I FINALLY got an opportunity at my #1 target buck yesterday afternoon and it feels SO GOOD to have him on the ground!!! This is the story of a buck called “Tom”.

I own a small tract of land that joins my in-laws’ property and there’s a good deer population in the area. Most of the land in this area is row crops and pasture, but my property is mixed pine and hardwood. Most of the deer bed in and heavily use the hardwood timber on my property and my in-laws’. There are lots of small tracts in this area and most of them have homes on them, so the “riff raff” and pressure on these deer is exponential. You’ll understand more about that as this story continues…

My wife’s uncle also hunts in this area (his property joins mine) and we have a great relationship. We have always tried hard to really manage the deer and let the bucks gets some age on them. The genetics in the area are very good and the nutrition is exceptional with all of the row crops and hardwood mast…He and I let lots of nice bucks walk last year, in hopes that they could live and grow another year. The hunting pressure has increased a lot in our area over the last couple of years, so it’s gotten even harder to let these bucks reach maturity.

We had 3 mature bucks on camera prior to the opening of bow season this year and I began feeding them heavily and honing in on them to try to get an opportunity at one of them with my bow. The white oaks on my in-laws’ property produced a bumper acorn crop this year, so I obviously knew many of the deer would use that block of woods as the soybeans would soon be picked…I have a ladder stand, corn pile, and camera in my in-laws’ hardwoods that’s in a very good spot. The deer ease through the hardwoods on their way to the crop fields to spend their nights in the fields. This area is extremely hard to access without spooking deer!! I was in this ladder stand in late October when some bucks came in to my corn pile at dark. I had already lowered my bow to the ground and packed my stuff up when I heard their footsteps coming. The deer fed on corn for a few minutes before heading on out to the soybean field. I had to make a big loop through the hollow to avoid spooking these deer on my way to the truck. I checked my camera when I got to my truck and one of those bucks was the biggest deer we had on camera, a big 9 point…I knew I had to be back in that stand again as soon as the conditions permitted!!

About 4 days later, the wind was right and I went back to the ladder stand. The opportunity I was hoping for came right at dark that afternoon: the 9 point came easing over the hardwood ridge right at dark. It was getting very dusky, but I could still see the pins on my bow sight as the buck made his way to 25 yards of my ladder stand. I drew my bow when the buck turned his head the opposite direction and settled on him. I released the arrow and my lighted nock was on its way. Unfortunately, a small tree limb was about 15’ on my side of the deer and I couldn’t see the small limb in the dusky darkness. The arrow glanced off the limb and grazed the buck at a weird angle across his neck. There was 8-10 brown hairs on my broadhead, but no blood. I knew the buck wasn’t hurt, but also knew that I’d educated him in this madness!! Little did I know at the time: what a game of “cat and mouse” this would become!!! You can see here where the broadhead grazed his neck:




I let the area rest for a little while after this miss, but I encountered this buck in that same stand about 2 weeks later right at dark again. This time, it was too dark to see my bow sights and I had to sit in my stand for a while after dark to let the deer ease off without me spooking them…This was the third time I’d encountered the buck within 25 yards of my stand and I hadn’t killed him yet. I told my wife’s uncle “This buck is like a cat!! I swear he has 9 lives!!”.

I knew the game of “cat and mouse” would only get worse as the additional hunting pressure from neighboring properties was soon to increase when gun season opened. I also knew that this deer would definitely be seen by a hunter as the rut approached. I was just hopeful that I could be that hunter and kill him before he began roaming!!!

December rolled around and I was still after the 9 point as often as work, family life, and the weather conditions allowed. I saw a few 3 year old bucks during the heart of the rut around Christmas, but I never saw the 9 point. He was still in the area and would taunt me on my cameras in the daylight whenever I wasn’t able to hunt. It was pretty obvious what was happening: the buck would vanish from my cameras for ~72 hours, but would then show up all alone. He was doing the majority of the breeding!!









Two different times: I would be hunting in one spot and the buck would show up in the daylight at another stand location. My wife’s uncle told me one day: “Watching you chase this deer is like an episode of Tom and Jerry”. I totally agreed with him (as I felt deflated and exhausted) and we decided that the buck had earned the name “Tom”!!!

The day after Christmas, I was hunting in my shooting house which is only about 20 yards from the property line. The shooting house looks North and I can’t even see to the South onto my neighbor’s property. The shooting house is enclosed on the back wall and I’ve planted 3 rows of sawtooth oaks along the property line to help block their view of my foodplot. The oaks are 25’ tall now, so it’s a nice screen to give the deer some cover when they’re in the plot…About 7:30 that morning, I heard a small engine crank up and didn’t think much about it. After a few minutes, the noise kept getting closer and closer and I finally opened the door of the shooting house to see what the noise was. It was the next door neighbor’s son on his Christmas present: a 2-stroke dirt bike. He rode laps through their hayfield, sometimes driving within 30 yards of my shooting house. I couldn’t be mad at a 10 year old kid that was having the time of his life on his family’s property!! I climbed on down and gave him a thumbs up as I walked to the truck to head home.

With the rut winding down, the does have began grouping back up and getting back to a more normal feeding pattern. I’ve watched these deer from a distance lately and I wanted to get creative with devising a different plan to try and kill “Tom”…There’s a row of old, rotten hay bales that I could make a ground blind in that should put me in the money for the recent deer movement. My father-in-law had watched Tom walk across the cut bean field about 5 minutes behind a group of 6 does/fawns the afternoon prior. I made a blind in the hay bales that day and settled in for the afternoon hunt. About 4:55 pm, here come the does over the ridge of the cut bean field. I’d been watching them about 3 minutes when the mailman comes flying down the road in his Jeep to deliver mail to the neighbors. Needless to say, the deer that were 75 yards from the road took off running!!!

These deer were walking across the cut bean field of my in-laws’ and going onto my property to feed in my foodplot. Tom had shown up on camera at the foodplot feeder twice at night in the last 3 days…Yesterday afternoon’s weather was shaping up to be the type of front that all of us deer hunters dream of!!! I got all of my work done and was able to head to the woods about 3:15 pm. I knew that I couldn’t withstand the wind if I was in a tree stand or even the blind in the haybales. I knew that my shooting house was the only place to go…It began sleeting at 4:00 as the wind howled at gusts to 40 mph. I felt confident that the deer would move and if there was ever a time for Tom to make an appearance, it should be today!! Sure enough, at 5:05 pm Tom stepped into the foodplot behind 3 does/fawns and I heart shot him at 80 yards!!! He ran diagonally toward the woodline and I watched him fall about 30 yards from the shot site.

After over 25 sits for this deer this season, I was just about as exhausted and deflated as I could be!!! But, it’s like my Dad and I have always said: “You’ve got to hunt smart and be persistent!! Your whole season can be made in about 10 seconds!!”

Tom has a 19.5” inside spread and is the widest buck I’ve ever killed. He grossed at 133 7/8”…It sure feels GREAT to not be the mouse anymore (“Jerry”)!!!!!

Man that's awesome!!! Congrats

Good read and nice deer. Congratulations

Congrats! Great deer!

Congrats. That’s a good one. It’s rewarding when it all finally comes together. The prior failures just makes the success that much sweeter.

Good read

Congrats brotha! Fantastic story!!

Congrats buddy

Congratulations, beautiful deer!!

Man awesome story.Thanks for sharing and congratulations!

Great story. Thanks for the pics. Awesome deer. Congrats.

Awesome story and Congrats on a fine buck !!!!

Fine deer buddy! Glad you got him

Congratulations

Awesome story! Glad it all worked out

Nice buck!

Congrats, great deer and good story. I'm just curious, what part of cullman county? With you saying the rut is over, I assume northern and western.

Northern Cullman County

Congrats!!