Mihajlo Simsic

I've had many successful archery seasons that I was grateful to have. But this one is my best one so far. All these were taken with a Scorpyd Aculeus 460 with a Killer Instinct Lumix speedring optic. 400gr bolt with 125gr NAP spitfire. This is Ontario, if you apply in the summer you get two tags. One is a antlerless deer in a chosen WMU or a buck in any WMU. The additional tag is an antlerless deer or buck in a chosen WMU. You are allowed to use other's tags if they are accompanying your hunt within a certain distance.

Season starts off great. During mid-October two of my family members are sitting in another spot with 6 tags between the three of us. An hour in I take a yearling doe 25 yards behind me. Feeling restless on the stand I climb down to check and follow the doe 40 yards to her resting place. I hear walking behind me and slowly stand up, I'm met with a button buck facing me head on at 15 yards. I aim and shoot just below the base of his neck to his right, the bolt zips through him and goes 3" in the ground behind him. He doesn't even make it 20 yards. Later on I hear my dad land a mature 145lb doe.

Mihajlo Simsic

We didn't see as much as a single deer was seen since that day. So we decide to hunt for bucks in a different WMU in a large private bush we know to hold large bucks, but is hard to hunt. Before 5PM a nice 130" ten point pops up out of nowhere. I have no shots and he heads uphill through the bush towards the field. I climb from my stand and intercept him if he heads right into the laneway. He does and I take him at 60 yards when he passes infront of the entrance with only a few seconds to aim. Perfect double lung placement and he runs 150 yards before he collapses in the middle of the field. Upon recovery we discover he had taken a beating from another buck, eluding to a bigger buck in the area.
Here is a detailed map below. Red is me and blue is the buck

Mihajlo Simsic

A couple weeks roll by and we head out with a family friend to go after the suspected big buck in the area. By 4:15PM I see no does, I suspect they're somewhere else and I move to check out the field. In the detailed map below, I am Red. In the field, I see the largest buck I've ever seen with my two eyes (blue). Accompanied by 5 or so does (pink). A 6-point (green) pops up and begins to spar with the large buck for a bit. Meanwhile two more does and a 4-point (orange) pop up within 5-20 yards of me forcing me to stay still. One of the does moves into the bush to my left until she gets behind me and winds me. On edge, she runs out to the edge of the bush, this catches the large buck's attention and he moves in from 200 - 60 yards of me. With not a second to waste I pop out and take aim with at least 6 pairs of eyes on me. I let the bolt fly and follow a red painted trail to a 160" 245lb 12-point. Our family friend tags the buck and helps us drag him out. We were more than happy to reward him with most of the meat.
Detailed map is below, all in bold is the colour guide.

Viking1204

Great archery season, wow!

Timbrhuntr

Well done your avatar says Windsor so assuming hunting southwestern Ontario. I have seen some big deer while out scouting several easily 200 inch net unfortunately getting permission is worse than the chance of winning the lottery. It sure is nice to be able to get 2 deer tags again though . I was lucky to kill a nice buck and still have a tag left to chase a big 10 around until Dec 31st !

Rob in VT

Awesome buck, congrats!

Mihajlo Simsic

Thanks! Yeah definitely getting permission is nearly impossible down here. During spring turkey I called over 200 properties and only got permission for 2 small heavily hunted properties... Luckily my dad had permission for this bush for like 10 years which seems to be the only bush with deer in it other than the public bush we hunt.

Timbrhuntr

At one time I had permission on 4 properties down to one 40 acre place now. Before guys started to really chase turkeys I had 7 spots in the spring 0 now ! Used to be able to get permission for coyote in the winter but now I see them everywhere but nobody will let you cross their property to hunt them. There is a whole new breed of landowners here now and they are all city dwellers that are moving out and don't like hunting sucks !!

Mihajlo Simsic

I couldn't agree more! Deer cause thousands of dollars in damage annually to crops, coyotes eat pets and livestock, landowners have dozens of acres of bush they've never touched... Yet landowners would sooner call the cops on you than give you the time of day. Hell, even if you're hunting the neighbouring property they'll stur up a storm. Mind you this is while only using archery. I've had people tell me "you can't hunt crown land" I've had waterfront owners try to shoo me away from their docks when I'm over 20 yards away in a Kayak.