Big Buck Trophy

[Tadeo Lentz]

Thefirst antlered deer that appeared was across the large field. The snow-white rack reflected enough light even at a distance to raise my heart rate. However, I had hunted hard that fall and I had suspicions of better deer nearby. I watched as this buck passed and wondered as he trotted out of sight if regret lay in my future. Later that morning my patience paid dividends as I shot my best buck to date. I took that deer with the rifle I purchased as a teenager.

Once that tag is filled, there may be a systemic transition from any legal buck to a buck of a certain age or score, again with the more challenging weapon. Fifteen years ago, I could not envision allowing a legal deer to pass in bow range without losing an arrow. Now, having taken several with my compound, I find great pleasure in being in bow range of deer and just observing their behavior, possibly sneaking in some photos while waiting on the next wall-hanger.

I left work early one day in October and set up in a dry creek bed near a bedding area. After sinking into a set of bushes for cover, I started a rattling sequence. With the wind left to right, I hoped to coax something out of the thick timber directly in front of me into the small open field. Surprisingly, I had a spike blitz in from behind me. The young buck crossed the branch to my left at less than 10 yards. I froze and waited for him to clear the bushes. Quartering away, his gait slowed, and his head dropped to sniff the ground. I drew and made a perfect 15-yard shot from my knees. With my newly defined ambition, this spike became my next trophy. The details of this hunt where I achieved an established goal, are a clear and pleasant memory.

Among the first hunts of the year in Alabama in late October, I climbed in my stand at the intersection of two fences near a travel corridor bordering a bedding area. As daylight broke, I caught movement 80 yards down a gentle slope. A decent-size deer eased through a creek bed. It was too dark for detail, but I was fairly certain the deer had antlers. But no matter, on this hunt, any legal deer was fine! I lost sight of the buck for several minutes but then I noticed a small buck trotting from the opposite direction on a trail toward one of my shooting lanes. Behind the small buck trailed the larger buck, a much nicer target. The lead buck passed, and I bleated to stop the larger one. He posed perfectly. On release, the shot felt good but, until we have our hands on the horns, nothing is a sure thing.

At 150 yards I found my buck, centerpunched. That mount is now in my basement. The broadhead recovered from the far side shoulder is mounted on the board just below the head. This eight-point was not a record-book buck, but my first with traditional equipment and therefore a trophy in my book.

Matt Green is the Associate Dean Professor of Exercise Science at University of North Alabama. While he teaches and conducts research in exercise physiology, he is an avid deer hunter. In addition to publishing in scientific journals, he enjoys writing about whitetails and hunting in general. Green lives on a small farm just outside of Rogersville, Alabama, with his family.

Virginia Deer Hunters Association. For attribution information and reprint rights, contact Denny Quaiff, Executive Director, VDHA.

Trophy Buck is a fast-moving game about deer hunting. The 12 custom dice represent deer. Push your luck to bag the most points, but stop rolling before too many "startles" end your turn! Will you bring home a trophy, or will you just be looking at tracks?

A handful of bucks I've bowhunted over the years stand out from all the others. These were not necessarily the highest-scoring or most impressive animals I've pursued, and I never did get within bow range of some of them.

However, these bucks taught me the most about patterning (if that's possible) or how to think like a mature male whitetail. The real "trophy" from each of them was the experience gained from pursuing these cagey veterans.

Most of the areas I hunt are not very conducive to glassing or summertime scouting. I do have a few agricultural fields and food plots that help with pre-season inventory. But for the most part, I hunt big woods by Midwest standards. For this reason, most of my pre-season strategy revolves around sheds found and visual sightings from the previous winter.

Early one spring, I found a shed from a genetically promising 3 1/2-year-old buck. I had seen this buck numerous times the previous fall. This deer spent a lot of time in a fairly small area (less than 50 acres), and I would see him in the same clover food plot most evenings.

The following fall, the trophy buck had grown tremendously. As a 4 1/2-year-old "breeder" buck, he had grown a few stickers, and his easily recognizable rack would potentially gross in the 170s. It would probably net over 160. When bow season arrived, I had four strategic stand sites set up to ambush this great buck in the area he had frequented the previous fall.

My confidence level was high. There was no reason, I thought, to try to climb into this buck's mind. This was going to be easy! After all, the year before I could barely "shoo" him out of the clover plot.

My first sighting of the buck during archery season was over 1 1/2 miles from where I thought his home range was located. Later that year, I bumped him out of the food plot and immediately assumed "He's back." In a six-week period, I saw this buck twice from a tree stand. He eventually wound up falling to a hunting buddy's arrow two years later.

Sometimes, to think like a big buck, you've got to broaden your horizons. In the case of the aforementioned buck, I erroneously assumed his home range would remain the same as he matured from a 3 1/2-year-old subordinate buck to a 4 1/2-year-old breeder. With other bucks of at least equal status within the local population, it is logical that he would have to expand his territory during the fall rut.

Another mistake I made was assuming that just because this buck had the most impressive headgear that I had seen in the area, he would automatically be the most dominant animal. The old adage "It's not the size of the dog in the fight but rather the size of the fight in the dog" most definitely applies in the whitetail world. It is certainly possible that a rival buck had displaced him from the area where I anticipated finding him.

On the afternoon of Oct. 17, 1998, I was perched 25 feet up a mature white oak looking at a fresh scrape that was exactly 21 steps from the base of my tree. I'm not really good with important dates like birthdays or anniversaries, but this date would be etched in my mind for the rest of my life. About an hour into the hunt, I caught movement about 75 yards up the wooded ridge from my tree.

It was a buck, and within seconds I knew it was the buck I had waited for my whole life! He was working his way toward the scrape in front of me. At about 50 yards out, he stepped behind a large tree and I tried to get in position for a shot. As I stood up, the lip of my knee-high rubber boot caught the edge of my portable tree stand seat, lifting it just high enough to come down with an unmistakable metal-on-metal "ca-pink." I froze in a three-quarter standing position, shaking like a dog passing bones.

The giant typical 10-point trophy buck paused for a second and scanned the horizon. Then he wagged his tail as if nothing had happened and walked down to freshen the scrape in front of me. With his head in the licking branch, I drew back and settled my 20-yard pin in the center of his boiler room.

I couldn't have scripted it any better, but from that point on it was all a blur. I remember touching off the release and I know I missed, but I'm not sure how. There were no obstructions with the shot. I'm not a world-class archer, but out to 30 yards, I'm pretty proficient. It had to be "buck fever." At least, that's my story and I'm sticking with it!

That night I lay awake, trying to form a plan that would give me a chance at redemption. My initial thought was to follow conventional wisdom and stay out of the area for at least a week or more and give things a chance to cool down. Then I tried to creep into his mind. I thought, Hey, he never saw me and I don't think he caught my scent. For all he knows, a branch fell from a tree.

If a trophy buck avoids every place where he's ever been spooked, he won't have many places to go. I knew it was early enough in the fall for this particular buck's home range to still be fairly small. On the other hand, if I decided to "give it some time," who knows how far he might travel?

I decided to go for it. Two days later I had another encounter with that monster buck from the same stand. I didn't get it done that time either, as he never came within bow range, but the plan almost came together. And there was at least some satisfaction from putting myself in a position to get lucky.

Every once in a while, I believe we give big bucks too much credit. Don't misunderstand me. A whitetail's senses are razor-sharp, and they have millions of years of evolution behind them. This has not only helped them survive, but it's also helped them thrive alongside humans. They're masters at avoiding things that want to hurt them. However, if they didn't occasionally make mistakes, they would all die of old age.

Every once in a while, I believe we don't give them enough credit. Several years back, a good friend who lived about a mile up the road from my home found a matched set of sheds off a buck I had been hunting. The next year, I had multiple encounters with this buck in the same area but wound up filling my tag with a different deer.

The following spring, I found the matched set of sheds from the first buck in the same area in which my friend had found his set the previous year. The only thing that changed was the formation of a drop tine off the right main beam. The next fall, I had a couple of good prospects, but none as good as the "drop-tine" buck.

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