Last summer I sold my home and 80 acres in what was prime hunting land that I had been managing for the last 7 years to be closer to my mom and my wives parents. It was so hard to start over. Our new home came with 10 acres and surrounding the 10 acres is some really nice hardwood oak ridges and a nasty river bottom that the farmer who owned them had zero use for, so he sold me 60 acres of again some pretty nice hunting land. The very first card pull of the very first camera I put out had a very nice looking 3 year old with split G2s and I immediately dubbed him R2G2 . I got a lot of pictures of him from July until after the shotgun season ended here in November, and then he disappeared. I was nervous but optimistic he made it through. Fast forward to July 2018 and I've got cams that have been out for a few months and I'm jacked to see if he made it, came back, and what he might have turned into. My first time checking cams he wasn't on any of them, so I waited another month, and when I went back in early August he was back, and packed on quite a few inches from the year before. He split his left side G2 so deep it palmated like a damn moose paddle. This deer that already had my attention now became an obsession. He completely consumed my thoughts and I spent all of my free time trying to figure out how I was going to harvest this deer. I continued to monitor him on cams and basically did everything I could to stay out of his area. I hunted some permission spots, my inlaws, and I even spent some time on public land, to keep me from hunting the spots where I knew this guy was living until the time was right. My first sit to get after this guy was on a marshy bottom that surrounds a 5 acre oak island where I got a lot of my pictures of ol' R2. The weather forecast for the day called for a NW wind and my quick check at home seemed to confirm that, that's the only wind that works for that spot. Shortly after getting in the stand I could feel the light wind we had was going to the NE which was taking my scent directly to where the deer generally come from. I threw up some milkweed and it was a bad. I immediately tore my ozonics down dropped my bow and got out of there. I headed back to my house and then all the way to the other side of the property to a skinny pinch of timber thats roughly 35 yards deep between my alfalfa plot and the river. About 15 yards from the back of the plot I jumped a pair of does who ran through the pinch to the west and got about 50 yards hit the brakes, and came straight back to the east right passed me. I thought this was strange and figured they either A. Ran into another predator or B. Ran into a buck that has been harassing them. I usually will not blind call but because of the circumstances of this hunt I decided to let out a few long drawn out doe bleats, and followed that up with an aggressive grunting sequence. 15 minutes later I got my first glimpse of him on the hoof in 2018. He was following the script perfectly coming through the pinch. I haven't been back to this spot since last season and two oaks went down on the back of the pinch sometime this summer, and instead him walking in front of those he went behind them down into the river and came buck up about 40 yards down stream. I did NOT see that coming! I tried to grunt and snort wheeze him back and he showed little interest. This deer got passed me 3 times last year in similar fashion. I sat there for the next hour and a half feeling pretty defeated, and trying to figure out how this deer had bested me yet again. As the light began to fade it was about 15 minutes until the end of legal shooting light I could hear a deer walking up the edge of the plot and eventually I could hear it getting closer and closer. I heard a grunt and I could hear him making a scrape. He circled back down wind of me I'm guessing to see who it was that grunted at him. (he never did catch my wind thank God for ozonics) With 2 minutes left of legal shooting light he finally crossed the plot where I could see him and gave me a 30 yard shot, I let it fly! My shot was back and from what I thought I saw in the deer stand it looked waaaaay back. I watched him run off the plot and shake the arrow loose shortly after getting back into the timber and I thought I saw him bed. He only went 80 yards from the shot and I was soo scared he would hear me getting down or walking away, I sat in my stand for well over an hour after dark. When I did finally decide to climb down and back out I left everything in the tree. Needless to say it was a sleepless night, I think I slept from 1-4:30 maybe... I got up ate breakfast helped my wife get the little one ready for daycare and I headed back to my stand to wait for enough daylight to take up the track. Shortly after first light I had the buck (the big 8) that was running with R2 all summer come through the pinch the way I had hoped R2 would've the night before. Being so unsure of my shot from the night before I'd be a damn liar if I told you the thought of shooting him never crossed my mind. I let him pass and watched him follow the river bottom with a steady cadence like a buck on a mission until he was out of sight. I waited 5 more minutes got down and started to walk to where I saw the nock of my arrow glowing the night before. I found some blood right away but it wasn't like what you want to see. When I got to the arrow I coud smell that it hit the guts before I even picked it up. It was covered in fat gut matter and some deep red blood. I only had to follow the blood trail for about 10 more yards and it about took my breath away when I looked up and saw him laying there. It turned out he was quartering away harder than I thought, the arrow went in just behind the last rib on one side hit the ponch liver and both lungs and actually broke the ribs on the off side right behind the shoulder. In the end this buck made absolutely nothing easy for me. He was 12 points, field dressed right at 250 and green scored 160 1/8. (gross) The chase is over and although I'm pumped to finally have my hands on his antlers its honestly bittersweet. This deer consumed my thoughts for the last 2 years and it honestly will leave a void in my life, checking trail cameras today knowing he wouldn't be on them was a serious bummer. If you ever get a chance to target one buck its the most challenging, frustrating, hard things a whitetail hunter can do, but when it all comes together the juice is definitely worth the squeeze. Sorry this got so long guys and gals but I hope it was worth the read. I attached some pics of the day he was harvested, his antlers after removal. His best palmation velvet pic and the very first picture I got of him. I added a few of him and the big 8 in there too!
Wow! Congrats on the culmination of a hell of a journey. Had to be satisfying sir. Sent from my SM-G960U using Bowhunting.com Forums mobile app
Congrats, very cool buck. Curious how you scored that left side? I wouldn't know whether to count that as a G2 and two abnormals, G2, 3 and 4 or G2 abnormal G3. That's some wild palmation
Cls74 so unfortunately it has to be scored as an abnormal because its split off of the other antler, and I do not get the mass credit for the widest spot on the rack.
So it was a G2 with 2 abnormals? Always learning new things, good info to have if ever running across something like this. That buck doesn't need a score to justify anything
No it's a split G2 on the G3 the antler forms at the vein line of the main beam so it is not an abnormal and does get a mass credit.
