26 November 2012, 21:55
Greg BrownleeMy 2012 Oklahoma Whitetail
Anyone who knows me knows I'm lucky when it comes to whitetail hunting. In 2007 I shot a 218" buck up in Kansas with my muzzle loader, last year I shot a 187" buck in Oklahoma with my muzzle loader and last week I shot the biggest main frame 8 point I've ever personally seen. I knew about all 3 bucks before I took them, but was not familiar with any of them like I was this deer. I've known about this deer for 4 years. In 2008 I got him on camera over a scrape. He was a 5 year old stud of an 8 that year, but I only got 2 photos of him and never saw him again. Thinking he'd died because these photos were taken the evening before opening day of muzzle loader season that year, I focused more on another good buck I had on camera about 3 miles down the road (never killed that buck either).
2008 Photo:
2009 came and went without me seeing this deer which further confirmed my suspicions that he was dead, but then in the summer of 2010 my cousin called me and told me to come check out the sheds he found while clearing some brush on his land. Sure enough it was his 2009 rack, which grossed 173" with all the trash. 2010 came around and I was all over this deer. I had 3 cams set up on the property I thought he was living on starting in late August. On October 14, 2010 he showed up on one of my cams on the edge of a wheat field that was overlooking a scrape line. I had him on camera every few days or so until November 14th, which actually was the only daylight photo I ever had of him (I was working that Saturday which sent me into depression when I checked the cam). After that he again disappeared, and not seeing him after having him on cam all year I assumed he'd been shot. Plus rifle season opened that following weekend and though I saw some decent bucks, I never saw him and heard tons of shots on neighboring properties. The neighboring pressure had me worried, but then again a deer of this size gets shot in my neck of the woods and everyone knows about it. In 2010 he'd blown into a mid 160's 8 point plus lots of kickers and trash around his bases. I'd say he was either high 170s or low 180s that year:
Here he is in 2010:
In May 2011 one of my cousins found a big dead buck on the road that separates two of the properties where I was getting photos of him that had bases "as big around as a coke can". Thinking it was him, I was deflated. I kept cams out all 2011, but having the 187" deer on camera on the other side of the state I kind of put all my focus on that deer last year, which paid off when I killed him in October 2011 (I also knew about that deer for about 3 years before killing him).
Finally, 2012 came around and with no serious prospects I again focused on this particular property. It was a slow early season and the weather was horrible during the typical rut days, so I really hadn't seen much on my cams or in person. The wheat field where I had this deer on camera in 2010 was loaded with does this year so I knew that if I focused around these does during the rut that good things could happen. Tuesday November 20th a friend talked me into letting him shoot a doe and try to film it, which I agreed to only on the grounds that if a shooter stepped out I was taking the gun. I also told him that because the rut seemed to be picking up we would wait until about 30 minutes before dark to shoot a doe just in case a big boy walked out later. At 4:15 some does stepped into the field, but a little buck walked in behind us and winded us which pushed them all off the field. We sat there for another 10-15 minutes while I was explaining to him that it was early and that I had seen over 20 does on this field the previous weekend when I caught movement on the grass ridge about 350 yards away. Without using my bino's I said "give me the rifle, I'm shooting that deer". Just from the shape of the rack I could tell it was him, and the fact I could even see it from that distance made it evident that it was a monster. I laid over my backpack and settled in for the shot, but because he was beyond the wheat field there was too much brush in the way for a shot. I stopped him once with a mouth bleat, but at that distance he took 2 more steps before stopping so he stopped behind some brush. The way he was walking, there was literally one spot he could stop in that was clear of brush. He took 3 or 4 more steps and stopped right in that spot. I touched the trigger, watched him "mule kick" and heard it thump him before he took off. I knew it was a solid shot, but waited a good 30 minutes before even looking for blood just in case. I don't know exactly how far he was, but based on ranging the edge of the wheat then from where I believe he was standing I believe it was around 340 yards. I practice a lot with my guns, but that's still a far shot so I wanted to be sure I gave him time before going in there and checking. We got the whole thing on video, and though he was small in the view finder you could tell it was a solid shot.
We went over to where he was standing and couldn't find any blood. After about 10 minutes of looking and still convinced I'd made a good shot, I started walking towards the direction I'd thought he'd ran trying to cut across his blood trail further down the draw he headed towards. The guy I was with was checking the video and saw that he'd actually ran a little further south than I was looking, so he began walking that way and found him piled up about 50 yards away. The shot blew through his heart and both lungs and exited, but the blood trail was surprisingly faint.
The deer is either 8.5 or 9.5 years old. The rut killed this buck as it does so many other older deer. 74 degrees that day, light wind and no clouds, he should have been holed up in the shade somewhere until dark. Again, I'm a lucky dude when it comes to whitetails, but I probably put in over 100 days for this specific deer over the past 4 years so it's nice when a little luck rolls your way!
He had 17 points, but one was about 7/8" so only 16 of them were scorable. His 8 point frame grossed a little over 168" with 13.5" g-2's, 7.5" bases and 27" main beams. Adding in trash he stretched the tape to 182 1/8" making him my third deer to gross over 180" (all free range, never hunted a fence). He dressed at 178 lbs which is big for our area, but he lost a bit of weight since I last had him on camera in 2010. I couldn't be more pleased with this deer, and honestly he means more to me than any of the others because of how much time I put in!
Thanks for reading, I'm still on cloud 9!
Greg
