My 2013 archery season started with high expectations to say the least!! I now had access to over 10,000 acres of some of the best deer hunting in Iowa. So I set my sights high and decided I was not going to shoot anything under 170. Now I was given a hard time by my buddies about being too picky and how crazy I was to set my limits so high. I stuck with the thought that I could not shoot a big buck if I shoot the first nice buck I saw.
I had watched my Covert Trail Cameras all year and we only had a few bucks in the 170 range found. But I had one thing going for me. As the manager of Whitetail Xtreme in Southwest Iowa, I had 12 bowhunters in camp and they were coming back with reports of giant bucks on each farm. So the scouting was all taken care of for me. When my last bowhunters left they had told about a really tall heavy buck on one of our farms. I hunted it a few times and had not seen him yet.
As first shotgun season drew near I was looking at the fact that I may just not kill a 170 with my bow this year. In all honesty I was fine with that I had a ton of great encounters with a lot of bucks from 150 to 160 that made my season one of the most enjoyable ever. I went in to guide mode and started moving stands around for my incoming gun hunters.
On December 2nd I had 2 guys in camp that were scouting and setting stands for 1st gun. We went to the farm that the bowhunters had seen this tall giant on and moved a stand for the next hunter coming in. I happened to look along a ditch that runs the back side of our property and notice a big rack stick up out of the grass. I moved towards it and it moved from left to right. I had just spotted this stud of a buck bedded upwind from me and he had no idea I was there.
I went to the truck and changed into my Mossy Oak and grabbed my bow. I made the long walk back to the point where the buck was bedded. My 2 hunters, that had shown up to help move stands, I explained to them what was going on and they watched from a distance as I eased up along the creek and got to within 15 yards of this deer. As I drew my bow, I stepped up over the bank. The heavy racked raised his head and looked my way. Too little too late for the buck! As I had already let my arrow fly and with a prefect hit penetrating behind his shoulder. The blood trail was easy to follow and I got to put my hands on this monster. He had a huge palmation on his right side and was what started as a main frame 8 his G2’s are 13 1/2 inches long and the mass was amazing. The buck green scored at 174 3/8 inches. Passing all those other bucks had finally paid off!!! I will admit I got very lucky and was at the right place at the right time. That’s just hunting! My hunters got to watch the whole thing through their binoculars and they were more excited than I was.
