Driftless hunting 2014...

...i saw lots of deer and plenty of nice bucks but no shooters... my family did a pretty big deer drive right along a popular driftless area stream... i managed to help spook a nice "cull" buck to the standers, and as luck would have it, my little brother knocked over this sweet buck...


notice how one side is straight up and down and the other side of the rack has the more natural swoop?? we didnt want this buck to breed these kind of genetics into the herd, if in fact this deformity was genetic and not injury related...we did see an absolute giant (180inch+) come out during this drive, but no one managed to drop him down... maybe next year....



...also ive included a blurry photo of a trail cam picture from my relative's land.... this is a TRIPLE drop tine BEHEMOTH...believe me when i say this....this deer will definitely shake up the record books around sauk county if/when he is bested next year...

dubbs! holy hell! that is a brute! epicness...

congrats on bringing down that tank... drop tines make me sweaty... how did you manage to stay calm when you were lookin at him?? what did he score??


..yeah, i think most hunting shows use the term "cull buck" just because they want to kill something on film... i would say 75% of the ones i see on tv are just immature bucks killed by some goof inside a high fence ...

we had pics of this guy and knew something was up with him, in fact we have sheds from his ?father? from 2010 that we found one valley over and knew that something just wasnt right...both right antlers stuck straight in the air and had weird tine formation...

...i think this buck would have looked cool next year and might have put out an even weirder eye guard or some junk, but deep down inside i feel like this guy was just a pretender to the throne, a gorgeous creature no doubt, but not true royalty like we are looking for... and he tasted awesome....

It was incredibly lucky that I shot this deer.

I was hunting public land that I had never scouted and only hunted once before. It was the second to last day of the second slug season. There were boot tracks everywhere and I didn't see one deer track on my mile hike in.

The woods were dead so I got down from my tree stand a half hour before sunset. I decided to walk the edge of the cornfield on the way back to my truck. As I'm walking I look up and see a deer about 75 yards into the woods. I realize it is a buck and he is heading my way. I didn't have time or enough cover to take my climbing stand off my back. I just nocked an arrow and kneeled out in the open and hoped things worked out. Luckily the wind was in my favor. The buck kept slowly working my way. I knew he was going to come out of the woods right at me. I lost sight of him when he was about 25 yards away because of the steepness of the hill and brush. I drew and watched as his antlers came back into view. It seemed like an eternity for him to take those last few steps into the open.

Just when I didn't think I could hold my bow back anymore he stepped into the open at 15 yards and I let the arrow fly. He reared up on his back legs and fell over. My arrow must have deflected off something and I spined him. I quickly got up and sent another arrow into his chest to finish the kill.

We roughly scored it at 175" still waiting on the official score.

...lookin at my camera, found this pic that i was sposed to post... 130"+

Edited by user Thursday, January 12, 2017 6:33:43 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Here is one of the big ones, shortly before he picked up a doe about 50 yards from my stand, and then followed her the other direction.