I had planned on combining this and my Montana hunt into one thread, but it got pretty stretched out and I didn't want to cut this story short. My goal every deer season is to try and kill a mature buck off our lease in the mountains of Cumberland Co. It 's a 6,000-acre lease of clear-cuts, high wall bluffs, steep hillsides and ivy slicks. There isn't a lot of deer up there, but when you do see a buck most of the time he's a dandy. It's a special place to me always has been and always will be! More times than not you get humbled up there but I enjoy the challenge, and I am most proud of those bucks!
August 5, 2017 was the first time I knew about this deer I had two velvet pictures of him over a salt lick on a big long point. I didn't worry about him much though because of range shift and I had a big 8 that was showing up on all my cameras that I killed later that year. After that I wanted to try and find this buck, I studied on-x maps and spread some cameras out way across the mountain where I had never hunted. The last camera I hung which was the farthest from the original two pictures had one more picture of him on December 10, 2017 that was it, I still knew very little to nothing about him.
Early July I made a new salt lick where the last picture of him was, put a 32gb card in the camera and didn't go back until the first of October. Luckily he was there with another big buck basically every day until he shed his velvet and he vanished. Not another velvet picture or hard horn picture of him.
November 16, 2018 the last day of muzzleloader season. I went to my favorite stand that has always produced a good buck in years past an old clear-cut with a gap in a high wall bluff line. I don't go in there until November. This particular morning there was a heavy freezing fog along with a frost. The top of the clear-cut was snow white. Shortly after daylight a big bear come around the bluff line and disappeared into the thicket. At 8:45am everything was thawing out and dripping off the tree limbs. When I caught some movement way out in the clear-cut in a small patch that the sun had not melted the frost. I glassed it, and all I could see was a deer's back for the longest time, I knew it was a buck he looked like a world champion rabbit dog working that thicket out, but I had no idea what he was until he stopped and raised his head up about 125yds away. Panic set in and I just keep repeating over and over squeeze the trigger and I did at 85yds he collapsed!! I had no idea it was the buck I had tried to find the last two years until I walked up to him. According to on-x it was 1.2 miles from where he summered at to where I pulled the trigger on him. My dad and me spent the rest of the day getting him out of there. He is my biggest buck the good lord just put him and me at the right place and right time. 2018 will be a hard season to top and I thank god for that and pray for just as many memories, laughs, sunrises and blessings in this up coming year!!!
August 5, 2017 was the first time I knew about this deer I had two velvet pictures of him over a salt lick on a big long point. I didn't worry about him much though because of range shift and I had a big 8 that was showing up on all my cameras that I killed later that year. After that I wanted to try and find this buck, I studied on-x maps and spread some cameras out way across the mountain where I had never hunted. The last camera I hung which was the farthest from the original two pictures had one more picture of him on December 10, 2017 that was it, I still knew very little to nothing about him.
Early July I made a new salt lick where the last picture of him was, put a 32gb card in the camera and didn't go back until the first of October. Luckily he was there with another big buck basically every day until he shed his velvet and he vanished. Not another velvet picture or hard horn picture of him.
November 16, 2018 the last day of muzzleloader season. I went to my favorite stand that has always produced a good buck in years past an old clear-cut with a gap in a high wall bluff line. I don't go in there until November. This particular morning there was a heavy freezing fog along with a frost. The top of the clear-cut was snow white. Shortly after daylight a big bear come around the bluff line and disappeared into the thicket. At 8:45am everything was thawing out and dripping off the tree limbs. When I caught some movement way out in the clear-cut in a small patch that the sun had not melted the frost. I glassed it, and all I could see was a deer's back for the longest time, I knew it was a buck he looked like a world champion rabbit dog working that thicket out, but I had no idea what he was until he stopped and raised his head up about 125yds away. Panic set in and I just keep repeating over and over squeeze the trigger and I did at 85yds he collapsed!! I had no idea it was the buck I had tried to find the last two years until I walked up to him. According to on-x it was 1.2 miles from where he summered at to where I pulled the trigger on him. My dad and me spent the rest of the day getting him out of there. He is my biggest buck the good lord just put him and me at the right place and right time. 2018 will be a hard season to top and I thank god for that and pray for just as many memories, laughs, sunrises and blessings in this up coming year!!!
