I've long believed that the deer I hunt have a range that is huge, several miles. I shot this deer last year, never seen live or on camera by anyone on our 30,000-acre ranch. I thought he was 6.5 years old. I saw him trailing a doe during peak rut and killed him within a few seconds of seeing him. Pics were shared with all the hunters on our ranch and all agreed on his age and this was the first look any of us had at him. Fast forward to 1-5-2025 at a local restaurant frequented by a lot of hunters in our area. We walk in to eat, sit down and the guys at the table next to us chat us up about our hunting as we were obviously just out of the field from our evening hunt. They asked how our year had been, I mentioned that I had killed a mature, 20" ten point earlier in the season. He asked, "Was he as good as the one you killed last year?" I gave him a look, he asked, Is this you? and showed me the pic you see here. These guys hunt the property that borders us to the South. One of them had been seeing this buck off and on for four years. During that time he had one shot opportunity at him but he passed on him as he was pretty broke up and missing a lot of bone. He really wanted to kill this deer and hunted him hard for years. When he went missing from camera after last season he does an internet search, just a Google search using key words and the year and he found these images from the forum. He had the pics, knew the deer had been killed and just moved on. He sees me in the restaurant and immediately recognized me, I was wearing the same hat and jacket. I learned everything about this deer, saw pics of him from several previous years and some video. A really cool time we had talking hunting and this deer. I killed him 7 miles from where he had been seen on camera and by these hunters. He had a drop time in 2022. In a lot of the pic's we age him at 4.5 years old, four years before I shot him putting him at 8.5 years old when he took his last step.
This season rolls around and I have what looks like his brother on camera:


I only had these pic's of him, never see him on camera again or live. He was killed by another hunter on our ranch, 3.5 miles from where I had him on camera. Again, never seen by the hunter live or on camera that got him. Deer do act a certain way most of the time.
These huge bucks are the exception. These two great bucks managed to elude hunters for a very long time.

Congrats! Great buck!

For me the take aways are to hunt in a great area, put in the time, be ready and able to put a shot on one at any second, don't be discouraged by not having a giant on camera, hunt the rut hard, have a set up that covers a lot of ground.........

Deer range often has a lot to do with population numbers....bucks will travel further in areas with lower deer density than in areas with higher populations.....they dont' have to travel as far to find does.

Some deer are also more adventurous that others. Some are less. I know of one buck that lived his entire life in about a 30 acre circle....had everything he needed; food, water and females.

Like I said, all bets are off during the rut.

A lot of factors going into this. Summer range vs winter range. Rut activity. Hunting pressure probably the lowest of the above.

Deer will travel for sure. Some do go great distances. Some dont. No way to know which will be which until we can submit all photos with gps tags to a central server and look at all our neighbors photos to compare. And even then, there will be mystery deer.

Its what makes hunting fun. You can have an idea of whats there, but the brute might always walk out any second.
The buck my son shot this year was not on any camera, mine or neighbors. He just showed up while i was on stand and then was there for a couple more days until he wasn’t. Never know what will come out.

Beautiful

This buck had the same summer/winter range for years. He was in his "home" range two weeks before I shot him, got to see a video of him during that time. Really makes the chance meeting with these hunters fortunate. Getting to see about 20 seconds of him during the night capture on camera 7 miles away is something that was missing from me killing him. I didn't get to see him really at all other than the few seconds he was on the quick trailing of this doe.

The big one I shot earlier this year I had never seen. I saw him for the first time for a grand total of about 15 seconds before he died. The closest feeder was long empty but the area has great habitat, feed, water, does and I just happened to be there for the right 15 seconds...

You gotta be there to kill them. I'll keep this in mind during those discouraging slow times.

I'm always fascinated by whitetail deer behavior, I think I have seen or know a lot and then it all gets flipped upside down. OP, I have seen a lot of deer move to wheat that may go 6/7/8 miles this time of year from their summer and fall range but yours moved a long way at a time you would think they wouldn't.

We had something similar a few years ago. We had an 18 pt with a bunch of trash etc. I saw a pic of him pop up on here and met the neighbor through pm. We had a handful of pics over a few days pre season hunter hard for that deer all season and then found out he was shot opening morning lol.

No cultivation in our area for whitetail. Also, no acorn crop. It's a whole different world of hunting than what I grew up on.

Similar story from East texas. Never seen this buck all year, not even had a trail camera pic of him. Set up my son in an area where we had a pattern on does and 10min later this one shows up.
Ran into a lease mate half a mile east of me and this buck has been a regular on his camera but only on nights.

Dang nice bucks! As I mentioned in another thread about mule deer, we had a long time TPWD biologist hunt with us a couple of times. He and Horace Gore were big buddies and worked together for years. He was obviously a wealth of knowledge. He told us that as a rule, whitetails (and mule deer for that matter) travel large areas during the rut as the OP mentioned. It's a simple fact that this is nature's way of spreading genetics. We have seen whitetails in the NE TX panhandle range 7 miles during the rut, and mule deer further than that.

its a cool topic, and the reality of how far some bucks travel is amazing. I think one study showed one buck travelled somewhere around 20+ miles during the rut, and then came back to its home area. Collared deer so they could track it.

I have personal experience of a buck I saw on cam once being shot several miles away, same leaser and he showed me a pic and I showed him the pic from my camera a few days before miles as the crow flies away from where it was shot.

Chasing tail does weird things to the males of a species. Humans are no different.

I think a lot depends on area. We have watched deer from first identifiable antlers through 6-7 years old that seemingly never left our 320 acre property (LF) and some were never seen at more than 2 of our stands. One of the places a budy hunts deer routinely cover a much larger area just crossing cultivated fields.

cool write up and story ... but kinda creepy to find someone out of the clear blue that searched the internet to find you & your deer from last year.

Some bucks will wander some won’t.
In some areas they all have to travel and in some areas they just sit and wait for the does to come to them. Thats the beauty of it I guess, on one hand you might lose a target buck, but you can just as easily score someone else buck.

Cool story and great deer though.
That guy sure didn’t forget you lol

Note to self. Don’t post kill pics on the www anymore. It’s only getting worse with social media too.

I tested his search criteria. He wasn't lying. The fact that I was wearing the same jacket and hat had everything to do with him recognizing me. Us being 5' apart helped.

Pics have cost many people a lease… post with caution. I know two ranches that got bought that way and several leases.

I see posts from THF occasionally when searching the interweb for various stuff.

I used to worry about that until I got this place.

Very few ranches aren’t for sale for the right price. My last 1031 happened that way.