Head back down to Brooks Ranch in Swinny Switch in Live Oak county. Second time back and as always, had a great time. Great laid back people with great deer. We got in on Dec 12 and went out to see what we could see. Had a bunch of good deer, but all too young. Like this one.



Then we decided to set the Fox Pro off and see if we could get a few yotes to come in. They didn't disappoint us. After about 10 mins of cotton tail, I spotted the first one at about 60 yards in the brush to our right and let the lead fly. Dropped her right there. Then we switched to a different cotton tail just to see if there were more... sure enough, a second came in from the left and as I got on her, she started trotting away... but didn't trot fast enough. 2nd yote down within 5 mins from the same set.


So after all this, we were getting ready to get down since we had just shot two coyotes, we figured they wouldn't come back. This was about 45 min shooting light left. Well, we looked way to the left and saw a couple small bucks and a doe running around about 700 yards away. The bucks were running does pretty good the whole weekend. Then saw a couple good ones coming down off a hill through the brush. Saw two real good ones, but we never were able to get a good view of them to see if they had anything broken off or make sure they were old enough and they never came within 550 yards with a couple does and smaller bucks around them. So we went ahead and got out at dark and grabbed the yotes and went back for cold beer and dinner. Went back out the next day and saw several more good bucks, but again, younger ones with a lot of potential. Had a 9 point picked out that was on the last day list if we didn't see anything else. Nothing special, just a cool rack that was wide. Decided to jump down and drive around to see what we saw before headed back to the house for some food as we were both getting hungry. Walking back to the truck, which was parked behind the brush about 60 yards behind us on the side of another field, we saw a big buck and smaller buck trying to catch a hot doe. We got a decent look at em, but they weren't staying around long and once the doe ran off, the big guy went directly with her. So we got in the truck and started to drive around and corn out for later that day. As we were leaving, we saw a BIG body in the field we were just watching.... So we corned and watched him go in and out of the brush on the edge of the field with a doe. We decided to leave them be and drove around for awhile scouting and putting corn out. We decided to back track to the starting spot after about an hour and see what was still out there. Sure enough, we spotted him standing in the middle of the field getting some of the corn we put out. Didn't seem as interested in the doe anymore so hopefully he got him a piece while we were gone. We decided to take him and began the set up. I had him at 200 yards and he was closing the gap on the other side of the field. He got to about 125, and spotted us on the side of the truck... well, I've been holding the crosshairs on him the whole time so as soon as he stopped and gave a broadside shot, I sent it. He jumped an ran about 20 yards up a scendero and pilled up. When we laid hands on him, he had zero ground shrinkage, hell, we had ground growth!! Big body and great mass!! Live weight was a little over 225 lbs and had right at 40" of mass. 14 scorable points and a final tally of 170 3/8" My biggest buck to date and I'm not sure when/if I'll beat him. I was on cloud nine the rest of the weekend. and now after reading all that stuff, here he is!!

Great buck and story!!! Thanks for sharing, that one is going to be tough to top

Great buck!

Dang. Great deer.

Great buck man. Cangrats

Fantastic deer of a lifetime! Great story...

Congrats.

Thanks everyone. One thing we found funny was the bullet never exited. I shoot a Rem 7 mag Federal Fusion 150gr and we found it on the other side of the deer about a foot back form the projected path. We thought that it hit some of the guts, but nothing was damaged when we looked. We think it went in and went through the heart, then kicked off the other side rib and went almost 90 degrees till it stopped. Gonna have the bullet mounted with it.

Great story, awesome buck! Congrats

Congrats again bud. Good looking hat too. Hopefully we can get one bigger in Illinois this year but that's gonna be a tall order!

great buck

Great buck! Our ranch is right down the road from there.

Mighty nice, congrats!

Congrats, Great Buck

Very nice, congrats!

Very nice!

Awesome buck, congrats.

Great old buck!

That's an awesome buck.

Congrats on a very nice buck

Great Buck & Story !!

Congratulations on a very nice buck.