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My 08 Missouri ML buck

I’ll start this story off by saying that I have really put my time and effort into killing a good buck this season, hopefully topping last year’s buck. Well score-wise, I did it.
With this weekend being opening weekend of firearms season, and our lease that we were heading to an hour and a half from home, we headed straight from school. We got to the farm house we would be staying at around dark on Friday. We got everything set up, ate, and went to bed.
Saturday AM:
Woke up at around 4:50, took our scent free showers, and hopped in the truck for the 10 minute ride to the ridge we would be hunting. I got in my stand (I explain it in the end) at about 5:50. I got ready, and started looking around for deer. Well right at first light, I saw white moving about 40 yards to my northwest. I could tell it was a huge bodied deer, then I saw the antlers. He was nothing short of 140”. Absolute stud, but I could never get a clear shot. So I sat, and waited and looked some more. At about 8:00, I hadn’t seen any more deer, so I closed my eyes just to think back on all of my deer seasons, and the buck I had seen at first light. I ended up falling asleep :eek:. That was the first time I had fallen asleep deer hunting in my life. Well at about 8:10, something woke me up. I figured it was just another squirrel in the leaves 5 yards from me, so I turn my head, and there’s a doe staring straight at me. She bolts after 5 seconds. Frustrated, I decided to turn the can over a couple times, just to see what happened. No more than a minute later, the doe is back in. I start getting positioned for a shot, then I hear something. The doe turns over her shoulder a good 5 times, and I keep hearing the noise. I bet you can guess what the noise is ;). I hold off, and after about another 3 minutes, I see antlers coming from where the doe came from. After giving the 95” 7 point some serious thought, I elected to pass. After him and the doe got past me, I turned the can over and grunted a couple times to see if they’d come back. He came running back, grunting more, and he even growled 5 times. Just a great experience for me. I saw 8 deer total Saturday morning. 4 does, a fork-horn, the seven point, one shooter buck a ways down the hill from me, and the 140”er. Great morning. Saw nothing from the same stand Saturday PM.
Sunday AM:
This would be my sit that I’d have till next weekend. Saw nothing until about 8, when a spike was running 3 does around. After I lose sight of them, I turned the can over. About 5 minutes later, I see a deer to my Southeast (the same direction I the seven point came from) with his nose to the ground. I immediately saw the antlers glisten in the sun, and thought shooter. So I get my 45 caliber muzzleloader on the rest, and put the crosshairs in the 4’ wide shooting lane he was going to walk through. He walks though, I stop him with a mah, and shoot him at about 40 yards quartering to me slightly. After the smoke cleared, I watched him run through the woods, and listened after I lost sight of him. I was very confident I heard him crash, which I did. I called my Dad, told him what happened, and while I was on the phone with him, he shot a button buck (thought it was a doe). I then call my brother and he wants to come help me track my buck. I was surprised since he was ruining prime hunting time. After about 30 minutes, we were standing where I shot him at. We saw where he kicked up leaves, and found a ton of hair. After about a minute, we started to find blood. After starting off slow, the blood trail got massive. About 75 yards on the trail, my brother looks across a drainage, and sees the white. He gets very excited, but I didn’t see it for another 25 yards. The buck went about 110 yards, and couldn’t make it back up the drainage. It looked like someone poured a bucket of blood where he tried to get up. My brother stayed by the deer, and I went to help my Dad get the 4 wheeler. We couldn’t drag my deer up the ridge, so we decided to drag him down. Big mistake. We had to drag him ¾ of a mile through the thickest stuff I’ve ever seen. It definitely wasn’t easy with a 200+ pound deer. We get to the bottom, and there’s a 4 wheeler trail, so someone from camp picked us up, and drove us back to the camp.
My stand was on a 35 yard ledge on the side of a ridge. You can’t see more than 60 yards anywhere from it, and can’t shoot past 50 (20 in most places). My Brother was sitting on a pinch-point on the ridge about 150 yards northwest of me.
I’m pretty sure he’s a 3.5 year old, that will go right around 110”. I have more pictures on an actual camera, but can’t get them on this computer, so I’ll put those up for the contest after I can. These are from my brother’s cell phone.
Thanks for taking the time to look.