Hunter: Michael Gibbs
Points: 10 (4L, 6R)
County: Jasper
Season: 2022-2023
Hunt Story
Thanksgiving Day 2022, my daughter and I left camp earlier than normal because the weather was so good and we had signs of the bucks were in rut. I dropped my daughter Kayley off at her stand in the back of our property, I stood at the base of the stand while she climbed up as I usually do, as she was pulling her gun up with the rope she frantically started pulling hard and fast, then she turned and said to me, daddy the drop tine buck was bedded in the thicket right behind me and he ran up in the woods and he's gone, she was in tears because we've never actually put eyes on this buck but we've had countless trail cam pics and videos of him. My deer stand is around 500 yards away from her stand so I got on my electric golf cart and went on to my stand, as soon as I parked my cart and got off to get my things together for the evening hunt, I looked up and here this buck came running across the field where I hunt, I took aim and squeezed the trigger and the deer took off as it weren't hit, I immediately chambered another round and shot again, the deer still acted like it wasn't hit but was in a dead run for the tree line. I was sure I missed, I called my daughter to tell her I had missed the most amazing buck I've ever laid eye's on. I then decided that no matter what I was going to look for blood anyway, to my surprise there was blood everywhere where the deer ran into the woods. 150 yards later on the best blood trail I've ever seen lay my buck, the most incredible deer I've ever taken. I couldn't control my emotions and started hollering to my daughter "we got him Kayley, we got him" she came sprinting almost 500 yards across the woods and field to celebrate with me. I then called my Dad who is almost 80 years old, he was still at camp but came over on his 4-wheeler as quickly as possible to celebrate and help us get the deer out of the woods. Kayley has some awesome videos of us getting the deer out. Out of my 40+ years of deer hunting this is absolutely top 5 on the memory list. Thank you GON!
