WV muzzleloader buck

[Matt Gill]

12-18-19. Didn’t get to hunt yesterday on 12-17. My mom and her husband who live on the Ohio river needed help moving stuff up into the yard due to the river getting very high after the 3” of rain we got. Decided to go hunt the piece of public that closest to home for the morning hunt. Got there about daylight and hit the woods. It was cold, mid 20s and heavy frost but I was using this hunt as much as a scouting mission as anything, so I slowly moved through the woods making as little noise as possible on the crunchy leaves. This piece of public is big and I’ve only been over maybe 1/8 of it so once I got to the point of unfamiliar I pressed on. I ended up making a huge looping circle and came out on the road almost a mile from the truck. Best I can tell I covered about 3 miles of woods. Never saw a deer

Grabbed lunch and came home. By the time I was home, had eaten, and fed my dogs it was 2 o’clock. It was really to late to make it to any of the public pieces and get much hunting done so I decided to just sit here in my box blind at home. This is about as un beast like as it gets. Box blind 75 yds from the house, with a corn pile 75 yds from it. I was hoping to see a nice doe to take but sightings has been scarce the last few times I’ve hunted here. About 4:30 I see a deer heading in. No antlers but I recognize him right away. He’s the 9 pt my wife passed with the bow. I had noticed last week while looking at trail cam pics that his leg was obviously broken and swollen up big time. So he had lost his rack sometime between then. I thought about shooting him but he was still getting around okay and I hate to end an animaks life without certainty that it can’t over come the injury. About 4:45 two spikes come in and take control of the corn and the shed 9 moves on. I was thinking to myself just my luck, 3 deer and all bucks when all you wanna see is a doe. 5 o’clock I see another deer crossing the power line and heading in. This one has a rack so I start trying to identify which it is. It doesn’t take long, it’s the tight racked 9. He is the biggest buck we have pics of, although I believe he is only a very nice 2.5 yr old. I watched him until about 5:10 and then I decided I would take him. I let the muzzleloader ring out and the 295 gr powerbelt finds its mark. I was pretty sure I saw him fall but still gave him an hour. He isn’t my biggest buck, but he is a respectable one for WV and it was cool to harvest one off my own 7 acres.

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[Jonny]

Awesome looking rack on that guy! Is there only like a 1” gap between main beams in the front? Looks really close together.

[Matt Gill]

Awesome looking rack on that guy! Is there only like a 1” gap between main beams in the front? Looks really close together.

They actually cross but one sets just a touch higher than the other

[backstraps]

Awesome Matt!! Congratulations

[Jonny]

Awesome looking rack on that guy! Is there only like a 1” gap between main beams in the front? Looks really close together.

They actually cross but one sets just a touch higher than the other

Sweetness

[kdawg_901]

Cool Rack

[kripp53]

That's a cool rack, don't see them touch all that often. Good job on the hunt.

[muddy]

Congrats

[Jdw]

Nice buck, congratulations!

[Mike32]

Congratulations!!

[jcraig0313]

Congrats!

[headgear]

Great buck!

[Jackson Marsh]

Congrats matt!! I love the look of tall tight racks

[PK_]

Sweet buck man. Congrats.

[Edcyclopedia]

Wait for it...

Spectacular!