Friday the 13th unlucky buck

I shot this buck on Friday the 13th at 7:58 am. He was one that the guy that hunts the property next to my lease had on camera about a mile south of me. We share pics, and have a reciprocal agreement about tracking and staying safe by communicating hunt plans.




WARNING Long read

I was sitting in a stand on the south east corner of the property overlooking a 150 acre cut corn field along the Driftwood River. Shortly after daylight I had 2 does cross the field from the west follow by a small 8 point. About ten minutes after this a fog started rising off the warm ground and my view was decreased to a couple hundred yards. I kept watching where the previous deer crossed and out of the fog this dude appeared. I grunt once at him when he stopped at 150 yards. He look right at me. He turn and started walking north east. When he stopped again at 120 yards I threw two more short grunts at him. He looked my way again and put the grunt call away. It took him 30 minutes to materialize again at 50 yards. When he went behind a tree at 40 I got my x-bow down and rested it on the rail. At 25 yards he walked in on the trail that leads right to my stand. He stopped behind a bush and looked up at me. I thought it over at that point. He turned and did that nervous walk big ones do just about the time they call game over .As he went back into the field I pick an opening that I have ranged at 35 yards. Sighted the scope on that spot and waited for him to walk into the sight window. At the shot I thought I saw the lighted nock wobble a bit and saw it impact him left of the sweet spot. The loud crack of the arrow let me know that I had hit heavy bone. I watch him turn and run about 40 yards and stop. I could see him limping badly on the left front leg. At 80 yards he wobbled and I thought he was going down. I watched him slow walk limping badly for 500 yards as he crossed the field. He went into the wood line along the river and disappeared. I decide to wait an hour and then get down and find the arrow and look for blood. I spent the next 30 minutes texting and posting on the forum. One went to the neighbor hunter and he said to let him know if I needed help as he was working close by. My brother had called and told me Thursday night to get a hold of him if I needed help dragging a big one out.

This is what I found when I located the shot site.





After looking at the shot site I called my brother and told him I need that help he offered. I went back to the truck and waited for him. 40 minutes later we started tracking.



Followed a heavy blood trail across the field and found a bloody bed, then another and another. He got up and was walking the bank of the river and I told my brother he is going to die and be in the river.

Walked another 10 yards and looked over the bank and there he laid. Field dressed him at the water’s edge and winched his butt up the bank with the UTV.





I went ahead and pulled him out into the field for pics. We had a few high fives and tears of joy started streaming down my cheek as my older brother told me he loved me and was so proud of my accomplishment, and how hard I hunted to make it happen. As we were taking pictures the neighbor hunter showed up on his tractor. He helped us load the buck into the UTV.



The shot had almost cut his left front leg in half. It entered the chest cut the top of the heart and stuck in the offside leg. He had broken the arrow off as he turned to run.



I called my Taxi and he was gracious enough to come over and cape him at my house.



A day I will never forget or probably top in my deer hunting career.

 

Congrats on a great buck.

 

Congrats!
Great story, good job give us the detail, awesome buck!
Thanks for sharing! November 13th has always been my favorite day on stand, taken almost 13 now on that day. Peace


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Congrats Tony! What a great buck!

 

Wow! That is a heck of a buck. Congrats.

 

Congrats ! Awesome buck

 

What an awesome buck! Congrats!

 

Buddy of mine took this picture of me holding the horns at his place in early January. He just shared it with me the other day.

I thought it was a great pic of the horns and shows off all he has going on.

 

That pic shows how big he truly is! Congrats again on a great buck!!

 

Any chance the mount job is done? If you posted it elsewhere I missed it.

Congrats on an absolute stud!!

 

Nope. Still waiting for the taxi to call. Had a 2 year waiting list when I talked to him last year.

 

Is it freaky that I found this thread today on accident, on Friday the 13th...

 

I know I’m late but it happened to pop up so congrats on an awesome buck last year! I could only dream!


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Congrats on the nice buck, still waiting for my first one.

 

Great buck!!

 

Great story and a terrific Buck

 

Can't wait to see that big boy mounted up. Congrats

 

Ran into my Taxi last night. Said its going to be March of next year before he needs the horns back...

I can hardly wait... They are just dust catchers right now on the table.

 

Took my buck in to have it scored for the Hoosier record book. Hadn't planned on it but 2 of my buddies killed big ones this year and invited me to go along. Great time.

They had Tim Beck there along with his Number 2 in the world and number 1 in Indiana. Had a nice conversation with him and got to see a lot of awesome Indiana bucks.

Few picks from the event.
Beck buck


Couple other non typical Hoosier buck from past years.




Me and my buddies with our bucks after scoring was over.
Left to right, 184, 200 & 187

 

Thats a lot of antler, would love to know base circumference measurements from the 187" on far right?