Hunter: Mike Bivins
Points: 8 (4L, 4R)
County: Meriwether
Season: 2015-2016
Hunt Story
Saturday morning started out cool and crisp with a slight NW wind. I was hunting in my prime spot as the day before there was chasing going on in the bottom from smaller bucks. Back during August I had gotten numerous trail cam pictures of a buck I had decided to target this season. I had simply called him the small brow eight. He was wide and his main beams were even with his nose from the side. He also carried his mass out to the tips. At about 8 a.m. the action started with a small buck harassing a bedded doe and putting on a show making a scrape and raking a tree. She was obviously unimpressed because she ignored him. After he left, she got up and made her way out of sight to my left. After a few minutes she came back with a smaller buck in tow. She ran him around and them went out of sight to my left again. He went on his way after realizing she was not going to play his game. After about 10 more minutes I saw her coming back straight at me with a big buck on her tail. As soon as I saw him I knew he was a shooter as he was wide, tall and thick. As he rounded a large tree I mouth bleated, and he whirled to his left as I shot him straight on through the brisket. Not my favorite shot. He turned quickly and went back from where he came carrying his left front leg. I set down and composed myself and decided to take up the trail after several minutes. As I was easing up the hill, I looked to where I saw him last and saw him stand up looking at me. I threw up and quickly delivered another shot. He took off. After looking for an hour and unable to find a blood trail, I knew I needed help from a dog. I contacted Justin Strickland, and he agreed to bring his labs to help find the deer. When we got the dogs down to where I last saw the deer, they immediately began circling and working out the track. The big male went to work and after a couple of minutes we could hear him barking on the deer. Justin took off as soon as his tracker showed the dogs together as he knew they were on the buck. The dogs had found the buck in a creek bed and he was still holding them off. Justin had to jump in a finish the buck off with a couple of knife thrusts. Needless to say it was quite an adventure. When I finally caught up I immediately saw it was the buck I was targeting. He was covered in mud from the tussle and the pictures reflect that. Certainly an adventure I will not soon forget. I wanted to thank Justin, his two labs and my buddy Jaime for their help in the great deer wrestling match 2015!
