Hunter: Alex Sutherland
Points: 10 (5L, 5R)
County: Gordon
Season: 2023-2024
Hunt Story
The first picture I got of the buck was the week before Muzzleloader season opened. Having never gotten the buck on camera personally, I set up several other cameras in the area to try and get a pattern. After a week of getting the buck on camera at different spots, I picked a large broomsage field that I thought the buck was using to travel from a large patch of hardwoods down to some crop fields. On Wednesday of muzzleloader week and with my 4-year-old daughter along to assist, I put up a short tripod stand in a small patch of trees looking down onto the field with a lot of area to watch. Knowing that if I got a shot, it would more than likely be at a minimum 200-yard shot, I decided to leave the area and not return until opening day of rifle season. With the morning hunt being slow and the temperature steady rising through the day, I headed back in for the afternoon hunt around 5 and didn’t see my first deer until 10 minutes till 7. As deer began looting out from behind me into the field, I noticed a deer who I had pictures of several times recently with the deer I was hunting. As I started scanning through the deer with my binoculars, I had both eyes filled with the unmistakable rack of the deer I was hunting. I lowered my binoculars and raised my Browning 6.8 Weatern and settled in at 207 yards. I touched off the shot and he instantly hit the ground. With the deer being what he was and knowing I had plenty of bullets, I racked another shell in and held on the deer for several minutes to ensure he was done. I got down and as I neared the buck I was hit with the incredible rush of what had occurred. It’s very difficult to have this size deer in our area and it was a true blessing to harvest such a great mature deer.
