I’ve been extremely fortunate to harvest some great New York State bucks through the years that any hunter would be proud of – and I am, but I’ve always been chasing the elusive ‘giant.’ And by that I mean a buck I would be consider a trophy whether taken in the Midwest or the Northeast – a monarch so to speak.  My 26-year quest came to an end Saturday Nov. 18, 2017.

History/Quest

My whitetail hunting career dates back to 1991 when I was 14-year-old. My first kill came that year. I was so proud of that button-buck.  I’m now 40 years young and have been chasing whitetails ever since.

The opening day of the 2017 NYS firearms season would dawn at sunrise that Saturday morning. I had made my way in the dark to a part of our Livingston County farm that I’d never hunted. Why? Well, the wind that morning was blowing out of the southeast and for our property that just doesn’t work well. All of our sets work best with a north or west wind and I had strategized the night before on where I would have to set up to give myself any chance of seeing deer.

The Plan/The Gun

Once making the trek down the hill I picked out a tri-maple tree and shimmied my Muddy climber up it. At sunrise I was set up. In tote with me was my CVA .50 muzzleloader. After a successful archery season, I had made the decision to hunt with the smoke-pole because any deer I’ve been able to take with it just means more to me. It’s a personal thing. I’m an archer at heart, but the second best weapon in my opinion is a muzzleloader. One shot, one chance and when successful I feel like I’ve accomplished a heck of a lot more.

As the darkness faded and light began to hit the forest floor I could see a stark-white rack moving through the woods. I grabbed my gun, shouldered it and readied for a shot. As the buck moved his way through, I couldn’t make up my mind if it was a deer I wanted to take a crack at. By the time I decided I would shoot, the buck was gone. As he worked his way off and out of my life I was left to ponder if I had just made a mistake. I would soon be assured I had not.

I sat for a few more minutes and had a small spike work past my stand. I was taking onus in the fact that my game plan was working. Execution? Maybe not, but the plan, yes.

He Appears

As I sat there enjoying the morning I looked up to see a sight I’ve waited more than two decades for. I didn’t move as the buck was looking down the hill and appeared to be looking at me in the tree. I slowly grabbed my gun and came to my feet. I raised and steadied only to see that the buck had walked several more feet and was now behind a large blow-down. I waited knowing  he was still headed my direction and I knew once he stepped out from behind the downed tree, that  would be my opportunity.

The Shot

As the buck cleared the blow-down, I clicked my safety off and gave a small grunt to stop him. He stopped, but in doing so turned slightly and faced nearly right at me. This was my chance. I centered the cross hairs on the buck’s chest and squeezed the trigger. Boom! Smoke rolled out of the muzzleloader and the buck whirled and ran. I was extremely confident I’d made a good shot, but I didn’t see him go down – although it looked like he was about to when I lost site of him. With a finger to the sky I made the call to my Dad.

The Biggest Buck of My Life

“I think I just shot the biggest buck of my life!” I told him. After recapping and replaying the shot over to Dad, I became even more confident it was good. The buck never flagged (put his tail in the air) when he ran which is always a good indication of a lethal hit.

I gave it 10 minutes or so and made my way down the tree in hopes of finding a solid blood trail. And I did. I clicked my iPhone to video and recorded the moment I walked up on the buck for the first time. He had only gone 80 yards or so before expiring. The shot was perfect. As Bon Jovi would sing, ‘Shot Through The Heart!’ I called Dad again and told him the good news. I then proceeded to call and FaceTime my best hunting buddies.

What’s He Score?

I don’t know that yet, but do have intentions of having an official NYS Big Buck Club scorer put a tape to him. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been blessed to take some beautiful animals over the years (you can read about many of them on here @ AHT), but score has really never meant a whole lot to me – in fact, I’ve never had a single deer officially scored. This buck is a bit different for me though. He fulfilled that 26-year quest on Saturday Nov. 18, 2017.

Cat Tails

In the wake of this hunt and week long celebration, I’ve been reminiscing about many of the hunts and deer that got me to this point. I’m going to include some of those photos to selfishly help me reflect back through the years.

 

 

The planning and hunt for this buck I would later nickname, MrMr began in 2016 when my trail cameras captured a dozen or so images of him throughout the hunting season. Though, I never laid eyes on him, I was confident he was a 3.5 year-old buck and hoped he could squeak through the (entirely too long) NYS firearms season to reach the ripe age of 4.5.

My strategy was to continue to run cameras throughout our property during the winter months in hopes of capturing an image or two of the buck to confirm he was alive. My New Year’s wish came true when on January 2^nd, MrMr was captured entering our food plot planted to Frigid Forage Big N Beasty.

This buck was now my No. 1 target for the upcoming season and I would spend the next 10-plus months orchestrating and strategizing a game-plan that I hoped would result in the two of us crossing paths.

I continued to build a history with MrMr as spring rolled around and my son and I hit the woods for our annual shed hunt. As fate would have it, the first set of antlers we located were the match set of MrMr. It was another piece to this whitetail puzzle.

As spring faded and the dog days of summer arrived, my father and I once again planted our strategically located food plot where MrMr was captured in that January 2^nd picture. As dust rolled from underneath the rototiller, I envisioned what it would be like to see MrMr step out into bow range.

It’s goal like this that motivate whitetail junkies like me. We think, plan and pray for opportunities at a mature buck and in this part of the country, harvesting mature buck is the ultimate hunting challenge. This isn’t the Midwest, rather Western New York where a decreasing few, but still some subscribe to the ole brown-and-down way of thinking.

I began running trail cameras again in September hoping to once again capture and maybe even establish an early season pattern on MrMr. Hope as I did, MrMr was a no-show. No images, but many questions began to fill my mind. Had he died during the winter months, been poached or even hit by a car – like my No. 1 target buck two years prior?

As we flipped the calendar to October and the NYS archery season opened, I still had no images or evidence that MrMr was still around. I decided to take a conservative approach to my season and be patient. I’ve learned a lot over my 26-years of chasing whitetails, but none more important than knowing when to hunt a certain deer. The risk is often not worth the reward – and to minimize that I would let my cameras do the work. Based on that intel, I would react accordingly.

And my strategy paid off on Oct. 26^th MrMr was captured bumping a doe past one of my cameras. It was time to act, but not quite yet. With temperatures in the mid 70’s to near 80, I would wait for the right weather – and by that I mean a cold front. Getting an arrow in MrMr would require help from Mother Nature in the form of a barometric pressure drop and some assistance from the Deer Gods.

That cold front would arrive in the days to come as MrMr continued to be active – and this time in daylight. I planned to try and intercept the buck at a pinch-point on our farm where the deer are forced to walk up and around a massive gully on their way to food. As I sat in the stand and daylight began to fade, I was shocked to look up and see a solid big-bodied buck heading my way. It took a matter of second for me to grab my bow and come to full draw. A release of the arrow and like that, my 10-plus month plan had come to fruition. The buck bounded out of the woods, hit our open field and went down 60 yards from my stand. It’s a memory that will be forever etched in my hunting archives. I called my father to tell him the news.

Upon taking some nice field photos with the buck, I wanted to verify his age so I took him to the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation where a DEC biologist examined him. And as I has suspected and hopes, MrMr was confirmed to be a 4.5 year old. The biologist thought it was really cool that I had his match-set of sheds too.

The hunt for this buck is one I’ll cherish for a long time. It’s so rewarding to build history with an animal, game plan, peruse and then harvest that animal. Nothing is more gratifying to me.

Patience is defined as the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.

My wife can attest that I don’t always posses that distinct quality, but in the month of November my patience increases – at least in the deer woods.

Up until November 15, my deer season was going so-so. I had harvested several does with no luck at punching my tag on a Hit List buck.

As you read last week here on AHT, my father tagged our number one target deer in on October 31, which was enough for me to call the season a success…even if I had to eat a tag sandwich.

I hunted hard through the early part of November, burning over a week’s vacation in an effort to try and seal the deal on a shooter buck. As the days of November ticked by, so did my chances.

With the NYS firearms season opening on November 16, I headed in for my final sit of the 2013 archery season on the afternoon of the 15th.  I got to my stand early in the afternoon and by 4 p.m. I hadn’t seen a deer.

“That’s it,” I thought to myself. And then I heard the distinct sound of a deer walking.

I looked down the ridge and to my amazement, a good buck was headed my way.

In disbelief, I grabbed my BowTech and prepared for the shot. As the buck walked, I came to full draw. At 18 yards, I stopped the buck with a soft bleat. I centered my pin on his chest and let the arrow fly. It was a center punch. BOOM (fist pump, fist pump)!

The buck bounded over to an adjacent knoll and began to go down. As the buck expired I sat down to replay what the heck had just happened. In the final half hour of the season, I had closed the deal. Suddenly all of those hours I put in setting stands, checking cameras, and scouting all seemed worth it.

I called my Dad with the good news.  After filling out my tag and collecting my buck, I headed for home to show my Dad and my 6-year-old son. Both were proud.

In our celebration and discussion, we’d lost focus of the fact that the next morning was the opening of the firearms season.

Still on cloud-nine from my archery kill, I racked my brain for ideas on where to go the morning.

In a hasty, yet fateful decision, I decided that I’d sit in make-shift ground blind the next morning.

There was one buck frequenting this area that I was interested in, but surely I thought he wouldn’t show himself on opening morning. I was wrong.

As the sun rose, I was still replaying the happenings of the night before in my head. At around 7:30 I thought I could hear a deer walking in the swale in front of the blind. I came to my feet and couldn’t believe my eyes.

There standing 30 yards from me was the exact buck I was after. I grabbed my trusty old Remington 1100 20 ga., centered my crosshairs and fired. Game over. The buck went down immediately.

‘Seriously?’ I said to myself. ‘Seriously!’ I told myself. Unreal. My season had pivoted in a matter of 16 hours.

I texted my Dad four words: ‘Well, that plan worked.’

After yet another photo session with my son, I sat down with a cup of coffee and began to reflect. Several words came to my mind: Blessed, Fortunate, Family, Persistence, and Patience – The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.

Cat Tales:

This year was my 20th consecutive year of hunting the New York State firearms season. It seems like yesterday I was 16-years-old and hunting with my father and grandfather.

Grandpa died in 1998, but I will always cherish the memory of opening day of 1993.

On that morning a fine 8-pointer walked to me and became the first buck I’d ever kill with a gun. Grandpa was there with me that day. I also believe he was there with me this year as I harvested the buck with my gun some 100 yards from where this image was taken 20 years ago to the day.

Greg Johnston is a contributor to AHT. He is most notably known here for his weekly report on rut activity. The WNY native balances time between the woods and home where he and his wife are busy raising their two young children.