Tall Ten Down

The Rut has started and I had been seeing good deer movement. I was spending a lot of time on our lease trying to catch up with the illusive "Split Brow" but I knew I couldn't keep wasting precious days hunting him. We have had a few other bucks on our hit list since early September so I made up my mind to go after one of them. As stated in previous posts, I've been filming my own hunts in hopes to get a big one the ground on camera with my bow. It has been very challenging and I love every bit of it. Around the first of November I had giant buck just out of bow range, moving at a very fast pace. Add in the fact that I'm bow hunting and self filming I just couldn't pull it all together to put him on the ground. Fast forwarding to November 11th, a big cold front was set for that morning. I chose to give our lease a break and go hunt on our personal farm. Our farm has a big dried up creek that runs through the backside of it and I knew I would catch good deer activity in there. I got in early--super early and did a hang and hunt in hopes to catch one of the big deer we've had on camera slipping through there checking for does. I like to hang and hunt in new areas because I feel as if it ups my chances at killing a mature buck. When you hang and hunt you catch deer by surprise in low pressured areas that haven't been hunted. Ive learned that mature bucks love these places and all of the mature deer I've killed came from a hang and hunt type situation. It was about 8:30 before I saw the first deer which was a spike. I filmed the spike as it walked through and after he left I didn't see another deer until around 9:30.

I caught a glimpse of two does straight out in front of me; the creek has been dried up for a few years so the vegetation in there is a little tall which makes it hard to see the deer far away. Every 15 minutes I would catch movement from the does, I was wondering why they never came all the way out in the small area they were concentrated in. The only thing I can figure is that thy chose to bed down in that area for a little while. By this time it came to be 10:30 and I caught more movement in the same area as the does. I kept looking and eventually I saw antlers coming straight to me. Immediately I tried to determine how big the antlers were because it was hard to see his body. The buck was moving very slow; just walking around observing his surroundings. Once I figured out it was a mature buck I stood up and turned my camera on and started to film him. He cam all the way out of the thicket and walked straight to me when all of a sudden he stopped and turned to his right and started walking away from me. At this point I was kicking myself for not bringing my rifle. With my rifle the deer would've been dead already but with my bow he was just too far. I watched this deer walk out of sight so I panicked and in a desperate attempt to call him back to me I grunted at him. He acted as if he he didn't hear the grunt and vanished in the thicket. I was pissed, I txt my dad and a few friends and told them I just saw a giant and he got away. The challenges of bow hunting were beginning to slap me in the face. A few minutes went by and 11:00 struck; I kept looking at the area the buck vanished in and sure enough in seconds he was walking right back through there and was coming my way at a steady pace. I knew then he heard my grunts and wanted to come check out who was in his house close to his girls. I scrambled and turned the camera on while grabbing my bow at the same time. I got the buck in frame and followed him with my camera all the way to the base of my tree. The buck was literally at 20 yards away, trying to figure out where the grunts came from. I drew my bow back and let my arrow fly. That Rage Hypodermic flying off that Obsessions Bow did its job and it shredded this buck. He ran 50 yards and piled up in plain sight. I was so pumped up that I killed a buck with my bow on camera. While I was in the stand I called everybody I knew; after I calmed down I went back to look at the footage and I found out that I DID NOT PRESS RECORD. I was heartbroken, I went over the steps in my head over and over and finally got my chance and I blew it. Countless of hours in the tree trying to get the job done and I fumbled! I had to stop beating myself up and thank the man upstairs for allowing me to be able to hunt. I will get another shot at killing a buck on camera with my bow. With that being said I'm very proud of this deer; its the biggest deer I've ever killed with my bow and I do have pre footage of the buck from the first time he popped out of the thicket. Thats the story on the Tall Ten.