Jonny's 2016 gun buck

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Jonny
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Jonny's 2016 gun buck

Unread postby Jonny » Tue Nov 29, 2016 5:50 am

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Hopefully the pictures work. Hate to say it but being a college student doesn't make me tech savy one bit.

Be warned, this is a long story. Anyways, its not my biggest buck, its probably not anybody's biggest buck. But to me, it is a reminder of how hard work can pay off. This is the first deer that I can really say that I earned. My other deer have been the result of dumb luck (headshot spike with a bow). This buck was different, I picked out an area that I honestly believe hasn't been really hunted in years due to access issues. I didn't hunt over sign, I hunted where my gut told me to go. I put a lot of work into this deer, walked a lot of miles in my waders, and spent long hours on stands for him.

Being that my school runs on a quarter system as opposed to the traditional semesters of most universities, I am a very lucky guy. My scheduled fall break happens to be the week of Thanksgiving, which alone gives me the entire 9 day gun season to hunt. On top of that, I finished all my finals by tuesday night of the previous week, so that gave me 3 days to either bow hunt or get stands ready for gun season. I bow hunted two days in a new spot, totally blind hunt and saw 2 does.

Friday is the day the journey started. I was up at my grandparents cabin with 3 other guys who were going to hunt the coming weekend. My dad and another uncle come up friday night. Anyways, I was tasked to put my dads stand down in the river bottom and to cut a trail from the ski trail we used for access down to his stand. Then to cut another trail to a river crossing and on to my stand. Total distance was 1.3 miles from the truck to my stand. Friday morning comes, and my uncle needs help putting up a stand for himself and his friend from canada. No big deal. What should have been a quick hour in and out, turned into a 3 hour cluster you know what. Whatever, stuff happens right. Then they leave and go back to the cabin leaving me and a family friend to put up 3 stands. So of course I go help him put his stand up in a swamp because there is zero chance of anybody finding it. Thats another 3 hours. Just a huge mess. By this point, I am really starting to get frustrated because I still had a long trail to blaze and my stands to put out. So what happens? The family friend bails on me and goes back to the cabin. At this point, I have no other options besides pound it out on my own. Anyways, it gets dark around 4:30. I finished my quick scouting climb at 4:25. My 1.3 mile walk back to the car was in total darkness. In total, I went through 2 rolls of surveyor tape and 3 packs of reflective tacks. I cut a 500 yard trail through thick and nasty river bottom and got both stands hung. It was brutal but I got it done.

Saturday was almost as bad. High winds made sitting 20' up in a skinny twisted oak in my climber flat out miserable. Sat dark to dark. I put my dad on the wrong river bottom ridge and right where we suspected deer to travel through a gulley earlier in the year, a nice buck walked through it. No shot from my dad. I ended up seeing 3 does which was 75% of the deer sightings for the day.

Sunday had that feel to it. More gun shots, better weather, everything felt good. Got in 30 minutes before sunrise. Sat all day until 2:00. All of a sudden, I hear loud crashing and see a white set of antlers running on the other side of the river. He suddenly turned 90 degrees and came flying to me. He slowed to cross the river and I am not exaggerating, high jumped a 6' tall bank. Walked about 30 yards, gave me a quartering to shot at 30 yards. Drilled him with the old single shot 270 and he ran maybe 40 yards before crashing. Got down 30 minutes later, still shaking from that encounter, and went to go look at my buck. Perfect shot, except I blew out the front shoulder. No big deal, called my dad to come over and help drag him. While gutting him, I nearly had another deer run over me. Came flying down a gulley and was behind a tree maybe 20 yards from us while I was elbow deep in gut. Never saw him but pretty sure it was another buck. Once we got him gutted, the fun started.

Now let me describe where I am hunting. I don't want to post an aerial simply because clark county is full of hunters, and within a mile of me, there is a lot of hunters. I was hunting a river bottom. I had a creek that makes a S curve and I am sitting on one end of the S facing north (Saturday was a little cold with a NW wind). The creek goes and meets a river to the west. Where I am sitting is the only shallow spot on the creek to cross. In front of me is a small marshy swamp that I can shoot easily. I can see a long ways and shoot a good distance. Anyways to my east is a cliff. Not vertical but its easily 60-70 degrees. On top of the hill is a logging road. To go down that hill in the dark is rough. With a stand, its suicide. Also, I like people not knowing where I am hunting because I am relying on people to push me deer. So I came in from the other side and crossed the creek in darkness. Once in the tree, its impossible to see me. I honestly believe that this spot will produce deer even being in an area with few deer. There are no hunters near me that can shoot the deer I see. Next year, my dad will be coming across the creek with me and we should be able to get at least one deer, probably multiple deer.

So the drag out was easily the worst I have ever been a part of. My dad drove his truck to the top of the cliff and threw down a long rope. The rope was somewhere between 250-300'. We tied the rope to the antlers and front legs and to the back of the truck. Now using my college education, we used a big oak to allow us to literally drive the deer up the cliff. Sounds easy right? Nope, the antlers caught every branch within 10 feet and constantly dug into the hillside. So as he drove, I had to lift the deer over all the stuff. It sucked, plain and simple, it sucked. Anyways, the best part of this all, was to sit on the tailgate with my dad, enjoy a cold beer and watch the sunset over the river bottom and admire what turned out to be the only deer shot in our family this year. Its moments like that, that made this deer special to me. Nobody else from our group came to help drag, but they flocked like wolves once the deer was butchered by me and my grandpa. All I got out of that buck was the backstraps. I had to steal those back from my uncle who took them out of the freezer the night before I left.

All in all, this was a great season for me. I got to spend another year hunting with my best friend, my dad. He took off work for 2 days to spend the week at the cabin with me, and deer or no deer, that was awesome. But I also want to thank everybody on the beast, you guys helped me out a lot this year. This winter is going to be spent doing a lot of scouting new areas to hunt with my dad, and hopefully we can get on some better bow hunting. You guys really deserve more credit than you get, the knowledge and kindness here is amazing. You should all be proud of yourselves for this site.


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Re: Jonny's 2016 gun buck

Unread postby bwwma » Tue Nov 29, 2016 5:54 am

Awesome congrats!
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Jackson Marsh
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Re: Jonny's 2016 gun buck

Unread postby Jackson Marsh » Tue Nov 29, 2016 6:00 am

Congrats jonny! Exciting hunt! :dance:

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Joe68
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Re: Jonny's 2016 gun buck

Unread postby Joe68 » Tue Nov 29, 2016 6:05 am

Congrats.
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Tufrthnails
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Re: Jonny's 2016 gun buck

Unread postby Tufrthnails » Tue Nov 29, 2016 6:07 am

Congrats bud! Way to get it done!

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Re: Jonny's 2016 gun buck

Unread postby Dewey » Tue Nov 29, 2016 6:35 am

Congrats :clap:

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Re: Jonny's 2016 gun buck

Unread postby Kokes » Tue Nov 29, 2016 7:24 am

congrats nice work!
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stash59
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Re: Jonny's 2016 gun buck

Unread postby stash59 » Tue Nov 29, 2016 7:36 am

:shock: 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :dance: :dance: :dance: :dance: :dance: :dance: :dance: :dance: :dance:
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Re: Jonny's 2016 gun buck

Unread postby john1984 » Tue Nov 29, 2016 8:32 am

Nice buck. Congratulations!

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Re: Jonny's 2016 gun buck

Unread postby Edcyclopedia » Tue Nov 29, 2016 8:47 am

Jonny done good!

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hunter_mike
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Re: Jonny's 2016 gun buck

Unread postby hunter_mike » Tue Nov 29, 2016 9:47 am

Congrats! Sounds like a blast. I have done some hunting up that way, very cool country.
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Bonecrusher101
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Re: Jonny's 2016 gun buck

Unread postby Bonecrusher101 » Tue Nov 29, 2016 9:50 am

Congrats!!!

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Re: Jonny's 2016 gun buck

Unread postby cbay » Tue Nov 29, 2016 12:19 pm

Sounds like one to remember! Congrats. :dance:
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Re: Jonny's 2016 gun buck

Unread postby wickedbruiser » Tue Nov 29, 2016 1:10 pm

Great stuff. Congrats!

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Re: Jonny's 2016 gun buck

Unread postby Ghost Hunter » Tue Nov 29, 2016 1:14 pm

:clap: Great story an times to never be forgotten. :clap:
Last edited by Ghost Hunter on Tue Nov 29, 2016 1:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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