7MM-08, 139gr Hornady SST barked this morning

great buck DQ...congrats!

Nice Deer

Congrats buddy, today was a great day to be in the woods…

Awesome buck. Congrats

Damn nice buck Kid
Congrats sir

Nice job brother !!

Congrats!

Thanks so much guys, I'll give just a bit of how things went down. 20 degrees this morning and no wind, perfect conditions. About 7:05 I catch some deer movement to my left from the northeast. Two doe run by me with a 2yo spike hot on their trail. They proceed to make a big loop and run out, all told he was chasing them for 600-700 yards and still going the last I saw. Anyhow, things were really slow, so slow I started to check the THF, including that awesome Stephen's county 12 point posted. Anyhow, I looked out to my south and the 9pt is standing outside the pen, about 100 yards away. I get the binoculars and watch him for 5-10 minutes taking note of his horns and more importantly his age structure. Based on his body mass, it was obvious that he was mature compared to his peers I've been seeing recently. His Romanish shaped head and grey around his eyes, around his snout and approaching his underbelly on the sides let me know I was looking at a mature, 5+ yo buck. At this point I decide to shoot him in the pen as he's getting a little antsy and he meets my harvest goals. This will be the first buck I shoot inside a feeder pen. I put the crosshairs on his lower neck, front shoulder area and squeeze lightly. He rears up with the limp front shoulder kick and makes it about 15' before nosediving and is DRT. What today reaffirmed to me is when you least expect it, the mature deer will emerge the unexpected. Great cold, calm morning to have been in the outdoors. As a side note, the processor at Clear Fork Country aged him at 5.5/6 yo+. Clear Fork had several nice bucks and more were coming in behind me. Time to be out there is NOW.

Congrats!

Congrats on a nice buck.

Very nice!

Congratulations on getting that mature buck!

Good job! nice buck

Great buck DQ! Congrats!

Hell of a buck!

Nice!

Great buck DQ! really like the colors on the antler

Good one!

I see that now how the graining of the darker colors into the bases, kind of cool.

Congratulations! Very nice buck to harvest.

Good buck DQ. Way to go. Any stats on him?

Congrats!

Clear Fork Processing in Graham estimated his age at 5.5-6.0+, so old as they termed it. Purely unofficial, I have him at 185 lbs. on the hoof and 130" +/- on score. Just a good mature buck to take, liked the height of his rack in particular. The G2s were 13" or so and G3s, 11-12", his mass was carried through the rack, was missing a browtine though, not broken off, just missing like never had one. Dude had some character.