Hunter: Mack Jenkins
Points: 10 (5L, 5R)
County: Harris
Season: 2024-2025
Hunt Story
I hunt on foot on this farm because I prefer the movement and I am lucky enough to have the space to hunt that way safely. I was taking it easy this afternoon and decided to just take my time pushing north through a field system since the wind was coming from the north, and this is an area I prefer anyways. I did not intend on entering the woods, as it is dry as heck and it's remarkably noisy to move around. I peered into a hardwood bottom and it appeared the understory had thinned out slightly due to seasonal change, and I stood for a while listening to the woods. I decided to head down to the bottom and walk in the stream to keep my noise down, still heading north. I walked the creek for probably 30 minutes and decided to walk back up into the field system. I slowly moved around the edges and from opening to opening, culminating in a sit for about 10 minutes near the northern end of the field system. All in about an hour from creek to field sit. After sitting for 10 minutes or so, being lazy and just listening, I got up to move around the final bend in this field network. As it goes, I was not paying attention when I rounded the bend. I looked up and a remarkable deer was staring it me exactly 100 yards away across the field. I threw the gun up and was fortunate enough to be able to watch him clearly as he wheeled around, and took three bounds into the dark woods. It was an ideal shot that I squandered. I poked around that spot, coming down, and I mean real down, from the encounter. Dusk was setting in and I moped back the way I came, still in completely viable deer territory but pretty defeated thinking of the blown opportunity. I made it halfway back to the truck and stopped for a minute just to listen. A buddy of mine called me then, but I canceled the call and texted. He texted back that he had just shot the biggest deer of his life about a mile away. This good news had me ready to say heck with it and go help him load it up. I decided that since it had been about 15 minutes since I walked out of that northernmost field section that I would head back in there, as I had not been overly disruptive and DANG did I want a shot. I cruised back down to the tree line that separates the last large field from my approach, with a gate in the corner. The tree line is thick, but there are gaps. As I got within steps of the gate, I saw a deer less than 100 yards away on a rise in the middle of this field through a hole in the brush. It was not but a few seconds between noticing this deer and committing to the gate opening in order to raise the rifle to get a closer look through the scope. I felt positive it was a male at a brief glance, due to posture, aura, clairvoyance, whatever. Dusk had blanketed us and I peered through the ancient Redfield "WideField" 3-9 atop a recently acquired Swedish .270win. I couldn't discern much of points or mass on antlers, other than it indeed did have antlers. I moved the scope down and fully noticing the size of his neck I was taken aback. Between his neck and his chest he appeared to be made of granite. He was facing toward me slightly quartering. I slipped the 130gr softpoint to the inside of the point of the shoulder, closer to the sternum and inside enough to catch the heart. He dropped low and turned 2-3 tight turns in a circle before laying down dead. It could not have been 10 seconds between shot and his last breath, but I would've sworn it was an hour. When I got up to him I just smiled, he was the most majestic deer I'd had the privilege to encounter. A cattleman on property drove over to load it into his ATV, and it took both of us as he weighed 253.2 pounds on the hoof. We thought he was a great representation of the habitat in the area, and between his body size and character he was an extremely unique deer for me.
