HuntingNet.com Forums - View Single Post - The big buck I was after survived the season
Old 02-21-2017, 07:05 PM
  #1  
TN Lone Wolf
Typical Buck
 
TN Lone Wolf's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2016
Location: Martin, TN
Posts: 854
Thumbs up The big buck I was after survived the season

Last year, I regularly got trail camera pictures of a pretty decent buck. Although he wasn't quite as big as my sister's monstrous 9-point from 2015, he was still quite respectable:





One morning during muzzleloader season, I finally encountered him. He stepped out broadside over 100 yards away from my blind; an easy shot for a muzzleloading rifle or my 300 Encore, but not for the new CVA Optima pistol that I had only fired to 50 yards maximum. In spite of the most territorial grunts I could muster with my grunt tube, he turned tail and left the plot. My sister wasn't sympathetic, telling me I would have had him if I hadn't been messing around with a muzzleloading pistol. Considering he was the only decent buck any of us saw that season, I began to wish either she or my dad was with me so they could take him.

Until now, that is. I got around to checking my cameras, and to my pleasant surprise the deer I though had long since fallen to someone else's bullet has returned:





Based on these images, I don't think he's as old as I originally thought. I had guessed 4.5, but now I'm convinced he's 3.5. I'm really excited to see what he's going to look like next year. Talk about good motivation to see if I can stretch the Optima out to 100 yards or longer.
TN Lone Wolf is offline