I usually don't post pics of deer i kill. gonna make an exception for this one because it is a pretty unique. he is no monster for sure, just a solid shooter but this is the first deer i have ever killed that i had a pic of. it is also my first late season mature buck.Decided i was gonna hunt a tract of land i just recently purchased. Hadn't hunted it much and not in over a month. Went for a run at 3:00 and finished up at 3:45. decided i still had time to hit one of the food plots. went to shoot a doe, although i have a very hard time making myself shoot a doe. Had two young does come to a small secluded food plot at 4:10, just as i got settled in. Talk myself out of shooting one (as usual). I realized this was my last deer hunt of the season and was content knowing that i had completed a season in which i saw a deer on every single hunt. it was getting dark fast. i watched an owl land in the tree beside my stand when i heard a commotion up the logging road that lead away from the plot. saw this ol boy limp across the gap, pushing a doe. i scoped him through the opening and tried to make sure it wasn't one of the young ten points i have passed already. could tell he was mature and so i picked an opening and fired. he rolled right at the shot and jump off the logging road and i shot again as he disappeared from sight. Both shots had found their mark and the second was not needed. he went just a few feet. shot him with my daughters ruger 77 compact 243 winchester. I have a lot of history with this buck on trail cam. he was on virtually every camera on the property in mid october, then we noticed him getting camera shy. he started to stare at the camera around the edges of range. he was absolutely massive in oct. From the pics i would have guessed him at 4.5 or 5.5. He only came in the dead of night, Then, like a ghost, he disappeared on oct 24th. not another pic on any camera, and i changed locations just in case they were seeing the IR glow. When he returned this evening, he was limping badly. his right knee was swollen and could not bend. his rear right hock was the same way. his lower leg had been grazed by a bullet as well or so it appeared. I was have bet the farm, he had met his demise. his story is way more impressive to me than his age. here are the before and after pics. he dressed 131 pounds and was 18.5" inches wide. from the pics, i bet he lost 50 pounds, of course much of his degeneration probably came from injury not just rut stress.
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