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Took my best deer ever last week!

So last Saturday morning I decided to hunt my girlfriends farm in the morning. Rather than go with me, my girlfriend decided to stay in the nice warm bed as I prepared for my hunt with a nice scent-free shower at 530AM before heading to a newly found deadfall that I wanted to sit inside. A buddy was sitting about 300 yards downwind so we were hoping to have a good morning. By 1000AM, nothing had moved and I got a message from my buddy telling me that he was getting up. No sooner I get that message, I get another message from him saying that he just spooked up 4 deer when he stood up.[:@] He told me that the deer ran the opposite way, so I wasn't expecting to see much, however, I was determined to stay in the woods til at least noon.

So about ten minutes pass and all of a sudden I hear what sounds like a train of deer coming from over the ridge directly behind me (and downwind). I get about halfway turned around when I see a large bodied and dark colored deer standing about 25 yards downwind. I can tell that it has antlers, but there is a tree blocking the full view. Next thing I know, I see four more bucks cresting the ridge directly behind me. All of a sudden, the large bodied deer moves from behind the tree and I am amazed at what I see. Now I'm excited to see what I believe to be a shooter buck, however, he and the other 4 bucks are traveling STRAIGHT towards the deadfall that I am sitting in.[:-] They creep closer and come to a stop where the big buck looks at me and then continues to walk towards me. He continues to come towards my tree, but veers off on a slight angle which has him walking along side of me by NO MORE THAN 10 YARDS! Like a dumbie, I clicked my safety off REALLY late, however, he didn't notice.

The next thing I know, one of the smaller bucks in the groups looks at me and starts the dreaded stomp. The big buck looks over at me... then down... and slowly starts to trot away while still not alerted to my position. Seeing as he is now not 10 yards away, but slowly working his way from me, I raise my blackpowder rifle in hopes that he will stop. He trots about 15 yards and comes to a dead stop quartering away. By that time, I already had him in the scope and waited about .5 second before squeezing off a beautiful shot. I watched him as he ran down through the woods only to watch him expire approximately 30-40 yards from the impact. My buddy and I met up and followed the blood trail to the deer for good measure (we could already see where he was from the impact shot). I was amazed at the overall size and uniqueness of the buck. This is by far the biggest buck I have ever seen in the wild... let alone that I have harvested. I have no idea on a score, but plan to have that done in the future. He looks to be about 4-5 years old... dressed out at a healthy 145lbs... and has what appears to be a minimum of 15 scoreable points (will have that checked when get the mount back). I must say, out of my 15 years of hunting I have practiced good scent control for about the last 10 years. To have a MATURE buck of this caliber walk by me ON THE GROUND at no more than 10 yards... and to have him come from downwind... proves to me that scent control works and is a must when in the woods. So... I hope you guys enjoyed the story and the couple pics that I have to post. Thank you to the Good Lord for allowing me the opportunity to take such a beautiful trophy! :D I apologize for the not so great pics, but I tried to get the best I could for the forum.
-Josh aka "Hammy"