Tales of the Hunt « Oak Ridge Whitetail Adventure

July 6, 2010

Fence Buck

Filed under: Tales of the Hunt — Tags: antlers, bucks, crossbow, deer, fawns, food plot, hunt, hunting — Sam Holley @ 4:36 pm

You could easily ID this buck with his two G-2 stickers.

[caption id="attachment_202" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The \"Fence Buck\""]

[/caption]In the summer of 2008, we decided that we would move forward with our plans to start a hunting preserve on my family farm. This decision brought with it a year like we have never had before in our nineteen years together. We began by laying out the perimeter fence and meeting with the soil and water advisor from our county. Once we had the layout ,it was time to begin the project and try to stay on schedule to meet our goal of hunting in the Fall of 2009.

Our first step was hiring a local track hoe operator to help us clear and level over two miles of ground and install the twenty five plus culverts that would be needed to navigate our streams. While the progress was moving along very well, it became harder for me everyday as the archery season had started and for the first time since early high school I wasn’t able to hunt. As late October came upon us it also brought with it the rain and early snow which caused us to miss our first day of work in about six weeks. Since we were not able to work for a couple of days it only seemed right that I would try to spend a day in a tree stand.

The following morning I was up in my tree well before daylight and as it was just breaking light my cell phone went off. (I then understood the mistake of having it with me in the tree!) It was Curtis, our track hoe operator, and since we were not able to work the day before he wanted to work thru the weather today. An hour later we were hauling diesel fuel back to the track hoe and prepping for the day’s work. As Curtis worked on top of the hoe he got excited and said, “Look at that buck!”. There not more than fifty yards away stood the buck that I had wanted to hunt all year. He was covered in mud, neck swollen, and head straight out. He walked within twenty five yards of us and never even gave us a glance. I told Curtis that I had several trail camera photos of this buck and you could easily identify him by the two stickers coming off of his right G-2.

This was almost more than I could take. Once we had finished the fueling, I told Curtis to get started with- out me for awhile and that I wanted to make a couple of swings up the ridges. My good friend and hunting buddy, Don Graham, was hunting in my “Condo Stand” that morning and I had hopes of pushing this buck his way. I took the Ranger back to the house and grabbed my crossbow and headed back to the area where the buck had been headed when we last saw him. Parking the Ranger I headed back our main south trail on foot. The woods on the south half of our property is thick with a series of ridges and sharp ravines and I figured on walking each ridge out progressing toward the north and Don’s location.

I had slowly walked about two hundred yards and was looking for a good place to cross the first ravine when I spotted a deer. It was about seventy five yards out and with all the brush all I could tell was that it was a deer. I had grabbed my grunt call when I went for my crossbow so I thought I’d give it a try. I hit the grunt and the deer immediately raised its head and I could see antlers. I was still not sure if it was the buck I was after and gave two more short grunts. The buck spun on a dime and headed my way! As it came my way I was trying to decide on which side of the ravine it would travel. Can I find an opening to shoot thru? Will I be able to stop him when the time comes in the opening? This all seemed to take forever and I could not decide on the best option. Finally I knelt on one knee and held the crossbow in place for him to pass down the north side. When the buck was twenty yards out he crossed to my side of the ravine. Now I was screwed, everything was set for him to go right and he went left! I decided it didn’t matter it was either going to happen or not. I stood up turned left and picked an opening. He was still coming and I couldn’t believe it. This buck was the one I had all the photos of and now he was walking right to me! When he was broadside he stopped suddenly and looked directly at me but it was too late. (I figured he could hear my heart pounding.) I pulled the trigger and watched as the arrow blew thru him right behind his front shoulder. He jumped, kicked and was gone. I had watched him travel out of sight some fifty yards out and I could see the blood spraying from both sides.

Was this really happening? It was like a dream and I had not done anything to even remotely deserve this buck. I was on the ground walking, wearing my red Ohio State hat, dressed in my Carhartt work clothes, smelled of diesel fuel and this buck walked to within thirteen steps. I know that you cannot take off directly after a buck you shoot with a bow but I was in serious need of something to hold me down.

I phoned my brother Scott and asked him if he could give me a hand tracking a buck I had just shot. He asked if I had a good shot and I told him, “ I know I killed him but need a reason to stand here for awhile to be sure he’s down”. Scott and my niece Siera came down on their four wheeler and the first words my niece said were, “ Are those Scent-lok Carhartts?

We found the buck after a short and quick blood trail. He scored 141” SCI with twelve scorable points and was a main frame eight point. Once we had him loaded I called Don and told him to get ready I would be driving the buck by him in the next few minutes. As we approached the “Condo”, I could see Don climbing down. While I can’t actually tell you what he said about my call, I can tell you he was glad that I had killed the buck.

I think that this buck was a good omen and that it was a sign that our dream of having a hunting preserve was the right one for us. I call the buck the “Fence Buck” and he now hangs on the wall of our new lodge. What a great way to enjoy your one day of hunting for the year!

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March 24, 2010

Christmas Buck 2009

Filed under: Tales of the Hunt — Tags: bucks, food plot, hunt, snow, Whitetail Hunting Preserve — Sam Holley @ 8:03 am

Dan's Christmas Buck Our hunters arrived on schedule from Georgia on Sunday December 27th. We do not like to hunt on Sundays as it gives us time to complete our weekly chores and also affords us time to get acquainted with our hunters before the hunt begins. Dan and his father Captain Dan are from south Georgia and they do not get much snow down on the gulf coast. Their arrival was timed perfectly with the Christmas snow. By the time we went to bed there was about two inches of fresh snow on the deck. It is hard to describe how much better a deer hunt can be with a fresh snow until you have actually witnessed it.

When we awoke on the first morning, Dan and I quickly made plans to walk to the Shadow Hunter Stand for the morning hunt. This stand is enclosed with a heater and it overlooks one of our clover plots and is situated along the south ridge of the “sanctuary”. My hopes were that the deer would be hitting the clover early before heading into the sanctuary hollow to bed down. The walk out in the darkness was very exciting for someone that had not experienced a good Ashtabula County lake effect snow. The flakes were coming down about two inches an hour and the temperatures were somewhere in the single digits.

After settling into the stand, we began discussing what type of buck Dan was interested in taking. His number one goal was a “typical look” with something over the 160” class. Dan is a very experienced hunter and has taken many mature south Georgia bucks with the largest scoring somewhere around 130”. Our goals were set and the snowy hunt was underway.

Our first deer came into the food plot sometime around 7:00 AM. A mature doe and two fawns fed for about fifteen minutes. I told Dan that I had seen this doe often in the food plots behind the lodge and that normally she had three fawns with her. They continued to feed but kept checking on the approach of another deer. As the fourth deer approached, it turned out to be a yearling buck that had broken off everything on his right side from fighting. This yearling was intent on checking the doe fawns and he managed to push all of them out of the food plot and into the surrounding brush. With the movement of these deer so early and with the buck showing signs of the secondary rut, I knew that we had made a good choice on location.

Well one thing I have since learned is that you don’t want to start bragging about your guide skills to early in the hunt. Once the four deer had moved out of sight it left us sitting alone for about three hours. You can only point out the beautiful snow covered surrounding so long and I know that Dan was starting to second guess my decision to stay in this stand. I will only open windows on one or two sides of the stand at a time so that approaching deer can not silhouette you through the back windows. I had just cracked the back windows to help improve our view when I spotted a doe running directly toward us.

I told Dan that there was a doe coming in fast and to be ready for what I hoped would be a buck chasing her. It is amazing how quickly your hunts can change and in a matter of seconds she was standing within ten feet of our stand. There was not one buck but five mature bucks chasing her. The doe bedded down in the brush and it allowed us to watch five bucks for an hour and a half. What an exciting ninety minutes! We figured that there was one 150” buck, one 160” buck, two 180” bucks, and one really big buck that should go over 200“.

The 200” buck was running the show as he would chase one buck out of sight and then return to guard his girlfriend. This went on several times and at one point the actually caught the 150” off guard and threw him about four feet in the air. At this point the 150” buck limped off carrying his right back leg and there was a steady stream of blood dripping from his tail and running down his leg. All of this action and never once was there a shooting opportunity but at least the guide had reclaimed some of his validity.

The doe finally decided that she was rested enough for another run and we were once again left sitting alone. After waiting to see if they would return and discussing the mornings events, we decided to check in with Captain Dan and eat lunch.

Well I think that was probably the longest lunch that Dan has ever eaten. Once we had finished, he was ready to see if we could go get a chance at that big buck. We knew our only hope was to locate the hot doe and that she could be anywhere. We decided to still hunt as it was snowing even harder now and while it would make our sight harder it should help us to get in closer if we located the deer. We were able to move through the fresh snow without making any noise and the visibility was only about sixty to seventy yards.

Our plan was to move back past the Shadow Hunter Stand and from there slowly work in the direction that we had last seen the bucks. As we approached the food plot I spotted a deer standing just off the path. After using the binoculars I had determined that there were two bucks and both of them had been with the doe earlier. They had unfortunately already seen us and were not there long as they showed us their tails as they quickly disappeared. Not wanting to move until we were certain that the other bucks were not in the area we scanned for several minutes and saw nothing. Just as we started to move Dan spotted another deer. We could not tell anything other than that it was a buck. He was in probably the thickest cover we have and he was not moving. Our decision was to try and circle him down wind and see if we could move into a better vantage point.

After we had moved about twenty yards one step at a time I spotted the doe bedded down in a brush pile about two thirds of the way to the buck. I told Dan that as long as we could get by her the buck wasn’t going anywhere. Once we could get a good look at the buck, we realized it was the big buck. Now we had to get into a shooting lane and have him stay with us long enough to get the shot. As it turned out he was more concerned with protecting his girlfriend than running and with hindsight I’m not sure that he could make us out clearly enough to know what we were in the snowstorm. The buck started to move and it was in our direction! He had his ears laid back tight against his head and he was stiff legging it in our direction. With everything in place, including me with a camcorder, we stood motionless to figure out his intensions. His approach took him around a brush pile at about fifty yards out, which with the snow made it look like 100 yards plus, and this turned him broadside to us. As he stopped to survey for the doe, Dan made a great shot. Dan had borrowed my 300 Winchester magnum for the hunt and it proved to be the right gun as it dropped the buck instantly.

Dan and I couldn’t believe what had just happened! As we approached the buck he seemed to get even bigger than he had looked that morning in the brush. His spread and mass made him look huge laying there in the snow. Dan had finally broken the 130” barrier and he had done it in grand style. The buck scored 203 1/8” with a 22” inside spread. The mass totaled 38 7/8” and is as close to 40” as we have gotten here at Oak Ridge.

The snow continued to fall and we enjoyed the rest of our hunting time each day sizing up the bucks that remained in the preserve. What a great time we had with Dan and Captain Dan during their stay. We look forward to hunting with them again and enjoyed the chance to share a great memorable hunt.

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