I was able to recover a nice buck this morning that I'd shot yesterday evening (with the help of a little furry friend). Here's the story of a buck known to us as "Trashy".

I first got a picture of this funky-racked buck on September 25th in a plot of iron clay cow peas we'd planted on a power line right-of-way. I checked that camera and saw that first picture of this odd looking buck on September 26th, the day after he'd passed by the camera.



I hoped this buck and his other nice buddies (he was running in a group of 6 bucks) would continue to show up on my cameras and they did the next day on September 27th.







After seeing the pictures of this buck, my Dad named the buck "Trashy" because of all of the junk/kickers around the buck's bases.

I hoped these deer would stay close to our pea patches and green fields, but they didn't once the drought really set in. I didn't get a picture of Trashy again until October 27th (on a different camera about a quarter mile away).



We have a shooting house and 5 acres worth of green fields planted on the power line where Trashy had first shown up on camera, so we figured he might show back up here during the rut...I got in this shooting house yesterday afternoon, hoping that the rain would stop and the deer would move...I didn't see a deer until about 4:45 and it was already pretty dark, due to the rain and fog. I saw this deer about 250 yards from me and the deer was steady walking towards me. I looked through the binoculars and could quickly tell it was Trashy! I got my gun up and ready to shoot, but Trashy continued to walk directly at me. He traveled about 50 yards and crossed a ditch, but caught my wind as soon as he got on my side of the ditch. He turned toward the woodline and was about to go in when I shot. He was broadside and walking when I shot, but I felt pretty confident that I was on him good...He ran out into the middle of the field (about 30 yards) and stopped quartering away from me. I could tell he was hunched up and wobbly, like he was hit. Without knowing of a hit for sure, I shot again. Once again, Trashy ran about 30 yards and stopped facing straight away from me. I shot a third time and he crossed the ditch, headed up the power line. It was so dark and foggy at this point that I never saw the buck again and wasn't sure which direction he'd went (in the woods, up the power line, or whatever).

About 2 minutes later, a smaller buck entered this same field and acted very spooky while looking the direction Trashy had ran. This buck ended up spooking so bad that he trotted out of the field.

I called my buddy, Chaise, who was hunting on the property there with me. We waited til dark and looked and looked for any sign of a hit on the buck, but eventually quit looking after about 2 hours...I put a post on the Alabama Blood Trailing Network page on Facebook and Ammon McKinney got in touch with me. Ammon and I planned to meet this morning at 7:30 and try to use his dog, Woodrow, to find my buck.

Woodrow went to work this morning and found my buck within about an hour. There was no blood or anything anywhere to be seen, but Woodrow knew it was there! The deer was dead about 300 yards from where I'd shot at him...Coyotes had eaten the buck pretty bad, but that didn't matter! I'd hit the buck at the back of the ribs/front of the guts with my first shot. My second shot hit the buck in the hind quarter, but should've been pretty lethal too since the buck was quartering away for this shot. We couldn't tell if I'd hit him on the third shot or not.

Thank you again to Ammon and Woodrow on the recovery of my highest scoring deer ever! Trashy has 13 scorable points and I'm so tickled to have recovered him!!!



Thanks to my Dad and Chaise for their help too!






This was a free range buck. And, not from the big pen!!!