Home for just a few hours, before heading back to deer camp.

Opening day was good, as I harvested this tall 8-point while he was feeding/chasing does in a food plot.

I was in my stand about 600 yards away, and I saw a large deer head into the food plot about 4:00pm. INstead of sitting in my stand until the end of legal shooting light, I decided to get down 15 minutes early, and see if the big deer I had seen entering the food plot was still there. I snuck thru the woods, and upon entering the edge of the food plot, I realized I had 4 does within 15 yards of me, and they all were "locked in" on me. After quickly scanning the rest of the food plot, I decided to just continue walking , as that was the way back to my vehicle anyway. After slowly walking about 25 more yards (with the does still totally staring at me, but amazingly not spooking) I scanned another part of the food plot. Something looked out of place. Looking harder, I realized I saw a large piece of white "wood" amongst the darker grasses and bushes. Suddenly the "wood" moved, and I realized it was a nice buck. Because of the tall grass surrounding the food plot, I was unable to see his body, or even much of his head. Suddenly, he turned and started walking almost directly at me. I tensed up, as I was standing in the middle of a bare trail that cuts across one of the food plots, and at 6'2" 325 pounds, I stick out like a sore thumb. Quickly the buck emerged from the tall weeds, and I placed my crosshairs just below his throat patch. A shot from my Remington Pump 30.06, and he disappeared.

After scanning the area, I rapidly covered the 75 yards between us, and found my buck.




Though not the widest buck I have taken, this is certainly the biggest over all.

Looks like we are off to a great start. i would love to see a buck like any of these. i will be going out lots during thanksgiving and the rut should be going strong

Nice Buck dampland.

Neck Shot? I see alot of blood on the neck.

Good job boys, nice to see a few pictures on our team thread.

I am still holding my 1st either sex tag, haven't had as much time in the past week but plan to head out to my blind tomorrow am in the ML zone and then maybe drag out the rifle for saturday.

Keep us posted.

Yep, it was a single neck shot. He was walking at me, and when he stepped up onto higher ground, I had a perfect shot at this neck/upper chest. My shot went thru the neck, and struck the spine. He dropped instantly. The blood trail was about .0005 inches long!

What did ghe score?

I have not had him scored yet. I don't know anyone who knows how to, so I will have to search a bit. His spread is only about 16 inches, but his G2's & G3's are quite long, and he has decent mass.

My UNeducated guess would be 100-110"

I do know he is my biggest buck to date, so I'm stoked!

Dampland congrats again. Here is a link to Boone & Crockett for scoring a Typical Whitetail, it is actually pretty good but if you have any question post back and I am sure we can help you through the process.
http://www.boone-crockett.org/bgRecords/bc_scoring_typwhitetail.asp?area=bgRecords&typ e=Typical+Whitetail+Deer

All you need is a Flexible tape measure (sewing ones work well if you don't have a flexible steel tape), pen and paper. You round everything to the nearest 1/8th for the contest (ie 1/2" is 4/8's).

In terms of scoring:
- Basically what your looking for is greatest inside spread(forget the tip to tip and greatest overall spread they are descriptives of the animalbut count nothing towards your actual B&C score!!)
- Then you measure the beam length. This is done on the outside of the beam from the pedicle to the tip of the beam.
- Being your deer is a 4x4, you'll have3 tine(G's) measurements per side.
- Measure where the tine originates on the beam to the tip along the outside curve of the tine(Point).
- Circum. (or H measurements) are all that is left. You get 4 H measurements with B&C. Being yours is a 4x4 this is what you need to do for the H measurements.
-H1 is at the base between the pedicle(Burr) and the brow tine(G1), H2 is mid point between G1 & G2, H3 is mid point between G2 & G3 and finally H4 is mid point between G3 and the tip of the beam(being a 4x4).

Add her all up and you have your B&C Gross score.

Hope it helps, like I said if you run into problems let us know.

Oh yeah....Good Luck

Skeeter, thanks for the scoring info.

I will be taking him to the butcher tomorrow, and I will cut off the antlers then....I'll try to score them this week and post results.

But right now, I'd say he'll end up around 215" net !

Well being that I have no good news from my last gun hunt - this will be short.

Last weekends gun hunt, I saw NO bucks - anywhere, at any time (except dead ones). I can't figure it out. My nephew saw 2 and shot and missed what he described as a huge 10 pointer.

I did take the biggest doe I have ever shot. She was a good one, looked obese laying in the tall grass after a head shot. So freezer is FULL and there is only one objective possibly remaining for this season - GIRTH & INCHES.