Donald Blanchard 2009 Deer 174-3/8
In the fall of 2007 I made a mock scrape and put a scouting camera up on it. In late September of that year I got pictures of my buck. Not only was it a nice buck then, but it had a volleyball net wrapped in its antlers.
I hunted him hard all fall but with no sightings in the daylight. I was still excited because I was getting trail cam pics of the buck at night all the way through November and December.
In ‘08 I put up my trail cam in the same place and again made my mock scrape. Again in September the buck made my scrape his. I again got him on camera and it looked like he had gained a lot of inches in antler. He was still mainly nocturnal but I hunted him hard. I did get a sighting of him while hunting that year. He was breeding a doe on Halloween night about 80 yards away. I never saw him again in 2008 but did get lucky enough to find his right side shed antler so I knew he was still around.
In early September of 2009 I was excited to say the least. I made my mock scrape and put up my trail cam. Almost immediatley he again took it over. I was getting lots of pictures but something was completely different; this year 90% of the photos were during the daylight hours.
I knew there was a good chance that this was my year to get him. On October 1, I was all prepared to hunt but because of work I couldn’t hunt in the morning. I had to wait until the evening to hunt. I hunted that night with no sighting but I did pull the chip from my camera. Sure enough, at 8:30 that morning he was at the mock scrape only 12 yards from my stand. I was both excited and discouraged.
I hunted every chance I got from then on with no sightings until the morning of October 27. My work got cancelled in the morning so I went directly to my stand. At 7:30 a nice 8 point came by at about 5 yards away but I passed him up.
At 8:00 that morning a lone doe came through and at about 8:30 I finally saw him. He came directly to the scrape and was facing right at me. When he got done working the scrape he walked off to my right.
It was now or nothing. He was standing at about 18 yards away and was quartering hard away from me. I drew. I shot and thought I had hit him a little low. I started cussing myself as soon as he started to run off.
He only ran 25 yards, stopped, looked back at me and fell over dead. It was a perfect heart shot. That’s when the shaking and stuttering started. I tried calling some of my buddies that knew about the deer. My fingers just wouldn’t work pads on the phone.
After about a half hour I was able to climb out of my tree stand. My buck weighed 225 lbs. dressed and scored 179-0/8 gross and netted 174-3/8. It was nearly a perfect 12 point.
I’ve already got my sights set on my next buck. By early December he took over the same mock scrape that the 12 point was using.