2010 was a great year for our area and we chose this buck to take out as a management eight pointer, but it turned out this buck was smarter than we were. He would frequent three feeders regularly and getting day light pictures of him wasn't a problem. At that time, we didn't realize how tough this buck was going to be to kill.

In 2010, he was only seen three times. Two were during regular season but he did not present a shot and the last sighting was at 75 yards during the extended doe only season. Three of us dedicated ourselves to shooting this deer and though we are mainly bow hunters, we pulled out the rifle and still were unsuccessful.

Last year, we started getting pictures of him in August and were already developing a plan to get this buck. Due to the drought, he had lost some antlers but there was no doubt he was the same buck and he was hitting the same three feeders. It seemed the harder we tried, the better he was at evading us. We would make special trips, hunt between the stands, midday hunts, but no luck. We finally turned two of the feeders off and concentrated our efforts on the one remaining stand he was hitting. One week we hunted that stand Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The wind changed and we couldn't hunt that stand Saturday morning and guess who showed up on camera...And so the hunt continued.

This year, he again started showing up in August and we were determined, but didn't have much hope after the results from the last two years. All season, it has been the same as last year...hunt four days and he would be on camera the day we didn't hunt it. We tried to approach from different directions, we changed the path that we drove in from, moved to the rifle blind, hunted between the stands, and every other tactic we could think of.

This weekend, my father moved to an old hackberry tree that we used to bow hunt out of and was able to connect with this old buck. The buck came from his left and charged at another eight that was pestering a doe. The charge left the deer slightly quartered away at 15 yards and the arrow entered through the back rib and made a clean passthrough behind the opposite shoulder. Not even realizing he was hit, the buck startled at the noise, trotted about 40 yards behind the tree where he stopped to look around. He started his final death walk and fell in the open. The other deer were feeding before he hit the ground.

Here is a series of pictures of the deer from the last couple of years:

Awesome story!!! Congrats to your dad!

Congrats to your Dad, good buck to take.

Bout time

That's awesome, way to be patient enough to let him grow and harvest a great deer! congrats

Congrats, heck of a story and back ground you have on him. Thats what makes it special.

Great story and deer

Dad got the job done

amazing story... congrats to your father!

pretty awesome!

Great story and great deer!

Pretty deer. Memories for a lifetime.

Wish one of these management 8's would walk out within 30/30 range of me.

I've been offered to go on 3 different hunts this year. I've turned all of them down. No doubt, I could go and easily shoot the biggest deer of my life. Instead I've chosen to hunt my lease in which I've hunted every weekend this year and have only seen 1 6 point. Its not about killing A deer. Its about the hunt.

I feel I would be cheating myself if I went shot deer after others have put in all of the work.

Your story right here sums up why I sit in the blind, see nothing, and continue going back. Its all about the hunt not the kill.

Congrats to your father!!

Fun hunt and good deer.

GREAT STORY AND GREAT DEER!

Congrats!!! Now that is some management! Nice!

2 words to describe this "INCREDIBLE BUCK".

Congrats.

Great deer and better story

Congrats to you and your dad! I love chasing those smart older deer!

Nice story and deer

Persistence paid off glad you got closure to a loooong hunt!

Thanks for the story, enjoyed it, great buck, beam length is great!

Awesome. Congrats and persistence definitely paid off this time.

I Love Big 8's..congrats to your pops