While growing up, I never had a chance to build much of a history with any deer. So lately, I have been blessed with some prime ground, and great opportunities to build history. I started becoming selective, letting my deer get some age to them, and only pursuing a few each year. There is nothing more exciting than watching a deer grow up on camera, watching him all fall, and then picking up his antler in the spring. Some of my deer are complete ghosts up until the first sighting. Others have been around for a few years and now are becoming ghosts themselves.
The summer of 2013 was no different for me with getting my inventory of bucks. I used Monster RAXX mineral setups and hung my cameras. I got my usual deer that I had a history with, but not nearly as many young bucks as I am used to seeing. That threw me into worry mode, and all fall produced little sightings of young bucks. The morning of November 4th however, the light switch was flipped. With a bad wind we had sat down to do some rattling and had a great looking eight point come in. He was tall and narrow, but had a heck of a brow! We didn’t get a shot, he spooked off and we thought was gone forever. However, I rattled and snort wheezed and got him to come back in within 20 yards of us. It however was his day and we did not get a shot, but forever will that day be stuck in our heads. We dubbed this deer “Candlestick” because of a tremendous brow he had. Video of that hunt can be seen here!
Fast forward to the spring of 2014. We have had tremendous snow in North Iowa, so we made a mad dash to SW Iowa for a one day trip. The first farm, The first walk, The first antler..Candlestick! While it wasn’t the side with the big brow, it is however a spectacular four point side. The “weak” side is sixty one inches, and is one of the best antlers in my collection now from the history we are building with this deer.
We found one more antler that day from a deer that I have 2 years worth of sheds from. Last year he was a small five point with a broken brow, and this year he is a bigger five point. This deer so far has been avoiding my cameras like the plague, but it’s not uncommon for them to do on this farm. It all adds up to the history with these deer, and how individual they all really are.