Up until this year, The only hunting I have done in Texas was from successful draw hunts. The last two years, I hadn’t been drawn, so thought hunting was out of the question. My new Brother-in-Law has 22 acres in Colorado county, and he said I could set up feeders and cameras and see what was out there. I set everything up about 2 months ago, and waited about 2 weeks before going to check cameras. Since I never set up trail cams before, I wasn’t sure what to expect, and I was pleasantly surprised. Had several pictures of this buck on camera over the last few weeks, but when I went out last Thursday, there weren’t any pictures of him since opening weekend. I thought for sure he was gone for good, but I had 2 MLD doe tags to fill, so planned on sitting this past weekend to try and put some meat in the freezer. Thursday afternoon there wasn’t anything moving, back in the blind Friday morning at 0530. A couple small bucks Friday morning, and the same Friday afternoon, no does at all. Decided to sit all day Saturday, since the cold front had pushed through, and by 1 pm, my backside was questioning my decision. I pushed through, checked some college football scores, put my phone away and scanned the area. There he was! He was coming straight towards my stand, he looked bigger in real life than he did on camera, and my heart rate increased quite a bit. He passed to the left of my stand, so I swung around to get back on him, but I couldn’t find him in my scope.. Took a deep breath and zoomed out a bit, there he was. Slightly quartering away, and checking a scrape that a little 4 point had been on earlier that morning. I squeezed the trigger, he shuddered and dropped at the shot, but then got up and took off. I was confident of a good hit, but wanted to wait a bit to give him time to drop. After about 20 minutes of second guessing my aim, I went over to the point of the shot, there was blood sign from where he went down initially, found a few other drops in the direction he went, and then nothing. My heart sank, didn’t want to have just wounded him, but I knew he was hit good. I started circling from the last sign, and on my third round found him about 50 feet into a thicket. So happy that he was there and my aim was true. A great relief, not only my first Texas buck, but a personal best for me.

Great looking buck! Congrats.

Nice heavy horns..

Outstanding buck! Congrats.

Congrats!

good looking buck.

Awesome 10! Especially on a small plot. Congrats.

Thank you all, it also happened on the Marine Corps Birthday, so made it even that much more special

Awrsome! Heck of a deer! Especially for 22 acres!

Just realized you can rotate the pics using the circle arrow icon.

Very nice buck! Great wright up too!

Congrats

That's a dandy!

Congrats!

Great deer!!! Question: TPWD issued you two MLD doe tags for 22 acres?

Boom goes the dynamite

Nice story and a very nice buck.

beautiful buck! congrats!

great deer!!!

what caliber/bullet were you shooting? Interested in the small blood sign, etc

This

Nice buck anywhere.

I wonder the same, we have MLD tags also but hunt nearly 500 acres, I couldn’t imagine tags being issued for such a small place.

No Sir, the development is set up as a Co-op and the area is under MLD. There were 150 tags issued for the area last year, but only 41 were filled. Going to try and fill a few myself this year.