Hunter: Terry Patterson
Points: 13 (8L, 5R)
County: Baker
Season: 2015-2016
Hunt Story
I actually saw and rattled this buck up the day before on Saturday when he came in with two smaller bucks. I was hunting where a pine plantation came up to a swamp head. When I saw him, I stopped rattling and the three bucks just started milling around in the tall saw grass and started feeding. They were not really interested in the mock buck fight, just curious. Since he was not in the open and in the tall grass, all I could see was his neck and rack. He looked like a young 3 ½-year-old buck. Finally he stepped in the open, and I would see his body and thought he might be 4 ½ or 5 ½ years old. Since I was hunting a guest on a farm that had strict age rules, I didn’t shoot, I just took a picture of him with my phone. That night I showed the property owner, and he gave the green light to shoot confirming he was old enough. Went to the same stand the next morning, and it was 10 degrees cooler. At sun up around 7:10 I hit the rattling horns hard for four minutes and stopped and nothing happened. Ten minutes later I hit the horns again, and the same buck I saw came charging out of the swamp running in hard and fast while I still had the rattling horns in my hands and rattling. Laid the horns in my lap and picked up the rigle. I shot the buck at 80 yards. I had thought he was a 9-point with an extra kicker but there was no shrinkage. He turned out to be a 10-point with three kicker points. I was a very happy camper.
