Thanks – I did read your rules, but wanted to be sure before posting this on the Busse sub-forum, since I don’t yet have a Busse. This is a buck I’ve watched for three seasons, including this one. I saw him a number of times the first season, and something about him led me to believe he might mature into a nice buck. I passed him several times, as he was young and not particularly experienced. He also had some kind of infection along his jaw line. I wondered if it would kill him, and I nicknamed him “Cope”, as he always looked as though he had a nice chaw of Copenhagen thrown in the back of his jaw. A little crude, but it ‘s what I came up with. The infection grew as the year went on into winter, and although it never seemed to affect him, I decided I’d be surprised if he lived through it. I had him pegged at 2.5 years old that year.
Here you can see some of the lump on his jaw that led to his nickname.
Last year, I focused my attention on taking Cope. At what I believe to be 3.5 years old, he became a ghost during the season. I never saw him, but did get pictures of him the night before the archery opener, and again in February, long after the season closed. It was good to see he was alive, though, and the antler growth he put on impressed me and reinforced why you let the young deer walk. While not huge, he was impressive, and I mentally scored him at 138” gross as a main-frame 8-pointer. He did add a small 9th point on one side, but he would have been scored as an 8.
This season, just before Halloween I got a short series of pictures of Cope, and I was plenty happy to see him again and know he was still around. The rack had changed some features, but I knew it was him. The brows stayed the same, the 9th point was still there, but he’d added a matching 10th point. He’d put on a little mass and width, lost a little tine length, and I figured his antler score was probably a wash from the year before. You just never know what they’ll do – we had a pretty good drought, and I think that may have had something to do with it.
However, he was a trophy. He was now 4.5 (I’m estimating, I did send his jaw to a lab for official aging that I’ll get later) and survived relatively high hunting pressure in part of his core area for years now. Plus, I’m in the woods a lot throughout the year, I run cameras year-round, and I tend to target 1 or 2 bucks and hunt just for them. This was the one I still wanted, and was still after. Only problem was that he wasn’t around much now that he was fully mature, and I didn’t know how to close the deal.
My strategy involved a lot of not hunting – seems odd, but I kept tabs on the area with game cams, and planned to hunt him when the time was right. The first week of November, I was taking my nephew on his first deer hunt (did get to guide him to his first animal of any kind – a nice little 6-point) at a different location, but the day before I had set aside for a morning hunt for Cope. However, one of my sons kept me up most of the night holding a trash can while the little man emptied his guts in it, and when the alarm went off, I was spent. I didn’t go, couldn’t get up the energy. So, you can imagine how I felt when I later pulled a card from a camera near where I would have been sitting, and found this. Cope had strolled by at 8:00 a.m. 18 yards from where I’d have been sitting. Oh, man……
I only bowhunt, and our rifle season rolls around pretty much right in the heat of the rut. I’d been checking my cameras daily, and the day before rifle season opener I counted 8 different bucks on camera running. It was pretty obvious there was at least one doe in estrous, and rifle hunters around or not, I had to give it a try. So, opening morning of rifle season I headed out with my stick and string to see if the doe activity might bring in Mr. Cope. I wasn’t disappointed. At first light, a young buck scooted through the brush about 80 yards in front of me. 10 minutes later, I heard a stick break behind my stand, and turned to see Cope rubbing his antlers on some brush. When you watch a deer for three seasons, and chase him for 2, you get a little excited when you finally see him in daylight from a stand. About that time, what I presume to be a hot doe squirted past me, and he decided he’d follow her.
I drew, and when he passed by at roughly 15 yards, I put a 125-grain Magnus through his heart. He simply turned, and walked back behind me and stood there. I don’t miss that often, but I came to the conclusion that I did, as he was standing there looking around, acting as if all was right with the world. Meanwhile the doe started moving down the ridge a bit, and he looked at her and decided he needed to follow her again. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but I grabbed another arrow, nocked it, and looked up in time to watch him fall over dead. He’d been dead the whole time, but he apparently was unaware that he’d taken a 4-blade through the heart. I love cut-on-contact broadheads.
Long story, so forgive me if I included too much detail, but this was a great ending to a long hunt. I’ve taken bigger animals, but not ones with the history I had with this one. I’ve only rough scored him so far, as he’s at my taxidermist for a full sneak pose on an Ohio Taxidermy Supply form, but he comes in right at 140” gross. He apparently had taken to fighting, and had scars on both sides of his face, a fresh wound on the right side of his face, an antler tine hole through the hide on the top of his head, a broken left brow tine, and a bleeding gouge on his left shoulder. I’m looking for the responsible party as we speak, and hoping to put him on my chase list for next season.
I did not include any way to date when I took this buck, I noticed. I did post the buck on the Becker sub-forum right after I killed it. I also have a trail cam pic that I found later of me dragging this buck out of the woods that has a date/time stamp that I can provide. With some of the great bucks posted in this thread, I'm thinking I may have been outgunned, though. Congrats to all.
