2012 Indiana Buck

[buck_hunter21]

Like every deer season, my season begins months before I climb into a stand. I started running cameras in July in hopes I could find a good enough buck to put an arrow in to. Early returns had a couple deer that caught my attention. Almost every single time I pulled my memory cards, I always had the same bucks as I had got the week before. Then around August a new buck "just popped" up. The first time I got a picture of him, I sent a text to a buddy saying I had a picture of a buck that had points going everywhere.  The rest of the summer I would occasionally get pictures of this deer, but more times than not, I wouldn't get pictures of him. In mid-September I pulled my card one last time before season, in hopes to see what the bucks I've watched all summer looked like out of velvet.  Very first picture was of the buck I had now named YG and he was out of velvet. He had 14 points, which included matching kickers on the inside of both main beams.  To add the cherry on top, I was getting pictures of him during the day. He had gone to completely nocturnal during the summer, to all of sudden hanging out around my stand area mid-day.

Now fast forward to the morning of 10/19/12. The hunt started out very slow. Hours passed without the sight of a deer. I was getting text messages from buddies telling me about all the deer they were seeing. I sat there bummed out wondering what the heck I was doing wrong. As I sat there staring into the thicket, a glowing rack caught my attention. I got my binoculars up to check the buck out. Instantly, I knew it was YG. He was literally standing under one of my other sets eating leaves that hadn't fallen yet. At one point I thought he was going to make his way down to where I was set up, but eventually worked his way parallel to me.  After that sighting I ended up seeing several deer, including a small buck dogging 5 does at noon. Due to the movement I seen at noon, I decided I would sit the entire day. The afternoon hours drug on with little to no activity. As the evening grew on, the deer started moving. I had watched four does for a half hour work their way to my set, to be followed by another small buck. The small buck began chasing each of the four does making a ton of noise. As I was sitting back enjoying the show that was going on all around my tree, something caught my attention to my right. It was YG coming in to inspect all the commotion. Once he got from the thicket he could see the smaller buck chasing "his" does. He made a bee line towards the buck, stopping only once to absolutely demolish a tree.  Long story short, he ran around the area I was hunting for 20 straight minutes without coming in for a shot. I left that night very excited having the chance to see every buck I had watched all summer. Seeing YG twice in one day is something I didn't think would be possible, yet it had happened.

Now fast forward 7 days to the evening of 10/26/12. I settled in to my stand (the stand I had seen YG directly under the week before) a tad before 4pm. I wish I could sit here and type out a long exciting post about this hunt, but I just can't do it. I sat from 4:00 pm to 6:40 pm only seeing one buck chasing one doe. Other than that sighting it was as if deer did not exist in this area. At 6:40 pm, I heard the unmistaken sound of a long grunt in the woods to my right. I grab my bow and attach my release by the time the grunt had ended. I could hear the deer inside the wood line wearing out a tree and then the sound stopped. Then I heard another very long drawn out grunt and then walking straight at me. From the way this deer was coming in, he was in behind a large tree directly to my right, so I could not see what the buck looked like. When the buck was 2 yard from my tree, I could see it was YG. As I was looking through the bottom of my stands platform, I finally laid my eyes on the kickers on his inside main beams.  As he was making his way to the main trail, I came to full draw. He turned on the main trail 10 yards from my stand, making him broad side to my set up. I let out a soft "mack" and he stopped dead in his tracks. This was it; I went from looking at pictures of this buck on camera to now looking at him through a peep sight. I let the arrow fly and it was quickly followed by the sound of the arrow hitting him. Toasted him.

[FANMAN]

Great story..Great deer..Congrats. on your sucesss.

[njdevilsb]

Great buck.  Congrats.

[vaturkey]

Congrats ! Great story & buck ! 

[Hognutz]

Congrats on a nice buck. Great story, as well!!

[tomstopper]

Great read and beautiful buck.Congrats...

[Neill_Prater]

Wow, great story, and a great deer! You'll never forget that one. Neill

[TrackeySauresRex]

  Handsome buck. Congrats. 

[surehuntsalot]

congrats

[buck_hunter21]

Thanks fellas!