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Blood trail
I sat at my mother-in-law’s table, eyeing two chicken wings and a pile of okra. I’d declined her offer to heat up the plate, and though I was starving, I couldn’t force down much more than a couple of bites. Adrenaline seems to fill the gut as much as the blood vessels. We chitchatted, but the only detail I could absorb was on the wall clock. I glanced at it again: 7:58 p.m. I’d shot the buck 43 minutes earlier, and it was only at the urging of my wife, Michelle, that I was sitting there not looking for my arrow. “You’d tell anyone in your spot to wait; give the deer time,” she said. “That’s what you need to do now. Wait.” It’s easy advice to give. It’s not always easy to follow.
Early season buck
Several winters ago, a severe ice storm hit western Kentucky was hit that left my parents without power for 14 days. Though a nightmare for people in the area, the storm was a godsend for the deer woods. Countless trees were broken, and the thickets that grew up amongst the tops and stumps became virtually impenetrable. Of course, that made identifying any specific bedding area pretty tricky, too. Yet, the Big 8 provided me some clues. Based on the photos, to enter the plot, he didn’t use any of the dozen deer trails that snaked through the thickets but, rather, our gravel access road. I figured that catching a photo of him stepping onto the road would be easy to get. I was mistaken. I set cameras on every faint deer trail spilling onto that road and never captured a single photo of Big 8. In late October, I got more aggressive and followed a deer path 200 yards into the thicket, where I found a small opening full of white oaks utterly destroyed by huge rubs and scrapes. I felt sure that I’d found the spot. I hung a camera and a lock-on stand in the opening, and hunted it morning and evening as the wind allowed. I saw does—and captured some photos of smaller bucks—but never Big 8. Still, on occasion, I’d capture a ghostly, late-night picture of him, walking out of that gravel road and into the food plot. By early November, just before rifle season, he simply vanished altogether. The rut of 2015 came and went, and I ended up filling my tag with a smaller buck on a different farm. I assumed that Big 8 was probably dead.
bucks in food plot
As the opening day of the 2016 season neared, two nice 8-pointers began appearing regularly in the food plot, often in shooting light. With three good bucks in the area, I knew I’d be hunting the plot as much as the wind allowed, but I felt my chances of even seeing Big 6 were virtually none. On opening day, instead of hunting the ladder stand at the intersection of the road, I climbed into a lock-on on the other side of the plot. It’s a great rut stand, but one I typically avoid in the early season because leaving it requires me to cross the plot after climbing down, which frequently results in spooked deer. Yet, the stand is perfect for the forecasted east wind that I had and huntable on either a due north or due south wind. An hour before dark, both 8-pointers walked into the clover plot and began feeding toward me. When they were 60 yards out, someone on a neighboring property fired up a chainsaw and began cutting firewood. The bucks turned and eased out of the field. I hunted the plot two more evenings of opening week without seeing a deer. The following week, I was out of town.
big Kentucky buck
I ate maybe five bites of dinner. Michelle and I left at 8:15 p.m., because I could stand it any longer. The plan was to search for my arrow and any initial blood in the field, and then make the tracking decision from there. Turns out, the decision was easy to make. My arrow was stuck in the clover, easy to find, and soaked in blood. Michelle picked up the trail at the edge of the timber, and it was heavy. Big 6 was laying dead not 40 yards deep, shot perfectly through both lungs. Had I not aimed low, I would’ve hit him high. Had he not dropped, I would’ve missed him.
mature whitetail buck
After gutting and loading the buck, I grabbed the camera from the 6×6 post. I hadn’t checked it since the opener, and there were some 2,000 photos on the card. Big 6 had been in the plot virtually every night—but never earlier than 10 p.m., and never later than 3 a.m. The sole daylight photo of him was taken at 7:03 the afternoon I shot him—and that photo is so washed out that the deer is unrecognizable. Had I not been there at that exact time, it’s likely that the buck would’ve died of old age without anyone ever seeing him. We talk a lot in F&S about skills and preparation. But where mature whitetails are concerned, there’s usually a hell of a lot of luck involved, too. I’ve shot some bucks that outscore Big 6. I roughed him at 139 2/8 inches, which is simply incredible for a 3×3 whitetail (and a serious case against antler point restrictions). Much of antler comes from his main beams, which are 25 and 24 3/8 inches long, respectively, and with 36 1/8 inches of mass. He’s likely one of the largest 6-point bucks ever taken in Kentucky, particularly with a bow, but of course, none of those qualifiers matter much. Big 6 is my buck of a lifetime—and that two-year chase is one I’ll never forget.
It’s the story of a Super 6—and a classic tale of bowhunting obsession.