Most deer hunters are heading for the back stretch of the deer season.  Some will still have an opportunity during a late season muzzle-loading season or archery season.  Some states even have some firearm seasons fall into January.  Whatever time you have left, there has already been quite a bit of pressure put on the deer population in your area from the various deer seasons.  You may feel it is almost useless to go to your stand because nothing but small bucks and does are left.

      If the big buck in your area didn’t make it through the gun deer season, or you haven’t seen that monster buck you saw in the early season, don’t despair. 

     Sometimes I need some motivation to hang in there at a certain stand or just to keep my head up while hunting.  Here’s what I try to relate back to and keep a fresh outlook on each day hunting.

     Let me share with you, two hunts on video that might help you go to that stand Saturday morning with a glimmer of hope of tagging a trophy buck.

     First, I want to take a hunt from the Primos Truth IV Deer Hunting video called Face to Face.  Wil Walker was the hunter and he was bowhunting the last day of bow season in Mississippi.  Jeff Sherwood was running the video camera.   Just before one o’clock in the afternoon, a huge buck came by, following a doe.  If you have followed the Truth series videos, you know when Wil draws on a deer, he usually doesn’t miss. 

      True to form, Wil shot the big buck and even witnessed it go down.  When they got to the buck, he discovered this was the same buck he had hunted earlier in the year and had seen 3 times before, but had failed to have the buck come within bow range. 

     Now, you might say, “so, he finally got the buck within bow range.”  Yes he did, but what is amazing is, this buck was 1 ½ to 2 miles, as the crow flies, from where he had hunted the buck earlier in the year and he had no idea this buck was even in the area.

      The next video is Roger Raglin’s video entitled Quest for a Boone & Crockett.  A hunter in Iowa had taken a huge non-typical buck.  His rack was massive and his left antler had a two drop tines, one of which looked like a club, making it a very distinctive rack and one you could recognize the minute you saw it.

      Marty Edwards killed the big buck and was showing it off and decided to take it to an old deer hunter who lived way back in the woods, off the beaten path.  The old hunter had taken his fair share of big bucks in his day and Edwards knew he would appreciate such a trophy deer.

     When Edwards pulled up to the house and told his friend to come look at the big buck he had taken, as soon as the old hunter saw the buck, he stated, “Well I’ll be.”

    Edwards asked why the old hunter had made the remark and his reply was to follow him  into the house.  There he put a video in the VCR and showed Edwards a video he had made of his buck when he was in velvet, that he had shot on tape out of his kitchen window.  The big buck was in his back yard and there was no mistake with the drop tine that this was the same buck.  He had documented this buck on video ever since he was one-year-old and knew the old buck was 8 ½ years old.

     This buck had been taken over a mile-and-a-half from where the old hunter had taken his video.  The big buck had wandered out of his home range and had not been seen by the old hunter after November 1.

     The point is, if you know the buck in your area didn’t make it through gun season or you haven’t seen a trophy buck in your area and you don’t think it is worth the time to hunt there, do as I do and recall these two hunting experiences.  I try and tell myself that a big buck could walk in front of my stand at any moment and knowing that big bucks travel out of their home range from time to time keeps my incentive up.  Both of the bucks taken in these instances were after the peak of the rut, therefore indicating big bucks may travel out of their home range in search of receptive does. 

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Last modified: December 15, 1999 

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