Two Year Battle Has Ended!!!

[Cleve]

On a warm summer evening two years ago I decided to take a drive on the 80 acre State section of land near my house.  Toward the end of my drive a caught a glimpse of something that caused me to get my binoculars out and investigate.  I saw a buck that was larger than anything I had ever seen around that area.  I instantly started gaining access around the area and got permission on both sides of the state land.  I bought myself a blind and a trail cam figuring this would be a slam dunk if I put some feed out and got this deer to come in for a simple shot. WRONG!  I began putting some feed out in September of that year.  I was excited for the first day of the rifle season which came and went along with my confidence in killing this creature that was etched in my mind.  I began to become paranoid that every rifle shot I heard was someone dropping "My Buck".  My dad called me one morning and told me that I should drive down to the highway and take a look.  My heart sunk as I drove down and saw a huge body buck laying in the side of the road with his head cut off. I just knew it must be him.  The last day of the season I ended up settling on a small 3 point that I rattled in and sad that the big boy was probably no longer with us.

Last summer I took that same drive onto the State Land mostly to see the new fawns and see what kind of deer were hanging around.  Oh My God! He's Alive! I saw a glimpse of a big buck that I knew was him and he made it through the season.  My excitement quickly came back and a plan was in place once again.  From that point on I decided I was going to by a feeder and set my blind up in a separate section and do it all over again.  In September I began to get some good pictures of some decent 4 points and had fun checking ever few days to see this big guy on camera. That never happened, but I did actually see him in velvet one evening just before dark sitting in my pickup with the spotting scope on him at about 70yards.  Even though I had never got a picture of him, the season could not get here soon enough.  Finally it was time to put in some hours waiting for him to come in to a good feed station.  I sat in that dam blind every evening of the early season passing up good bucks and going home every night wondering if I should have pulled the trigger. He never showed up.  The first few days of the late season was met with more heartache with other hunters in the area and plenty of shots that made me cringe once again everytime I heard them.  He had to be dead by now.  The nice bucks stopped showing up and Last Sunday i found some apples and put them out to see what would happen. The Does started pouring out of the woods and at one time I had 12 does and not one buck eating apples in front of me.  Things were not looking good once again.  I went over Monday do sit once again in the blind that had become colder than normal with lack of seeing anything with antlers.  I sat there playing with my new grunt call expecting to see only does, so what would it hurt if I practiced blowing on the call?  Getting board with this activity I decided to play with my phone for awhile and I looked up and saw a deer come in around 4:00pm. I figured it was a doe, so went back to my word game for a few more minutes.  I then decided to take a look through my binoculars and in about half a second I was reaching for my rifle. "Its Him"!!!!  I knew that he was 241 yards and I made sure and told myself not to look at the horns just concentrate on your shot.  I held about 3 inches over where I thought the heart was and touched the trigger.  He ran up around a tree about 25 steps and tipped over.  I sat there in disbelief, trembling for about five minutes before I could get up to go get my hands on him.  It was finally over! Something that I worked so hard at that I thought looked so grim at so many times was finally over.  I am not sure it has totally sunk in even now.

[boneaddict]

I was afraid it had to do with Cancer or something, so VERY GLAD to see the post was what it was.

[Gringo31]

Great Story and write-up!

Way to stick it out.  Guys who do it like you did have such more meaning to harvest than guys who stumble on a good buck.  Thanks for sharing.

[Cleve]

Hey Bone. I guess that would depend on who you were cheering for. Him or me.

[gaddy]

Wow Cleve, that is a nice buck. way to get it done. Thats showing some patience there.

[HardCorpsHuntr]

Great buck, even better story!  Now that's what I call hunting.

[coachcw]

way to go nice buck

[quadrafire]

Dandy! and the patience of Job.

[vandeman17]

Great buck! Pretty sure he meets the 4 point minimum! 

[Machias]

Nice buck, congrats.  I bet he was seriously tearing up some trees with that front point sticking out!

[Huntboy]

Nice buck, congrat's.

[Wingin it]

Very nice buck! Way to keep at it until success was had.

[doyourtime89]

way to go......GREAT BUCK

[Camp David]

Persistence at its best.....right there. Nice Buck that anyone would be proud of 

Glad it was not cancer 

[Cleve]

Nice buck, congrats.  I bet he was seriously tearing up some trees with that front point sticking out!

Machias. When I saw him in the velvet he had a matching point on the other side just like it