Got my first racked buck ...

[Rocket]

At age 56! Getting pics now, will post soon

[Talltines]

Awesome man

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[Travis]

Man, that’s damn awesome!


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[PEA_RIDGE]

CONGRATS BUD, CANT WAIT TO SEE PICS

[Reaper]

Congrats!!

[Rocket]

More to come tomorrow but here he is ... I scored him with the Realtree app, fairly conservatively but he shows 114"

No I'm not smoking, its a long frame exposure :)

[Tru-Talker]

Congrats Paul!!! That's awesome my friend!!

[sdw]

That’s a damn fine buck! Congrats!

[Talltines]

Congratulations man fine one right there.

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[daniel white]

Yea cmon! Way to go Paul!


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[bobwhite]

Fine buck right there!!! Congrats!!

[Rocket]

Here's the story:

My First Racked Buck

Paul Leopard, 30 December 2017

I’d been scouting the area for several weeks but got my first glimpse of him yesterday morning. I’d found a good-sized area on our club that looked promising but wasn't being hunted. We have a great group of guys and everyone pretty much knows where everyone else is hunting. As far as I know this place had barely been touched in the two seasons Ive been a member.

Geography:

This place has a steep ridge up to 1600’ above a road at 1000’. The area is split by two steep draws and forms a rounded finger between the two. I’d found an ancient logging road at 1400’ and the ridge shot up fast starting about 100 yards from it. Scouting it I found bedding areas all over the finger and a few rubs but no scrapes. The left side draw was absolutely polluted with fresh tracks … everywhere along it. The other side of that draw was a dense thicket … hmmmm :) ... At the top of that draw was a small saddle, over the top of which was the other side of the mountain. I imagined that deer were going back and forth from either side of the mountain over that saddle and down the draw.

Prep:

I figured any buck in the area would be bedding in that thicket, roughly 150 yards from the big beds I found on the finger. I also figured this place would heat up pretty fast when the rut kicked in so over the past few weeks I hung two climbers up there; one in the middle of the finger and one near the top of the left side draw. I also found an old ladder stand and a lock on high up a tree, both ancient but usable. Two days ago I took my friend Matt up there to get his take on it. He’s killed a pile of deer and I respect experience. Guess what we found along that old road bed? Yep, three fresh scrapes with rubs. It was time to wrap up the prep and get it done …

The Hunt:

Yesterday morning I went up to my climber in the middle of the finger. I didn't see any does but around 10:15 AM to the south of me I caught about a 2 second glimpse of him. There were no clouds in the sky so the sun glare prevented me from following up with a shot. I just couldn't make him out after that as the sun was blinding me. He was larger than the 6 or 7 bucks I’d passed on last year, the largest being around 100”-110”. Our club rules state that the first must be a minimum of 110”, the 2nd must be 125” or greater. Mess it up and face a $500 fine or banishment. I wasn't about to let that happen. I didn't connect last season but I was finally seeing bucks, lots of bucks. I knew the time was close …

I decided to go again this morning and position myself high on the ridge over the left draw; in my 2nd climber. I started climbing the tree around 1PM and settled into my climber for a long wait. I had that feeling, that feeling where you just know that now is the time … that it’s gonna happen. I fully expected that right after sundown he would appear below me coming out of that thicket so I pointed my climber there. It wasn’t a difficult wait as temps were mid 40’s. I spent the afternoon noting the position of squirrels and listening to the birds. Birds everywhere, I counted 18 different bird calls. I even had a pileated woodpecker light on a tree about 10 yards for me. Dang he was a loud one!

Around 4PM the temps started to drop and I started getting a little cold. At 4:30 I’d had enough of sitting so I slid my seat back and stood up, anchoring my back against the tree and constantly glassing the area, particularly that thicket. Here comes 4:40 and way over to my left where my other climber was I hear the squirrels going ape crazy. I positioned myself to shoot in that direction and raised my rifle up. Then I heard him rooting around in the leaves, he must have been about 100 yards off, due north of me coming down that old road. Oh my here I am 40 feet above the road, the wind is coming from the north and he will never in a million years get a scent of me.

At 4:45 I see him, still good light as sundown is 4:44 and the moon is up too. He takes his time, rooting around in the leaves then stopping and looking up dead still and silent. Then he moves a few yards and repeats. He has no clue I’m here. My arm is starting to hurt but I hold tight and ready. At 4:50 he reaches the 60 yard point and I decide it is time. I’m not going to get a heart shot (every prior deer I’ve killed was a heart shot) so I decide to try out the ‘off switch’. I’m 40 ft above him so I put the crosshairs on top of his back between his shoulder blades and pray “God make me accurate and make this quick”. I pulled the trigger and didn’t even hear the shot. He dropped in right in his tracks, never kicked, never quivered, not even the slightest motion … lights out.

Wrapping It Up:

When I got to him I started second guessing my estimate of his rack. He had 8 great tines and a 1” kicker plus two nubs that can hold my wedding band but I didn’t count them. He was a 9 point but I was afraid he was going to score in under 100” and that I’d be faced with a hefty fine. All the way back to the score board, off the property, and to the processor took a good 50 minutes and I was bummed, thinking I was going to be in trouble. When I got to Backwater Outdoors I took a tape to him and pulled up the realtree.com scoring app. I went as conservative as I could, not counting the kicker, rounding down (4 ¾ = 4”, 5 ½” = 5”) and held my breath as I punched the submit button. Badda boom 114” and a conservative 114” at that. I done gotter did today!

[Tru-Talker]

That's awesome....

[Travis]

Great story buddy. And that pic is cool.


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[David Leonard]

Congrats man! I enjoyed the read too!

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[WGTaxidermist]

Congrats on a fine buck!! Great story too!

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[Rocket]

Well crap we've got the max image size on this site set too low for my high res photos. I'll have to resize, upload, then repost ... may take a while


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[Rocket]

Here's a link to my IMGUR album (High res photos) ... https://imgur.com/a/tSMNv

And a low res pic from that album ...

[Rocket]

Another pic ... He went to the taxi on Tuesday!