My Personal Best Ever

So I don't post much anymore but thought I'd post this one as it is proof that you can kill a great deer on a small place. Let me first apologize for the long read but this is going to cover a 4 year story.

Our place is in far eastern Bexar County and is only 32+ acres. We've owned it for 10 years now and have really worked hard on protecting the deer there since when we first got it didn't see very many at all. I've killed only two other bucks at our place and both of those are also on the wall, a 145" tall-tined 8 and a wide 130" 8. We have passed up countless great bucks up that were 2.5 - 5.5 hoping to get them more time only to never see them again including a 2.5 year old main frame 10 with 5 kickers over an 1" long. He was on our oats field the last Saturday evening of the 2015 season until dark and then walked 1.25 miles down the road over night and was shot the last Sunday morning of the season.



We first saw this buck in the 2016 season when he was 2.5




Then at 3.5 he really started showing some good tine length.




Here he is at 4.5 and still just a slick 8 but very good tine length. I'd guessed him to be mid-upper 30s and then when he shed my wife found his left side. That side doubled and along with 15" for his IS added in put him about 138".






Needless to say we were hoping he'd made it through but once again we went all spring and summer without a single sighting or picture of him at either of the two protein feeders.
Finally, on Oct 13 I pulled the cards and these are two of the pictures I got of him by one of my tanks where I put corn out every evening near our house.
To say we were a little surprised and excited at what he'd grown in one year may be a slight understatement!





Normally we would never have thought of killing a 5.5 year old deer like him but circumstances changed over the previous year when a 200+ acre place which borders us on two sides (1/2 mile of border fence) sold and they began dozing new property lines for 11 acre tracts of land. With that happening we made a difficult decision that if we saw him we would take him. I felt he'd easily added 10"+ with the 3 new points and probably at least 5" on his frame and existing points so figured he would be somewhere about 152"-154"...….a hell of a buck for anywhere much less where we are at on such small acreage.

So we kept it pretty low-keyed around the place and just did our normal things and made sure not to change anything at all as our deer seem to notice any small change and when something does change it can throw them off kilter for weeks!
My son hunted opening weekend and saw numerous good young bucks and even a couple of culls that really need to be taken out but not him. On Monday Nov 4 I got home from work early enough to sneak over to the stand which is about 300 yards from the house. I got in the stand about 4:45 and the feeder was set to go off at 5. It was a nice, quiet evening and I had a few deer out at the feeder and on the oats field when I started hearing a strange sound about 15 minutes after sundown. And at 6pm sharp I figured out what the sound was as a guy came down my fence line in a 4-seater Ranger on that 200 acres that sold. He drove very slowly right next to the fence all the way down my back fence line. The he turned down to come up my side fence where my oat patch is at. That oat field is only about 200 yards long and when he go right in the middle of where my oats field was he stopped, backed up a few feet and sat there for another minute or so, then continued on his way. I had little doubt of what he was trying to do and knew at that moment that if I did get lucky enough to see this deer that I would kill him. Until that moment I still had my doubts that I would pick up the rifle on a great 5.5 year old deer but I realized that if we didn't get him and they saw him he'd be dead.

I didn't get home in time to hunt again until Thursday. That evening we had a pretty cool, strong north wind blowing and it was very cloudy and drizzly. I checked and fed a few heifers I had penned and headed to the stand and didn't crawl up into it until about a minute before the feeder went off. But, I had a feeling about that evening with that cold wind blowing as the other two deer I have on the wall from here also were both shot on evenings just as this one when there was a pretty strong north wind blowing.

Almost as soon as the feeder went off I had several deer start coming out and go back and forth from the feeder to the oats. I thought it was kind of strange that I had 7 or 8 does and fawns out and not a single buck as usually we see more bucks than does. At about 5:45 I looked back towards the house and saw a couple more deer coming from that direction and all of a sudden they threw their heads up and started looking past the stand towards the feeder as something had got their attention. I turned and saw a big body deer with his head down dogging one of the does. I grabbed my binoculars and threw them up and his head came up and I saw the two kickers and knew immediately it was him. I grabbed the rifle, my son's short barrel Rem .308 and put it out the window. By that time he'd chased that doe past the feeder and towards me and he was only about 80 yards away. To my utter amazement I couldn't not get a clear scope view at all and even had remembered to turn the power down to 8 on it. My son had put a different scope on this rifle and I'd not shot is since then. Now before anyone starts judging me for shooting at a deer with a rifle I'd not shot recently rest assured my son had it dead zero at 100 yards and it is a tack driver. Also, my son and I can pick up any rifle and we shoot them exactly the same as we both shoulder and hold the same way. Well, by the time I finally figure out where my head needed to be to get a clear, full view through the scope he'd pushed that doe back out to the edge of the oats about 140 yards. I felt good so I let out a pretty good yelp at him to get him to stop and when he did I let one fly. He was very close to the brush line and as soon as I recovered from the minor recoil I saw that he had wheeled straight around and headed into the brush. The shot felt good but it was fast and you always 2nd guess so I called my wife to ask her if it sounded like the bullet hit and she told me she didn't even know I'd shot because she had gone in the house already from the back porch.

I felt like I'd made a really good shot but I still had a sick feeling in my stomach as she told me that my son had just gotten home from work. I would have never pulled the trigger if I'd known this because he has a .300 Win Mag in the Savage LR Hunter that is dialed in from our back porch to the almost exact spot I shot this deer (350 yards) and it shoots 5-shot 1" groups with the loads he's built for it at that spot! He absolutely center punched an ugly freak cull from that porch the previous year with it and I know he would have smoked this buck to.

She told him I'd just shot at the big deer we'd named Kickers and he texted me when I wanted him to come. I told him to come on now and within 2 minutes he was at the stand on our side by side. We drove down to the spot where I'd shot and immediately he found good blood. Although there was still about 10 minutes of legal shooting light left it was getting pretty dark due to the clouds and drizzle so I told him to keep tracking blood and I would go ahead and see what I could find. I un-holstered my pistol and took about 5 steps around the corner and saw horns sticking up from the high weeds and told him that he was down. He went over and grabbed a horn and said, "holy s--t dad, he is way better than I thought". He of course was happy for me and I am extremely proud to have taken such a big deer on my own place, but I'm still a little sad about him not being there anymore to look forward to watching him get even bigger.





He ended up only being 14 4/8" inside but that was the only place he was smaller than I thought.
I scored him very conservatively and anywhere where the cable came up between 1/8s I went down.

14 4/8" IS
46" beams
31 4/8" mass
68 5/8" in tines

160 5/8"

Again, sorry for the long read but just wanted to tell the entire story and give hope to those out there who hunt small acreage places in areas not known for giants.
Also, to me this deer is exactly why you let good looking young, slick 8s walk! Even if this deer had not put on the G4 or the two kickers he is still a 148" 8 point at only 5 years old.

Heck of a deer

Congrats on an awesome buck!

Super special - congrats!

Beautiful buck and can't agree enough about letting them grow! Congratulations on a stud whitetail!

Great read and buck...

very nice buck and cool read as I was visualizing everything in my own mind along the way.

Great buck. Congrats

great story and great buck!

Wow!! Great buck and great story. Showing the year by year progression is a GREAT learning tool for all of us. Thanks a ton for posting. That 4yr 8 pt would of been killed on many many leases and almost any small small place. Letting a buck go at 4 or 5 doesn't always mean he will get a lot bigger but he absolutely will not get bigger if hes killed too young. Killing a real big buck there is always some luck involved and multiply that on very small places but for you to imply you even considered passing up that size buck at 5 would of meant hoping for lottery type odds. Congrats.

What a stud.

Great buck. I'd be very happy!

very nice

Great story and great deer, congrats

Thanks for sharing. Great buck. That gets my blood going. It can't get here soon enough.

That is a great buck.

I know exactly where that 200 acre place is. There have been some really good deer killed in that immediate area.

Hopefully the new neighbors won’t hurt your hunting going forward into next year

Awesome buck! Great job managing the small property!

Thank you all very much and again I apologize for the long read.

Yes sir, there have a been a few nice ones taken in our area the last 4-5 years.
There would be a ton more good ones if folks would stop killing all the 2-4 years olds!

The two on the far left in the pic below are the only other two I've taken off my place.
They were both 6.5 and we'd watched them since they were both 3 year olds.
Check out the taxidermy work on those two bucks. My cousin did them both and I love the detail work he puts in on his mounts.

very nice

Very special buck and thank you for the story . Congratulations .

Awesome buck and great story

Very enjoyable read! Congratulations and you certainly did the right thing taking that buck considering the circumstances with the neighbors. Those are beautiful mounts and good luck in the future! I am going to show my son this story because it is so instructive on how a deer's headgear can grow from year to year.

You are exactly right in that not every deer will get a lot bigger from age 4 on, but most certainly will not lose anything unless they get injured or it is simply a really bad year for groceries.
It is not that difficult for me to pass up even a great deer like he was at 4 as an upper 30s 8 because I have been blessed to already have two 8s on the wall bigger.
I've always lived by the rule if you have one bigger on the wall than the deer you are looking at and he is not fully mature, let em walk.

And absolutely there is a hell of a lot of luck involved in killing any mature buck, especially on a small place like ours.
I've been very blessed no doubt but please keep in mind that I've let many, many great young deer walk over the years only to have someone across the fence from the lease I was on kill them.....or a neighbor right down the road. So, I guess I've made enough 'deposits' that maybe I was able to enjoy a big 'dividend'. Either way, I'm certainly very, very thankful for sure.

Last.....I was not at all joking that if the circumstances hadn't have changed so drastically from the previous years, I damn sure wouldn't have pulled the trigger.

Thank you sir

Very much appreciated.

Teach that young man the value of letting em walk from an early age and you will not regret it.
My boy has really made me proud many times letting deer walk that many would have killed. He did it once on a public lands hunt on the Chap as a 15 year old when we had a 135-140" 10 point stroll past on the first day of the 3 1/2 day hunt. The deer was easily 5.5 years old and he put the rifle up on him and even clicked off the safety two different times. When I asked him why he didn't shoot he told me that we were on the Chap and he couldn't pull the trigger knowing there was even a small chance that the buck of a lifetime might show himself in the next couple of days!

Welcome back with a bang!!!

Congrats awesome deer

Thank you sir

Much appreciated

Exceptional buck, sir.

Nice!

Thanks for sharing a great story. Very nice buck!

Great story and pics!

Loved the story and pics too, CONGRATS!

No apology needed. That was a great read and a great deer. Love hearing stories like this.

x2 on not needing to apologize for the long read. Anybody that doesn't like to hear a good hunting story is probably on the wrong forum. Wish more guys would do it. They pay guys a lot of money to write hunting stories for hunting magazines. Cut my teeth back in the day reading stories in Outdoor Life and Field & Steam. This thread may keep going for awhile for several reasons. Showing the progression of his horn growth and the lesson it teaches about what happens when you let them grow up is awesome. And then you add the blow by blow of the hunt. Only down side, IMO, is it offers false hope for small acreage. Not to down grade what you did, but for MOST small small properties that's like catching lightning in a bottle. Congrats again on the accomplishment, showing the progression pics, and the story.

Great buck and excellent story.

Dang you did it again, heck of a buck! Hard to believe where he came from. Congrats

Awesome story and awesome buck!

Hell of a buck
Congrats

Cool that you got to watch him grow

Dang nice buck
Them mesquites in the last picture would sure be nice on the mill.

No kidding. I know the area pretty good. In laws live close by. Hope the smaller places don't mess up your future hunting. It will be interesting to see what effect this virus plays in commercial development. I'm hoping it slows down a tad but don't expect it too. That's the fastest growing part of the country.

Congrats on the buck!! That’s a beauty

I don’t live far from there my in-laws have a place about 5 miles away with typical 12, 14 with the split brows.

Great buck congratulations !

Thank you sir very much.
I cannot disagree with you about the part I bolded above in your reply at all. And I knew that by letting him go as a really nice 4.5 year old I may not ever see him again as it has happened way more times than not.
It is certainly hard to do no doubt.

Kinda funny about you saying you cut your teeth on reading the stories in those magazines as I did the same. When I was a kid there simply was not a whole lot to find when it came to hunting and I read everything I could get my hands on. Hell man, my son killed a fantastic deer about 11 years ago the evening before he turned 10 and I wrote the story and sent it in to the TT&H magazine. Well, they published it but before they did they went through and felt a need to edit it all up. The sad part is in editing it they changed my wording around and actually made it sound kind of ignorant in a couple spots! Hell, my wife is the smartest person I know and read the article and then read the draft I had sent them and she looked at me, shook her head and said, 'why the hell did they do that. Your draft is way better written than that'! lmao

Below is a link to the original draft on the story I sent to TTHA.

10 Points for 10th Birthday

It truly is amazing what the area will grow if you just let them get some age on em'.

And our area is starting to really explode now as the growth from Schertz and Cibolo start moving out south of IH 10.
10 years ago you could by 10 acre tracts near us for $35k-$40k, now you are looking at $150k+. The 11 acre tracts next to us that were split from the 200+ acre place are going for $17k/acre.

Great story.

My cousin finished up the mount on this deer.
His work is absolutely amazing.

Great looking mount!

Mount looks awesome! Please post your cousins info.....

His name is Jimmy Bienek and is located on the NE side of SA just off 1604 on Nacogdoches Rd.

210-632-7326

Mount looks great!

I told my wife the other day I wish we had bought acreage instead of our house 10 years ago lol

That is a dandy buck. Your cousin does fantastic work. That deer actually looks alive.

No doubt
The pics actually don't do it justice. Some taxidermist do pretty good work mounting the animal but their finish work ruins them.
He uses the best forms out there and goes the extra mile by altering the forms with a Dremel tool to get the muscle lines to show up better. Hell, you can even see the veins in his face!
I also like the way he does the final touch up work in that it is not overdone with too much dark paint on the nose like some are. The color is right and it does not look like he just pulled his nose out of a stock tank getting a drink of water. lol

He has mounted thousands of whitetails and did so for one of the most notable taxidermist in SA for several years. He is not the cheapest in SA but certainly not the most expensive either and IMO his work on whitetails is as good as any I've seen.

You might need to post his name and number if he's taking anymore animals this coming season. My guy in New Braunfels has gone up to $600 for a shoulder mount.

Awesome buck and a great story. Thanks for posting your cousin's info, I may give him a try.

His name and # are about 4-5 posts above this one.


There are a few in SA getting more than 6 bills already......and only a couple that do work as good as his IMHO.

Thank you sir

Do take one to him and I don't think you will regret it!

great deer

Awesome

great story and awesome buck!