Home › Blogs › John Franks's blog

The Finally "It paid off" Buck

Wed, 11/19/2008 - 13:22 — John Franks
This Buck was scored as an 18 pt Non-typical at D and R Sports in Kalamazoo, MI. This is not an official Pope and Young Score, but was green-scored there at what I believe to be of 177 2/8. Thursday, November 13, was a warm fall day. There was a 15 mph south breeze, the first day in a week that offered clear skies and sunshine. I arrived at my stand two and a half hours Before sunset, about 3:30 p.m.. The weather had warmed up a somewhat which affected the pre-rut, so I was not too upset about not being able continue my morning hunt and pull my usual all day hunt. My stand was facing south in thick cover near a creek on the south side of large picked soy-bean field. I had harvested a nice 10 pt typical the morning before from the same stand, so I had confidence in the possibility of another nice deer coming from the thick cover. At 4:15 p.m., I glanced behind towards the open field and saw a trophy class buck  running on an angle to me about 150 yards out. I immediately stood up, came to full draw and waited.The buck hit the cover and crossed the creek without slowing down, I tried calling twice with my mouth in hopes of stopping the buck... 20 yard opening, 25 yard opening....  My third attempt was to yell as loudly as I could..It worked. I released the arrow the moment the buck stopped, about 30 yards out. Perfect shot..the buck still went about 150 yards. Not a middle-of-the-day “buck in rut” harvest, probably just a buck that had been bumped from a neighboring Hunter getting ready for the Firearm Opener. This time, I really didn’t care. It was a good two days. John FranksPaw Paw