This buck is more beat up, but he looks healthy!
Nice...
A week later I got a video of him. He was limping really bad.
I spent 42 days hunting him. He was incredibly smart, 5.5 year old. He was almost entirely nocturnal. I passed up some really good bucks but I was obsessed with him. So I stayed disciplined.
On Tuesday afternoon, after almost 3 months of trying, scarface limped in. It was hard to watch. He was still limping as bad as ever.
I took a 28 yard shot and killed scarface. As it turned out, I didn’t hit the shoulder after all. I had dead centered the joint where the shoulder connects to the front leg. The joint was shattered. The leg was useless. The buck had probably lost 50lbs.
So happy I held out and got him. He’s a damn good buck, but I’m really happy that I was able to kill him before nature did.
Crippling weight loss like that, it's a wonder he hadn't shed his rack....
Curious, first shot bone shattering, Muzzy broadhead? Was there penetration past the joint?
Slick Trick 3-blade standard. Broadhead.
Freak hit. Was actually well-placed. Broadhead busted the joint and stopped.
I assume you got in on him coming into food? Curious how you helped pinpoint him to get on him again?
I noticed a trend in December where he would limp into a staging area south of my kill plot and East of my bean field. He generally showed up after midnight and would leave around 4-5 am.
During Christmas week I got one pic in daylight and another the 2nd week of January. Both times when I was away from the land.
By mid January I decided to do something I rarely do; hunt the same stand every evening regardless of wind and weather. I only had 3 daylight pics in 60 days but they were consistently from the same stand where I get 80% of my night pics. So decided to hunt this stand pretty much every day until I killed him or the season closed.
Last Tuesday he limped in at last light and I shot him just before that snowstorm we had. I think the low pressure and bad weather got him moving earlier than normal. Luck= 40%, skill=10%, OCD=50%. :-)
