Here is a little deeper story behind my muzzleloader buck. It all goes back to the summer. We were seeing a huge bachelor group of bucks, he was one of them. Out of 12ish bucks, I’m going to say he was probably the third or fourth biggest buck of the group. I only remember because of how his main beams almost touch in the middle. I saw him a few times throughout the summer with a group of does and smaller bucks. I was never able to catch him on trail camera, which was odd because I had the other big deer on there. Fast forward to week before a season. All of my hunting buddies had chose stand locations and they were all close to where the bucks were coming out during the summer. I knew that the deer would soon change their feeding patterns as most good bucks do. I hung a stand a couple weeks before season with the intentions of not hunting it until later in the season. I had seen quiet a few bucks there last year and a bunch of does last year in the late season in this same area. It’s back in the woods quiet a bit. So anyway, I hung the stand based on my knowledge of the previous years. It’s basically in between two different bedding areas. Fast forward again to two weeks ago. I just get the itch to walk back there to check it back. It didn’t take long and I realized the bucks were starting to use the area a little. There were numerous rubs around the stand. I decided it was about time to start hunting this stand solely for a little while. This past Monday I decided to sit this stand in the afternoon to see what I could see. I busted two does on the way in out from under my stand. Damnit. Right before dark I had a doe come by and then a good buck. I was at full draw and had him at twelve yards then I noticed his left side was busted off just past his left g2 so ended up getting a pass. I sat a couple afternoons this past week with no luck. I was still hopeful because this was primarily a morning spot. I decided Friday night that I was going to get up early and be in my stand early in hopes to catch a cruising buck. Well at about 2am Friday night I decided I wanted to muzzleloader hunt. For what reason, I’m not sure. I went to bed and set my alarm for 4:30 which would give me time to run to walmart quickly to get my muzzleloader license. I hadn’t got but 3 hours of sleep the night before so between that and only getting two and half hours this night I COULD NOT wake up. I didn’t even hear my alarm until 5:15. I panicked, woke up, and threw on my clothes and out the door I went. I got ready in about 5 minutes, no joke. I knew I was going to need a few good breaks in order to get into my stand in time, which I wanted to be in by no later than 6:15. On the way to Wal-Mart, I realized it was going to be a good morning. Every red light in between Walmart and my house was green when I got to it. There was 6 red lights, so I was amazed. I got into walmart, and I received help right away, which isn’t usually the case. On my way back to the property, I hit EVERY single red light once again. Awesome luck. I get to the property at 6:05 and I was in great shape. I was walking to my stand and it was just starting to get light out. I set out a couple scent wicks around my stand and climbed up into my stand with high hopes, not only because of the cool morning but because I was able to get set up without busting any deer. Another stroke of luck was that I dropped one glove putting them on and somehow it caught on the edge of my treestand and didn’t fall to the floor. I knew then that it was going to be a good morning! I sat there waiting for daylight to come. As soon as it got to where I could barely see, the shots started echoing from the neighboring properties. At about 7 o clock, I decided I would try out the grunt call. I broke out the True-Talker and did a series of semi aggressive grunts. I sat back down in my stand and put my call back into my pocket. It wasn’t even a minute later and I heard the unmistakable sound of a deer coming through the woods. I sat there staring, waiting for it to appear. I could finally see legs, a body, and a rack! I couldn’t tell how good he was, as soon as I put the scope on him I saw the tall tines and I knew he was shooter. He finally cleared some brush and stood there quartering to me hard. Because of all the movement I had made getting turned around in a hurry he was acting really nervous so as soon as he presented that hard quartering to shot at 35yds, I took it. I shot, barely heard the leaves rustle and never saw any movement through the smoke. I was sure I hit him but had NO clue where he went. After the shot I made the calls and texts you usually make then went to investigate the scene. It took me a minute to find the blood but when I did it was everywhere. He made it all of 50 yds on a dead heart and one lung shot. My best buck to date scoring in at 105 5/8”
