Your first mature buck.... (let's call mature 3.5+ for this thread and archery only) Were you setting up with the intentions of taking a mature buck... As in it was a mature buck or tag soup for the season... Or, Did you happen to just be deer hunting and one came by and you capitalized? Maybe you were hunting for any buck or any respectable buck and took your first mature buck by chance in this fashion? Be honest now, and give us the details... :d
Last year was the first 3.5 I have taken with a bow. Horns wise, he wasn't huge, but everyone that saw him felt he was 3.5. I can't say I was of the mindset of 3.5+ or tag soup, because I probably would have shot a known 2.5 with a similar rack. I can say that I knew I was in a very good spot for a decent buck, setup within 50 yards on the edge of known buck bedding cover. The area is VERY well protected surrounded on 3 sides by young hemlocks (6" in diameter, have to be on your knees to see more than 10 yards), with a stream on the 4th side. I knew there was a good chance I'd catch a buck coming out of the hemlocks (bedding) for a midmorning snack in that particular 2 acre patch of young saplings, there is a single mature oak in the middle that was dropping like crazy and was the only mast producing tree for quite a distance. That's exactly what happened, and I let him have it at about 8 steps from my tree while he crunched acorns. I've been oh so close many more times before and after this on real 3.5 and better bucks during bow season, while hunting them specifically......and just didn't get it done. I really think the distance between me and my better spots prevent me from getting the kind of stand time I truly need to get it done more consistently. It's tought to get it done consistently when your only a weekend warrior.
Whitetail wise... My first mature buck came awhile ago (I don’t even remember the year) while I was hunting with a friend/soccer buddy near Jelloway, Ohio. It was Thanksgiving Day, and the coldest day I have ever experienced in the woods! I literally had everything on that I had brought with me-including my PJs. I walked the property the day before and decided to set up in this one particular corner. I don’t know, there was something drawing me to that spot. On the morning of the hunt, I set out. Everyone else felt it was too cold to hunt and continued snuggling in the comfort of their sleeping bags near the camp’s wood stove. I sat in that cold for the entire day. I had a small button buck come in with his mother. They were browsing eight yards in front of me. I had my camera on the buck as he proceeded to kick his ma under the chin for getting too close to “his” acorns-sort of cool to watch. Anyway, I noticed movement off to my left. It was another doe. She was walking up the hill to join the deer in front of me. Then, in my peripheral view, I noticed another snout. The snout turned into a head with horns-BIG HORNS. I had my camera in my hands, my bow in my lap, three deer within eight yards, and I had to move. I do not know how I accomplished the task without being busted (my heart was racing-thought it was going to leap from my chest. I had to continually tell myself, “it’s just a deer”), but I stowed the camera (in my unzipped backpack pinched between my feet) and ready the bow. I ranged the deer at 37 yards and zinged an arrow through him as he quartered away.
It was the first day of our West Virginia bow season in 2007, that evening I went out with plans to kill an old mature doe. I was sitting on a big ridge top full of oaks with meadows on both sides (again I had no idea where to hunt back then I just knew deer ate acorns so I hung there). Well as the night wore on I saw a few does but none close enough for a shot but in the last few minutes of dark the buck came from the backside of the ridge and started eating acorns and sure enough he fed to about 20 yards where I made a good shot on him, I went back to the house got dad and we were on the track job. The deer didn't run more than 100 yards and crashed I was pumped. The 3.5 year old buck is on the left according to the taxidermist he said the one on the right was only 2.5.
My first mature buck bowkill was during my 3rd year of bowhunting after many years of gun hunting, so I had some whitetail experience. It was my first year hunting this farm in IL and my third trip over there. Nov. 9, 1996 was the first time hunting this stand, that I had hung near what I thought was a buck bedding area. I had found a nice shed there the spring before and lots of rubs showed up in the early season. The stand was in an area where a large brushy ditch with some oak trees in it met the big woods. I was not particularly hunting for a mature buck, but wanted a nice one, 8pt plus for my first bow buck. A little after 7:00 a doe came thru alone (I made darn sure of that) at 33 yards. I shot her a little far back, so I just stayed in the stand to let her go lay down and expire. About 7:30 3 does came into view, as they got closer I could see a MONSTER BUCK was following them. He caught up to them and proceeded to chase one of the does around my stand. He never would give me a good shot even tho at times they were less than 20 yards from me. After doing a complete 360* around me they went back down to the creek where they had come from. Twenty minutes later they came back up the hill and one by one the does walked right under my stand headed out to cross an open field to the ditch. With the last doe standing directly under me and the buck at 18 yards facing me I came to full draw. Just then a loud noise came from a nearby house. The buck turned to his left to look in the direction of the noise. It was just enough to give me a clean shot at his shoulder. I released and watched my arrow bury into his chest and blood spurted out on impact. With every leap I could see blood pumping out of the buck. I climbed down and sneaked over to where I could see down the side of the hill. I could see his white belly 75 yards away, I had my first P&Y Buck. After loading him up I went after the doe, hit earlier and found her too after a long tracking job.
1st of all, Nice bucks and story's everyone!! I think It was 1990 (give or take a year) that I shot my very 1st buck (1.5 year old 6 point). The next year as a sophomore In high school I said no more young, little bucks and was planning on holding out for the size of bucks that my dad usually takes and holds out for. I didn't use the term "mature", never heard It ever mentioned at the time. All I ever said was that I want to shoot a buck that Is going on It's 3rd rack. I wasn't hunting any specific buck, I was just planning on taking any buck that I figured was going on It's 3rd rack. I think It was the 2nd or the 3rd time out when It happened. He wasn't as big as I once thought he was when I let the arrow go, I figured at the time he was In that 120 to 125 Inch. He wasn't nothing spectacular but I was sure proud, he scored 110 Inches and dressed out at 155lbs. I have no pics to show. It wasn't that we didn't take any pics, they some how got lost when I moved to where I live now. I cut the antlers off to use for rattling, I lost them too about 3 years ago! I think I left them hanging In one of the tree's I was hunting, squirrels got em now. A few of the guys that were with me when we went and tracked It and found It thought that It possibly was a 2.5 with great genetics. Dad thought It could go either way but mostly leaned to the 3.5 side mainly because of the deers dressed weight. Since this deer I haven't taken another 3.5 and most likely never will unless they are of very good size (130"+).
My first mature buck was a gun kill 15 years ago. It was just luck...I was a "brown it's down" type of hunter at the time and this deer happen to walk by me. Shooting that deer caused me to become more interested in hunting mature bucks. I started to bowhunt a couple years later as I was interested in spending more time hunting deer. I had never really even scouted for deer when I was just a gun hunter. When I began bowhunting I quickly realized that I had to start learning more about these animals if I am going to have a chance to get one with a bow. I began doing what is probably the simplest way to start scouting them....glass ag fields during summer evenings. The summer before my second season of bowhunting I started to see a bachelor group of bucks on an alfalfa field every so often. Two of the bucks in this group looked to be P&Y caliber. The wind needed to be out of the south in order for me to hunt a stand I had out there near an inside corner of this field. My first sit out there produced no deer sightings. It took another week or so for the right wind before I could try again. This time the two largest bucks from bachelor group came walking out of the woods about 20 minutes before dark only 10 yards from my stand! My heart was beating so hard I thought the deer might hear it. Both bucks stood broadside with their heads down eating alfalfa. I drew back and took aim at the larger looking buck. I made a good shot and recovered the buck in the woods later that night with my Dad. This was my first ever deer with bow and is still my largest to date. I passed on many smaller bucks before getting this one even though I was looking for my first bow kill. I have been hooked on bowhunting ever since. First archery buck
My first mature buck also was with a rifle, I was in Wyoming and was out to kill a 4pt (4x4 in wyo)or better. It was well below zero, and my buddies dad did a drive to us. He walked out, I pulled the trigger and it was over. My first with a bow, was recovered by hunters on the other side of the fence and I never got to put my hands on him. I set up in a clearing that came from the river to a wheat field on the down wind side. He came out and I shot him at 15 yards from the ground. I didn't know better and went looking for him too soon. We pushed him across the fence, and I skipped school the next day to go look for him. The land owner next door said that their "hunters" found a freshly dead deer just off the road, they had taken him home. Knowing what I know now... the deer was in the mid 130's. I had set up on a travel route looking to kill "a" deer, that was about it.
My goal at the time I shot my 1st mature buck was too shoot one bigger than my biggest at the time(108") It was a unseasonably warm evening, I trekked to my stand cranky and complaining about the heat. After a while I heard some crashing in the thicket below, eventually it grew louder & 2 doe & a buck emerged. I shot the buck at 18 yds after holding at full draw for what seemed like forever. He managed to go only 15-20 yds. Scored 133" and was a buck I'd seen 2 days prior.
First mature Buck came in 1973, big old gray face 10 point. Just hunting Buck sign, could have been any of his kin folk with bone on their heads and I would have poked a hole in them.
I was walking into a spot in the dark using a flashlight and came upon a fresh scrape. I decided to sit on the ground about 12 yards away, behind a tree with a big "V" in it. I literally kicked away all of the leaves in the area, knelt down, and leaned by bow against the trunk of the tree until it got like. Just after light this guy showed up with a few does, and while he was making a scrape I flung an arrow into him. No real rhyme or reason as to why I was sitting where I was sitting, I just happened to pick the right spot at the right time.
some BEAUTIFUL bucks guys... I hope I get a shot some day at a big 'un like those... but this year I'm gonna take the first legal deer that comes my way... I need to get my first bow kill outta da way before I start trophy huntin...
We had trail cam pics of him and a few other bucks at a feeder of my friends. It was Sunday evening of our opening weekend this past year. I shot him at 17 yards after he had just followed some does in. I was in a ground blind that was missing the entire right side. I was pretty pumped when I saw him go down. Its my biggest buck to date
I killed my best buck hunting for a doe.. I've killed a couple bucks when I was only hunting for a buck, but outside of a few key stands, I'm many times just deer hunting terrain features, etc and I'm as prone to shoot a doe as a mature buck.