I'm new to the forum so I thought I'd share my 2011 bowhunting. I had several trail camera pictures of this buck from September, from when I first set eyes on the pictures I named the buck "Crab Claw". I started hunting the area around the middle of October. On November 11th I was in the stand pretty early in the afternoon when I heard a really loud grunt. I was looking around for where this grunt was coming from but couldn't see anything. I kept hearing the grunts coming from the West and as I looked over there he was running across a field coming straight for me on a dead run. This got me all kinds of excited as the deer came running into the trees. He was on a dead run looking for does, I grunted at him a few times and he didn't even bother to look, just kept running and eventually ran straight to where he came from. The next day I was out there hoping he ran back into the same area, at about 3:30 in the afternoon I noticed a smaller buck bedded down in a fence line about 150 yards away. I was scanning the fence line in case he was with other deer and about 30 yards down from him I spotted a set of anters sticking out of the grass. It was the "Crab Claw" bedded down with his doe, about 15 minutes later he stood up with the doe and I actually saw him breed her twice and then bed back down with her for the rest of the night. On November 23rd, I was sitting in the same stand that I had seen him in before and had a couple does and a one antler buck under me about 45 minutes before dark. I was grunting at the buck to see what his reaction would be and he ran off to the north with one of the does and then I heard a loud grunt coming from my South. I could see legs through the trees but couldnt see the deer, he walked into a small clearing and put his head down to the ground sniffing so I got a good picture of the deer but I couldn't tell if it was the one. I knew I was going to shoot this deer. He walked about 10 yards away and was facing straight at me, not knowing I was there he walked directly under my tree stand and at that point I realized it was the "Crab Claw, I'm at full draw at this time and could not get a good shot. He knew something wasn't right so he turned a complete 180 and walked about ten more yards and stopped and I let the z7 do the talking. He ran about 200 yards and bedded down. He is my largest buck to date and I couldn't be an more happy with him!! I got a quick score on him and ended up with 166 3/8" Sorry for the long read, thought I'd share it all!
Nice buck! I live close to Piedmont and hunt the Black Hills near Sturgis. I wish the bucks hear grew that size, but no ag fields close by. What part of South Dakota are you from?
