I've been blessed enough over the years to be able to showcase some incredible mounts in my house, but my most treasured trophies are a few simple 8x10 photos in plain wooden frames that adorn my wall above my desk. They help to chronicle my oldest son's maturing mostly, as remembered against a backdrop of a few of the bucks I've taken over the years. Here's a couple of them that hang above me... I was recently telling my wife that it's time to take up the tradition with my youngest boy before we miss those same set of years. But it's been a tough year, as several board members who usually put down some nice bone by this time of year can attest to... and I was starting to get worried. This weekend brought on the orange army in full force to my hallowed hunting grounds... which have become not-so-hallowed over recent years, as more and more people are discovering my private haunts. Three or four times over the last week I've pulled into my parking spot only to have someone else either already there or have them pull in immediately behind me in the pre-dawn darkness... With gun season in Illinois upon us, I switched up and returned to a farm right down the road from me I had gained access to earlier in the year (I bounce frequently back and forth between the two states, depending on where my daily travels in medical sales take me). I ventured deep in yesterday evening, carefully picking my way through head high scrub brush searching for the occasional tree that was big enough to hang a stand in... I passed by scrape after scrape as I began to worry that I may push too far back in and bump the very big guys I was hunting. About an hour and a half before dark, I turned to look behind me and caught movement; a mature buck was cruising through quickly, and I stopped him wiht a couple soft buck grunts. He turned toward me and I picked up on his dagger-like G2s immediately and thought "solid 8-pointer" to myself. He'd do plenty well after the year I was having... Then he began to circle away, and I was worried he'd lost interest. A couple tending grunts coupled with quick can grunts did him in, as he cut from my left to my right and started to walk through one of my only shooting lanes. Already at full draw, I voice-bleated him to a stop... should I say, tried to. I raised the volume of my second attempt, and unfortunately he took a couple steps directly toward me and then stopped, leaving me with a very hard quartering-to shot. I settled the pin just enough behind his front shoulder to avoid the biggest bones and let the Muzzy drive deep into him. My barred feathers disappeared in the blink of an eye, and he whirled and started digging hard with his tail tucked. I watched him for 50 yards or so before it appeared he slowed down and I lost sight of him in the 10-foot tall scrub brush. I waited 35 minutes before lowering my bow, and I packed up my equipment with extreme care, so as to not even make a sound. I stole over to the shot sight, and saw where he'd tore up the earth as he spun out of there. His deep tracks were easy to follow in the damp leaves, and 10 feet into his death run I picked up the first drops of blood. They finally got bigger, then a bit bigger still, and the bright red coloring gave me hope. I took one step at a time, marking each five feet or so with a single square of tissue paper, being careful not to make a sound. I really had no intentions of trailing the buck that far, but I simply wanted to get a line on the direction he'd taken off in as I knew everything would look completely different when I returned in the dark several hours later. As I was marking the trail and had perhaps gone 20 yards or so, I heard a tremendous crashing about 40 yards ahead of me. I froze and held my breath... it sounded like he may have just collapsed into the scrub brush, but I had just enough doubt that maybe he'd also got up and tore off through it as well. I stopped what I was doing and backed out, using the remaining toilet paper to mark an easy trail back into the tree I shot him from to follow in the dark. I returned with my Dad and oldest boy at 10 p.m. and we quickly took up the trail. Problem was, we were unable to find hardly any blood past the point where I quit marking it with toilet paper earlier. After much searching around, I decided to simply go ahead and walk up to where I heard the huge crash. Even though there was a little doubt, I truly felt confident that it was him crashing down to his death that I'd heard. It was; I walked straight to him and he was stiff as a board, having been dead for over six hours. Turns out he is missing a G3 and one of his brows is broken off, so he won't be much for scoring. But that wasn't the point of this buck, nor is it really the point of any of them. My dad... And my oldest, who set his new personal record of how late he's ever stayed up so far as we didn't get to bed until 1 a.m. And the pics that will allow "the tradtion" to continue with my youngest...
That's awesome Greg, congrats on a great buck! That had to be exciting for your boy to get to go tracking and stay up until 1 AM
It won't be long before you're BEHIND the camera and the boys will be holding their bruisers!!!! It's always awesome that feeling when your own pick up and carry on the tradition.
Man that is too cool! Hope I am bless to pass down the hunting tradition to my children. Make sure you have back ups w/ the pics just in case. Congrads on your sucess as a hunter and father!
beautiful pictures greg!!! Great buck and a wonderful tradition, bet it makes hours spent behind the desk a little easier to tolerate
Great stuff there Greg. Congrats on a dandy of a buck, and also on getting the kiddos in on it with you.
