Late Nov. Tag Filled

[mklong40]

I had the privilege of helping my best friend on his whitetail hunt this weekend. He is a member on CW under GreeneMachine. This year was a little different in that my family has had numerous hunts and I had to prioritize time with them, gladly so. As a result, this was the first year Justin and I did not share the same tag in over 7 years. However, I was able to get out after thanksgiving and help on the hunt.

 

Friday was largely uneventful. We were in an area we knew holds good deer, however we were just unable to locate any shooters. Justin passed on a small buck. Outside of that, there was no more activity to speak of the rest of the day. Friday evening was the same outside of pigs.....they always show up when I don't have a tag.

 

Saturday morning came and we made a small change in location. Right off the bat we had deer; another buck Justin decided to pass on. At 930am, we changed our focus from SE facing slopes to NE slopes. Immediately we started seeing more deer. Shortly after, Justin located the buck he wanted to take. We were 700 yards from the buck and closed to 365. Justin was set up for the shot. He fired and went right over the bucks back. The buck did not spook. He reloaded and fired again. It looked to be a great shot. The buck was slightly quartered away and the placement was slightly back. I saw the buck dive into a thicket and never came out.

 

We gave the deer an hour before heading over. We got to the location of the hit. No blood, no deer. We started getting that sick feeling. The feeling grew after 2 hours of searching, with no luck, for any sign of blood/deer. Justin and regrouped. It had been 3 hours since the shot. We decided to hike back in the direction the buck had came in from with 30-40 yards of distance between us. It was a good decision. We went about 150 yards. The buck stood up at 40 yards and Justin anchored him with another shot. Amazingly, this buck had a majority of his opposite side lung hanging out the exit wound from the first hit. He survived for 3 hours with the damage. These are tough critters to say the least.

 

As soon as I saw the buck, I knew it was a deer I knew. I have had this buck on trail cam for the last year. We called him Sneaky all year because of how irregular he was....real Sneaky. Although we weren't specifically hunting Sneaky this weekend, we did know he was around and its nice to put a buck on the ground we have pictures of going back a year ago. Sneaky grew in overall spread and G3 length. His G2s are unmistakable as you will see below.

 

Congrats to my buddy Justin. Great Buck. He taped out at 102 5/8".

 

 

Justin with his buck.

[ready2hunt]

Wow beautiful buck! Congrats. I love seeing live shots of the animals too thanks for sharing

[BackwoodsHunter]

Great buck! Nice job on not giving up and finding him, looks like it payed off.

[DAS]

Awesome buck! Congrats.

[GreeneMachine]

Thanks for all your help home slice. Could not have done it without you!

[flatline]

Very nice buck congrats

[Zeke-BE]

Congrats

[cb375hh]

Great buck!! Congratulations

[Couestracker]

Really nice buck! Glad you found him, congrats on the success!

[GreeneMachine]

This same buck in velvet as well

[cramerhunts]

Congratulations on a super buck! Love the trail cam pictures before as well. Way to stick with it and find the buck.

[Cola Blanca]

Nice buck!

[Crowbait]

only 102. wow I would have been way off.

[randyolson]

Awesome CONGRATS!

[huntingfool]

Awesome buck, congrats.