Hunter: Bill Calder
Points: 10 (5L, 5R)
County: Newton
Season: 2019-2020
Hunt Story
On November 1st, it was my birthday, and my company, Farm Bureau Insurance always gives us our birthday off. I always go hunting on my birthday. A cold front had moved in overnight and the temperature was in the mid 30s. As soon as it got daylight, I started seeing does and yearlings moving. At about 7:50, I saw a deer cross one of my grown up shooting lanes and then saw another deer trailing behind it that I thought I saw antlers on. About 5 minutes later I saw a huge doe trotting up towards my stand on another grown up shooting lane. She stop and starting grazing on the grass plot near my stand. As I was watching her, I saw the buck go into the woods along the shooting lane. He was staying in the thick brush as she was grazing towards me. I never saw his antlers, but I was seeing him occasionally moving parallel to her in the thick brush. When she got up to my stand, 20 yards away, she must have caught wind of me. She started stomping her foot and looking around. The buck was still moving down in the brush coming towards me. I was keeping my eyes in the thick brush and not watching the doe. Then she started blowing at me & started going back down the shooting lane. The third time she blew, the buck finally step into a little opening in the brush and I took the shot. He went down on the shot and kick a little. I could see his body in the woods but not his head. After 30 minutes, I went to see what I had. It was my best buck I had ever harvested, so far. We did not have him on any of our cameras and no one had ever seen him before.
