Great job Rocket! Yes...cool pic and a beautiful rack. That will be an awesome mount! Congrats to you!!!

Congratulations!!!

Neat picture. Nice buck

Congrats Rocket!

Congrats on the buck, and that's a cool picture.

Congrats.

Congrats on a great buck, awesome pic too!

Neat picture. Now with the story and more pics

Congratulations on the kill AND thank you for using correct grammar "rackED buck".

Lonster

Great!

great job, now you will want more more more

I'm still waiting on the other pics from the photographer, I'll post them up later when I get them. This guy that took them is pretty fantastic and you guys should consider using him. He is NOT expensive at all. His name is Hunter Lindsey and he lives in Grant. PM me if you want his contact info

I've got LOTS of recommendations on Bob Rodgers so I will be using him, thanks for the tips

Anyway, 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. Another long story is the two hours it took me to get him out and onto my ATV LOL. 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!

That is awesome, Rocket! Congrats to you, sir! Well done.

Congrats

Nice deer, cool picture, congrats!

Congrats! That’s a good one!

Congrats

Good grief! So you're basically saying that someone dropped you off at a shooting house and your buck just wandered out and you pulled the trigger, right? Man you've earned this one as much as any buck I've ever seen.

Congrats, thanks for the recap

Great job