning I elected to hunt out of the same stand as the evening before and got skunked. After regrouping and a quick nap at my cousin’s house, it was time to head out for my evening hunt. I decided to sit in a new stand that had been hung a few days earlier that was positioned on the East side of our winter wheat/oats food plot that the deer seemed to be hammering. There was a south wind that evening, which was ideal for that particular stand as the deer seemed to be entering the plot from the west and the south. To the west is a wooded area with nothing but spoil banks that the deer like to bed in, and to the south was an old logging road that the deer liked to use to get from our property to the neighboring property. The neighboring property has a thick north facing hillside that the deer like to bed on also.
It was right at 4:00PM when I caught something out of the corner of m eye entering the food plot. It was a coyote and it was moving fast. By the time I stood up and grabbed my bow the coyote was 40-45 yards away. I stopped him with a lip squeak, drew my bow, and released the arrow. Hit him perfectly right behind the right shoulder and it exited just in front of his left shoulder. He managed to make it out of the food plot and into some thick briars before he expired. I was happy that he made it out of the plot, hopefully now no deer would be spooked by him. I was still a little worried though that the deer would smell the coyote and spook, but my concerns would soon be erased!
An hour passed and I spotted a deer standing on one of the spoil banks straight across the plot from me. It was a great looking young 8 pointer that we call “Lil 12”. He has g4’s started and kickers showing off of both g2’s. Looking forward to see what he becomes! He stood there forever and kept looking back into the spoils. It wasn’t long and he was joined by the “Wide 9”, another young up and comer. They sparred around a little bit and took turns shredding a sapling tree. The “Wide 9” was the first to come out in the plot. He passed by me at 20 yards and continued on past to a stripper pit. He took a drink of water and continued on his way up the logging road into the woods behind me. While this was going on the “Lil 12” had stayed back on the spoil bank and continued to shred the sapling. The next deer to enter the plot was a doe; she came from the south and immediately had the attention of “Lil 12”. He broke for the spoil bank and began to nudge the doe around the plot. It wasn’t long and another doe accompanied by her yearling entered the plot from the spoil banks. This doe actually smelled the coyote and began stomping to warn the other deer, but they paid no attention to her. She done this for about 5 minutes and then came on out into the plot with her yearling right behind her. The “Lil 12” had given up his pursuit and all 4 deer were now feeding no more than 30 yards away from me.
"Lil" 12
"Wide 9"
It was now about 5:45PM and I figured my evening would end with me watching these 4 deer feed until dark. Boy was I wrong! All 4 deer immediately snapped to attention and were staring to the south. I caught movement out of the corner of my eye as something was entering the plot from the south. It was the big mature buck that I had pictures of and he looked a lot better in person. His body was huge, making the other 4 deer look very small. All doubt was erased and I knew I was going to take this buck. He made his way out into the plot and began working a scrape. You could definitely tell he was the boss. The other 4 deer continued to feed, but they did so cautiously, always keeping an eye on the mature buck. The “Lil 12” was really cautious! He actually hung back and let the big buck feed past himself and was careful not to get between the big buck and does. As the does fed past me the 2 bucks stayed back a ways which allowed me to stand up and get positioned to take the shot. Finally the big buck began feeding my way and was going to pass by me at 20 yards broadside! I drew my bow, the buck stopped, and I released the arrow. At this point the adrenaline kicked in! I heard that oh so sweet sound of the arrow hitting the deer and the shot looked good. The buck took off out of the plot like a thoroughbred race horse out of the starting gate. I thought I heard him crash no more than 50 yards away, but he had made it into the spoil banks and I could not see for sure. At this point I had to sit down because I was shaking so badly, I thought I was going to fall out of the tree. I sent a text to my cousin telling him I had a good one down and he told me he was on his way. I finally calmed down enough to climb down without hurting myself. When I got to the ground I walked back to the truck to meet my cousin so we could go find my deer.
My cousin arrived at the same time I did, I shed some gear and we slowly mad our way back to begin the tracking job. I was a little worried as I was unable to find my arrow and the blood trail was minimal, but I knew that I had heard him crash. As I stated before the deer had ran into the spoil banks, which as some of you may know is not a good thing when it comes to tracking or dragging a deer out. They are steep slopes that were left as a result of coal mining and are very difficult to maneuver through. I made my way up to the last point that I seen the deer, which was at the top of the spoil bank that borders our plot. I was really hoping the deer was going to be right there on top just out of sight but he wasn’t. I followed the blood to the crest of the downhill side of the bank, shining my light to the bottom and there he lay! I slid down the slope and was immediately in awe at the size of this deer. It was the biggest bodied deer that I had ever seen or killed. I think this is why the trail camera pictures are so deceiving; his body makes his rack look smaller than it really is. As soon as I picked his head up and held the rack in my hands, a surreal feeling overcame me. This was “Mass”, the deer I had so many pictures of and had been chasing for 2 years. I got goose bumps then, I still get goose bumps every time I replay the hunt over in my head, and I got goose bumps now as I write this story.
It was definitely my most exciting hunt ever. He is the first buck that I have developed a history with and successfully harvested, and a story that I will never forget. "Mass" ended up with 13 scoreable points and field dressed at 214lbs.
